Raweni studied the thin goat track. It was hardly more than a ribbon, etched into the rock by the passing of time, and many cloven hooves. It wound around the edge of the bluff and out of sight. The river was already lapping hungrily across the ledge. The wet shadowed through the dry gravel and dust like banks of cloud moving in waves across the face of twilight. Without another word he followed the track and peered around the bluff. Steadying himself against the rock face, he inhaled and exhaled deeply while he willed his head to stop spinning, he clenched his resolve so tight around his heart he felt the muscle between his ribs squeak against the bone. I have to survive he thought. ‘The water has submerged the path,’ he croaked then coughed to clear his throat. Rummaging in one pocket of his robe he retrieved a small brass spyglass, checked the lens was not shattered then put it back. He turned his sea bag onto his back, then using the cracks in the bluff face as finger and toe holds, he climbed up until he found a suitable ledge. He pulled the spyglass out of his pocket and extended it to its full length then put it to his eye. ‘We do not have far to go, a quarter of a league, probably less.’ He talked loudly above the noise of the rushing wind and water. ‘The river curls left round the bluff, then right through a wide gully towards a small plateau where it has flooded into smaller streams and gullies. They empty into a bay. There are no waterfalls down from here, none that I can see.’ He swept the glass around and said, ‘I think we maybe on an isle that has been made from the crater of an ancient fire mountain.’ He continued to sweep the spyglass towards the horizon then brought it further in. ‘The river passes trees. Not woodland,’ he paused, then said, ‘But planted uniformly. It is not actually that far; we could walk if we were on the other side of this ravine, but we are marooned here when the river is full.’ He closed the spyglass and returned it to his pocket with care, then he made his way back down the bluff, glad that he had something to do, a place he could set his face toward because he did not dare look behind at where they had been, at what he had done. He turned and made his way towards her slowly. His face was ashen, and the pits of his eyes were sunken and empty like a skull. His creamy-white robe was filthy with streaks of soot and blood, and a band of green like a fat grass stain tattered around the middle of his robe like a broken belt. ‘It’s a gradual descent but the water is fast.’ There was a question in his voice, and she knew he meant, can you hold it together, the water is fast? Semy nodded, her brown lips snapped into a thin determined line, but her worry was etched in small lines around her mouth and creased in minute feathers of pain at the corner of her eyes. ‘I hope you know boats, Raweni,’ she said with a tilt of her chin. He grunted, then raised one eyebrow which seemed to give her some courage. ‘Because we are going to take that canoe down the river. I will reach my Wish-tree.’ She began to bring herself upright though the effort and the pain pulled her lips taut. He moved forward, but one look from her told him to stay where he was. The flash of irritation she gave him told him in no uncertain terms, she could manage quite well on her own. He studied the back of his hands while Semy unfolded like a decrepit hag trying to straighten her spine, until with an audible moan she stood upright. She coughed until she had rattled a ball of stringy mucus loose that tasted of copper and salt and filled her mouth like a rancid oyster. She turned and spat it into the river. He studied her back gravely while he wondered how long it would take for her to drown on her own blood. Lords of the flame another death on my hands he thought morosely but said instead. ‘I do know boats and I am almost sure I know where we are. We are on the Isle of Uminoki. I think the canoe could have belonged to Silas. His childhood name was Scamall Na Mara, and the tea…I would know that tea anywhere…’ he let his words trail away then lowered his gaze. Semy eyed him suspiciously while she wiped her mouth. Then she wrung the wet hood through her hands. ‘Captain Seamist?’ she asked as if she could not imagine him ever being a child. ‘And the magic?’ Raweni stiffened but did not reply. Of course, she would be able to feel it, she was a magical creature. Mordeana Never Dead had been here, of that there was no doubt. Her subtle magic wove through the air like a susurration of bothersome thoughts, urgent, but just out of reach. Lords only knew how long ago she had cast the spell, an Age, almost, but the magic in the cave was definitely her work. The spell was the sea anemone Never-age spell. Its energy was slightly prickly, just like the small creatures she harvested secretions from. Of course, Mordeana did not harvest the anemone secretions herself. She had left that task to him and Olof under the care of Athas and the Makara, Joy, and Lark. Happier days. If only I had known it then he thought, I would have made more of them and everyone in them would have been a masterpiece being painted before my eyes. But the distance felt greater than it ever had, and the memory of them all was almost turned to mist and smoke. I am still no closer to finding her. This was the closest he had been since he set off from the Gold Tower, a trace of her magic and boxes of her tea she had left in this cave. When? Eight hundred or so years ago, if he was not mistaken, or did Silas replenish their stock regularly. The pirate was all over Gaiadon, slithering like the sea currents he followed and sailing before the wind like the cloud he had been named for. He hoped so, that meant he would come here eventually, if he were still alive. If any of them still lived. Suddenly, the weight of the knowledge he had resolutely ignored became too much to bear and he felt his middle collapse. A fold in the centre of his being, where fate kicked him in the guts, a weakness in the fabric of his soul where the impossible task crushed him completely, and he knew he was not a hero, he was Mordeana Never Dead’s apprentice and grandson, and he was a long, long way from what he knew and held dear. He wanted to curl into a ball and wish for an end to it all, he always knew it would be too much for him. Find Mordeana, save Athas, kill demons, free Riamh from his zombie state, save Silas from his greed, make Atarangi retire from the sea before his morose self-prophecy came to pass and he died there. He stared vacantly at Semy while his scattered thoughts continued to spin a vortex of despair around him. Why had she brought him here and not to Silas’ ship, what was going on? Suddenly, the memory of his father Athas fighting with god-fire, and Olof wielding Riamh’s Solais Silver hammer, gave him courage. If they could put themselves before legions of Demon to save him, then he would do what he must. Turn into the thing they had created with dark arts and blood magic, Raweni. He shuddered and composed himself with some effort. There were other things to consider, immediate problems to address he thought, while he eyed Semy. She was staring right back, concern had wrinkled her eyes and set her mouth into a hard line. ‘Give yourself time, Raweni. Your thoughts will stop spinning,’ she said seriously, then added, ‘Soon.’ He heard the silent prayer in her voice but could hardly muster a nod or even a thank you. Instead, he replied, ‘If you stay inside this cave your injury will not kill you,’ he pointed to her middle. ‘I am not injured, Raweni,’ she blustered. But her lie was in her voice when it trembled. ‘I must get back to my Wish-tree.’ She met his gaze, and her dark studious eyes held a mystery. Something she knew, but she could not share, while they implored him to help no matter the cost. He lifted his chin once by way of an acknowledgment, while he thought, another burden, another life. What is that to me? The creature Raweni, who can snuff out reality itself. ‘The circle is closing,’ she said absentmindedly, then turned quickly away from his piercing stare. When he studied her, it sent shivers up her spine and sent her legs to water. The appearance of his youth did not exist behind his storm-grey eyes, not anymore; something ancient and terrible lived there now and it looked through him, waiting to be fed like an insatiable chasm that hungered for life and light. He began to speak, but his voice was soft but somehow flat and cold. He startled her, but she hid her fear and made her way toward the canoe. ‘You are dying. I can smell it on you,’ he said dryly and surprised himself with his lack of emotion or care. She was dying, others had died too, mostly by his hand, or his doing, or not doing. He tilted his head and studied her while she walked slowly before him. ‘But what are your choices, stay here and be forever held in the place where blood fills your lungs until you almost drown, spit it out and the process begins again, eternally. Never-age spell? Never-die a natural death Blackmagic curse. Or why not ask me to end it for you,’ he snapped bitterly but could not stop the tide of his bile. ‘An obliteration of all that you were and could have been. An unfillable hole in the fabric of the Ever-Was, where you, the memory of you, the Eleri Imole that made you, and all the virtuous deeds you ever did, vanishes. Where the light of your soul should have been? A nothing. All gone to blackness and oblivion, and the scale tips ever so slightly towards the dark, because you, and the magical light of Eleri Imole that you hold, would never have been.’ He watched, strangely fascinated, while her shoulders stiffened and imagined her mouth had set straight as an arrow, but she did not turn. Instead, she replied caustically over her shoulder. ‘We call folk who have left their common sense in the travel-spin, half-baked, space-cakes. You need to watch your thoughts, Raweni, lest the shadow claim them for its own. Ward them,’ she bit off her words, ‘until you regain some sense. I need help to get to my Wish-tree, not a half-baked loon to nurse.’ He smirked at her back and wore his mood like a cloak made of lead as he turned to the job at hand and began to release the canoe from the dirt of the cave floor. Why am I here? he thought while he loosened the sandy soil around the canoe with hands that were bent like claws. Why not the Realta Siar? He did not ask Semy, his thoughts were coming strange, gibbous and erratic, bubbling slowly to the surface like a tar pit boiling. He feared she was right. He had left something in the void. Semy thought it was his common sense, he knew it was his heart and his soul. One task at a time, the most immediate first he thought while he side-eyed her sneakily. He felt a wave of sorrow rise, but pushed it away, she had volunteered to spin him here, he was sure it had been her own will. He clutched a handful of dirt until it was compressed inside his palm, the grip of his fingers indented into the sausage shape. I hope it was he thought and let it fall. She leaned against the cave wall, pretending to look at her sword but the pallor beneath her bronze skin was the colour of weathered limestone, ashy-grey with a tinge of green, and if her lips pinched any further, she was in danger of looking like a painted doll, waxy, and lifeless. She was holding her gut, again, while bravely trying to hide the tremors that racked her body. He did not know what Tree-wish nymphs were made of, but he suspected it was strong stuff. She had been able to spin him away, by his hood, but that did not matter, it was proof she had inner, as well as a physical strength. Although, that would not be enough to save her, he knew that for the truth. He thought about praying for help and their survival, and nearly laughed aloud. Once he had thought that the Lords of the Light Flame gave a shit, but now? He knew better. He had seen the Demon, War, who called himself Rubric Volsunga, and he was a Lord of the Dark Flame, though strangely elegant and poised. The light of Eleri Imole was a thin aura around him. He could see it, like he could see his father’s, and Mordeana’s, like he could see the light that radiated from Cassandra Novantae and Crann Og Riamh. He dug his fingers into the dirt and clawed at it, again. Volsunga was god-touched too, like his father, Athas. There was no difference between the Light and Dark Flames, which was what Silas and Atarangi always said, but he wondered if they knew that the dark lords had their own supernatural light. ‘There is no difference at all,’ he whispered. There was only a slither of shade where everyone else had to exist, while they made war with one another, and ill-used their chosen ones. Silas had dodged them for years or so he said. Marama Rawa tried to balance them but that was like juggling with balls of fire. Cassandra Novantae had given herself entirely to the light, and Mordeana had told them, light and dark, to go to bloody-hell, but he knew that was a changing situation. A demon had tried to kill her, and now the shadow had destroyed An Aon Charobh. ‘They are winning. They are bloody-well winning.’ He grunted and gave the canoe a wobble to loosen it from the dirt on the cave floor. It was made of birch bark that had been expertly pieced together to form waterproof seams and was a beautiful craft that had been made with love and an eye for the sea. I only hope the Never-age spell keeps you whole until we get to where the nymph needs to be Raweni thought, while he ran his hand across the bow. His heart skipped a beat, the first sign that perhaps he was coming back to himself, a shot of something other than a snarl of dread and morass, it felt like hope. ‘It is only the first battle, and they won nothing,’ Semy said in a taut voice. He did not reply but grunted instead, just like Silas would have done. ‘You are right.’ She waited but when he did not ask about what, he heard her draw in a deep breath. ‘They are from the same source, the Lords of the Light, and Dark Flames. They are supposed to maintain balance and universal harmonics,’ she dropped her voice to no more than a whisper when she added, ‘I know my lore.’ He turned and gave her a watery sort of half smile while he thought, she could be really useful if I can keep her alive. Encouraged, Semy continued. ‘Eleri Imole? It is a supernatural light that can be used for good or evil. The difference between them is minute and not just a matter of shade,’ she wheezed to an end. Hacked and spat another gobbet of blood onto the floor. ‘Go on,’ he urged. She animated with her desire to share her knowledge and her beauty, and own Eleri Imole radiated from her like a silver cloud. ‘When they were made, at the source of all-there-is, they were no different from one another and the light and the dark were concepts foreign to them, they were lords of balance and harmony, their purpose was to challenge Nomos, create new worlds in the void and anchor them to the axis of reality. But’ she paused and took a deep breath, he could see what the effort of talking was costing her in the sheen of sweat on her brow and the tremble in her voice, ‘But, for each corruption of their purpose or ill deed they did, the measure of their Eleri Imole diminished. Therefore, the lords of the Dark Flame, have to consume Eleri Imole to maintain their supernatural ability. The lords of the light flame, allegedly, through their honourable deeds maintain the balance of their ability.’ ‘Allegedly?’ he asked. Semy held her tongue while she met his gaze, and he did not know whether she was out of breath or out of instances where she could prove it. He continued. ‘It would be easy therefore to create situations where a good deed needed to be done to harvest Eleri Imole to oneself, likewise the same good deed could be used to deplete Eleri Imole from another.’ ‘So, I believe,’ she replied and lifted her shoulders into a shrug. ‘Silas was right. Mordeana was right. There is no difference between them if this is what they do. Cause war, conflict, and, and’ he stuttered, and finally chewed off his words, ‘the death of my friends.’ ‘Their cosmological war has raged for Eons, but I have never heard of a lord of the light flame consuming a magical creature, not deliberately, but I cannot say the same for the dark lords. The ones that are here on Gaiadon, Conquest, War, Famine, have a hunt, in Baelmonarchia. In Lodewick there is a pleasure garden where’ she let her words trail away and lowered her head while she pushed the knuckle of her thumb between her teeth. He paused his digging and studied his hands, grateful that the dirt had covered the black stain of the first matter he had used to cast his sorcery. ‘Then. The One Tree had to fall. So, they could not have its light.’ She met his gaze again and replied in a voice that was run through with icy cold. ‘So that neither side could have its light. The balance between them is precarious, but a tenuous harmony remains. If either side had consumed the Eleri Imole from An Aon Charobh, the repercussions would have snapped the axis of reality in two. Time itself was at stake.’ He recalled the axis of reality and the super massive creatures that created and consumed Time, how the whole thing was an organic structure, how it was beyond the edge of reason, whether that was a concept or an actual place, he did not know. But Cassandra Novantae did. She had led them there. Inwardly, he cursed himself for a fool and missed Atarangi with a pain that was sharper than a dagger to his heart. How many times had the Moema told him that they were in it, up to their necks? He had not believed him. Silas too, he knew. He had repeatedly warned him not to trust either side. Why would he think he knew better than a Moema and a eight hundred year old man? ‘I do not,’ he said to himself, then thought, just because I am Mordeana’s apprentice and had access to her library I thought I knew it all. Just like know-it-all Novantae. He pushed down his repulsion at his own stupidity and used his anger to attack the soil around the canoe. He would not let his friends down. He only hoped they were still alive. He coughed, then cleared his head of thoughts of his own weakness while he stored the information Semy had given him. He focussed on the present and every time his mind wandered, he dragged it back to his hands, the dirt of the cave floor, and the canoe with the faded lettering. ‘Silas’ mother and father are here. What sort of state will they be in?’ Semy inhaled before she replied. ‘Alive, I hope.’ He snorted his agreement and continued to dig, lost in his own thoughts. Volsunga had brought war to An Aon Charobh and armed it with demon-made weapons. Only god-fire could answer demon-fire. The demons deserved to die a filthy stinking, painful death, and he had given them that when he saw his father, Athas, and his childhood friend and half-brother, Olof, falter in the middle of the battle. Why had they come to the battle? Did Athas come to feed on the Eleri Imole too? ‘No,’ he hissed aloud and heard Semy tut her disapproval. He would not believe his father was like them. A damn magic eater! Indeed, he knew he was not. Mordeana was adamant that she would have nothing to do with either side, a sentiment that she had drilled into them until they all shared it. Why then? To save me, or to initiate the release of my power. ‘No, not my power,’ he hissed, again, and caught Semy jump out of the corner of his eye. The matrix I am growing around my soul is for Athas Orga, my father. The Lord of The Lonely Ocean. Surely, a lord of the flame? At least by birth, but with diluted power. He thought of Athas’ recurve bow, Dioltas, and half-smiled. An act of love on my part but my father, Athas, is the only son of Mordeana Never Dead and Crann Og Riamh, he is Goddess-touched, but broken. Demons made sure of that. He ran a hand across his forehead. It came away drenched in sweat. I cannot even take pleasure in the knowledge that I saved them. Not when I know that the matrix we created, is a weapon that is darker than the devil who has named himself King of Baelmonarchia. Why did we call ravens when we created the matrix? We should have used white birds, owls, or eagles? He shuddered when he recalled Micah Apollon, a creator of worlds. A Lord of the Flame and the Winter Sun or so the prophecy went. ‘They are all here. They are all here now. The Eve of Destruction has been, and all the little warriors are ready to do their bidding,’ he growled while his anger sheeted through him. ‘I will not be ill-used,’ he said in voice that ran through with fire. ‘No,’ Semy replied. ‘We will not be ill-used; this is our home not a bloody battlefield and we will defend it with our last breath.’ Her words were hushed with pain but the promise in them strengthened him. He rose on legs that wobbled, his arms shuddered violently, but he grabbed the bow of the canoe and gave it a rough final shake. The hull was free of dirt and sat inside a damp earthy recess. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He could still smell the stink of battle, it lurked in the back of his throat, it still burned his nostrils, it coated his flesh and tainted his spirit, he would never, never be rid of it. He shook his head and gulped down a wave of grief but could not dislodge the memory of Brachtily running past with her arm blades extended and grim acceptance in her eye. The overwhelming sense of loss he felt almost had his legs from under him when he could not recall her last words. Pouri thrusting his sea bag at him, his sorrow, and his anger, at the loss of Raiona were carved into the hollows of his cheeks and scorched in the shadows beneath his eyes. Had he said goodbye? He could not recall whether he had wished his friend that at least. The battle cries of demons as they made their way up the trunk had sounded like one gigantic animal crunching and gnawing on a splintering bone. Suddenly, the fire drakes outside screeched above the wind and he jumped then felt his legs wobble. But the past and his evil act rung in his ears, and if he closed his eyes, he could still see oblivion falling, silently weeping like a veil of starlight caught in oil, but strangely deafening compared to the throats that still held pain, and life, and absolute terror. The floor tilted, and his vision blurred. ‘What did I do?’ he whispered while he became detached from his body. Numb fingers of ice spread from the top of his right buttock and down his leg and he keeled over just as Semy shouted weakly, ‘Raweni. They have put something into your flesh.’ He felt it with his hand while he lay on his side next to the canoe. All the destiny paths he had taken to get to this very spot suddenly congealed into a map of his fate. He drew in a ragged breath determined not to pass out again. ‘We need to get off the mountain to Silas’ folk,’ he said while he prayed, they are there, please let them be there. They would help, gods be damned they needed people not prayers he thought. ‘I think I’m going mad,’ he whispered to Semy. She moved slowly toward him and replied, ‘That is the most sensible thing you have said so far. The spin is a foul way to travel. Sometimes, even I wished I had walked.’ He believed her, even though he could hardly get control of his leg, but he took his attention to Silas’ parents while he fumbled for the thing the Memitim had thrown at his leg. By the looks of things in the cave, Silas’ folk had been taking the tea regularly. That meant they had their senses about them. That they were not lumbering, dull in the head, undead. He wished Silas were with him, and in that instant, he knew what the pirate meant, when he complained that the Witch Queens ill-used him. They are using me too he realised, and the knowledge set something hard and sharp inside him, something that stung and brought tears to his eyes. Mordeana’s little weapon? That was what Silas had once called him. His hand brushed against the thing lodged at the top of his buttock. There, a cold lump of metal, no larger than the tops of his small fingers pushed together. It had sharp jagged edges and felt like a burr or a piece of stick, but it had sliced through the fabric of his robe and was stuck fast in his flesh. ‘What is it?’ He heard panic in his voice and hoped that Semy had not. ‘It is an iron star from Pakanga’s isle. A Shuriken.’ Semy crabbed toward him holding her middle. ‘It is a throwing star. It will not kill on its own,’ she croaked matter-of-factly, ‘but it looks like it has poison on its edges.’ Her voice had turned raspy, and she kept gulping as if her throat were sore, or her glands enlarged. She knocked his hand out of the way and wrapped the filthy hood around her own hand, then she pulled it from his flesh before he had time to protest. His eyes watered and he wanted to shout, to punch the floor, to hit out at something but the small nymph had already moved to the stern of the canoe. Doubled over and spitting red fluid from her mouth, she paused and said thickly,’ Hurry, Raweni. We need to get the canoe into the water. Get me to the grove and I will give you the wish.’ He looked puzzled while he used the canoe to lever himself upright. His leg dragged as the poison took hold, but between them both they managed to pull the canoe across the floor and lowered it into the water. Above them three Fire Drake’s rode the updraft of air coming in from the sea. Their wings were stretched taut and snapped in the wind like banners, their barbed tails streamed behind. The current almost snatched the canoe from his hands but he held fast, even though his leg gave way and he felt himself topple toward the water. Semy grabbed the back of his robe in hands that were spattered with blood, but she held him until he pulled the small craft back to the lip of rock. He held the canoe steady while she boarded clumsily into the rear. He took the middle seat and his heart felt leaden with sorrow, he could see the cost of her effort written in lines of pain across her face, and in the dullness at the centre of her once bright eyes. I should have removed her armour he thought but wondered if that was the only thing that was holding her together. Then he retrieved the paddle from below the seat. His skin was pulled tight across his lower back, it felt hot and swollen, though his leg felt numb, an invisible load attached to his lower body that skewed his balance. He gripped the canoe hard, as if its solidness could give him strength, with knuckles that were white with pain when he kneeled and pushed off from the bank and into the swell of the river. He did not thank the lords of the light flame that the slopes of Uminoki were gentle, and the river although fast, would take them towards the grove easily. He thanked nature and the old fire mountain. Nor did he look back on the nymph. She was dying. Whether here in the canoe or someplace else, the outcome was the same. He senses still reeled and his memory was a bleak landscape of horror and loss. He could not raise a tear for her or for anyone who had died, anyone he had killed. He knew that the oblivion that he had made was the curse of the creature called, Raweni, and its wings had kissed the defenders of the great tree, as well as the demon horde with death. It had not recognised good from bad, light, or dark. No, he would not weep for the thing he had made and the lives it had claimed. If he started, then where did he stop. He had had death on his hands from the day he had tried to pull the demon arrow from his mother, Whetu. He was a child then, and death had followed at his heels ever since. It was he who had infected his master’s son with yellow-lung when he was a slave, and he knew those who had helped him escape would have felt death gnawing at their backs. Athas had almost been killed because of him. His birth, Athas Orga’s last seed had robbed the Lonely Ocean of its Lord and bereft Tonnta Damhsa of his rider. Because she saved him, Mordeana Never Dead had been attacked by a demon and had fallen from the world. Setting his mouth into a grim black line he listened to the rush of the wind and the accusation in the cries of the Fire Drake. Occasionally he heard Semy weep, but his own eyes remained devoid of moisture, his heart was emotionless, desiccated too fragile to bear any further grief. He turned his gaze inward, hard with the knowledge that he, like his friend Silas, was being ill-used, but like the pirate he could not trace the source, nor say with certainty, that that was the time when I was press-ganged into service. The Witch Queen of the quick-silver isle, Mo Moema, had gone with the nymphs Aulon and Aura to the Gold Tower; it was they who had brought Athas and Olof to the battle. It was the danger, that his father and half-brother were in, that had made him invoke the sorcery that had transfigured him into a gigantic, black cloud. The makeup of its being was that of oblivion and it had been shaped like a raven. Did Mo, my Mo, he thought sadly, want me to be oblivion? He stabbed at the rushing water with the paddle, steering the craft carefully with the current while he set his black-stained mouth in a grim line, or was she working on the orders of Marama Rawa? Clever, icy-blue Marama Rawa who saw it all and knew it all. She was the sixth Witch Queen and had Cassandra Novantae, and the Seers of Silver Tower, in her pocket. She had demon on her isle and had done naught to eradicate them, playing a balancing act with hell-fire and ice. He did not spare a thought to Cassandra Novantae’s fate, he had always had an uneasy relationship with the Fae, worse after she had not told Pouri that Raiona would die, and that he would be the one to kill her. He still had her son’s soul bird in his sea bag. Light of the blasted flame, I have the soul bird of a creator of realities in my damn bag. Did know-it-all Novantae know all this would come about? The Eve of Destruction? The sorcery I would cast. All of it? he thought but voiced his question in another way. Without turning his head, he said over his shoulder. ‘Semy. Did you volunteer to take me away from the battle?’ ‘No. Cassandra sought me out personally, at Pouri and Raiona’s handfast. She asked me then.’ He pushed his fury away. I cannot afford to expend the energy, I need to survive, I need to stop it, to stop them. The canoe sped around the bluff; he used the paddle to keep it in the centre of the channel. If I could, I would just keep going, I would sail off the end of the blasted world he thought while he guided the canoe deftly to the right and through the gully he had seen earlier. The flow was fast, but the river had lost some of its force. He knew the channel wound toward the grove of trees; other small tributaries ran like spilled silver across a narrow wedge of estuary where emerald turf had grown atop thin, rocky soil. To his right, there was an open sluice gate in the riverbank. He wondered if water was channelled from the river to the trees in drier months. A flood canal was already full of river water, and it sliced between the trees separating the Peach Grove from the Cherry Grove. Water had begun to finger and weave through the groves, ridges of grass tufted above it. Down the arc of the shore, past the cherry trees, a white building caught his eye, it was low with a red tiled roof, and it sat at the top of a sloping path, safely back from the water’s edge. A pier made of wood and more sailing vessels were moored further along the curve of the bay. Blobs of fluff in a narrow field beyond, grazed. Neat rows of vegetables raked across another small field that skirted the bottom of the mountain. The bay was sheltered but he could see that living was tough here and life was hard. Some of the fruit tree roots ran atop the soil and over turf covered rocks. The sheep and goats cropped at grass already short and clinging to life. Beans and peas grew on triangular frames, leafy greens, and cabbages, bok choi and broccoli, feathery fennel and soldiers of corn standing in neat rows. He ignored a sudden squall of rain that oiled out of the sky like slimy tears while he watched two people, small, and slightly rounded at the shoulder, make their way from the house and along the curve of the beach towards the grove. Silas’ parents. He could not recall their names. Had the pirate ever told him? No, he would not have. Those two people should have been long dead. They are Silas’ weakness he thought and was surprised at how dark his intention felt when he stored the information. Ill-used. He could hear the pirate say it. The words, and their action and consequence, fitted Silas, better. Surely not me. Surely, I have been pulled into this by happenstance. I am still…his thoughts trailed off. I have left the boy, Isknot, behind. In throwing my lot in with Silas and Atarangi I have become like them. A killer. A thing to be ill-used by Witch Queens. But Mo Moema. Would Mo wish that on me? The thought chewed at the love he held in his heart for the diminutive, inky-black shapeshifting witch. As for Marama Rawa? He hoped Silas ran away and married the woman he called his first love, Lady Mara, whoever the hell she was. It would serve Marama right to feel betrayed by someone she loved. He sailed the canoe to a halt in the shallow water at the end of the flood canal. The rocks at the bottom of the channel scraped roughly on its keel. He half-stumbled half-fell out, but limped on, using the paddle as a crutch of sorts. He turned back to the canoe and ignored the people who had begun to shout while they made their way along the shore. Semy was dead. ‘I have been ill-used, Semy, but you are free. Go in peace,’ he said and heard his own voice sound distant and cold and frayed with madness at its edges. She groaned. Semy was unconscious. He turned back to the canoe, dropped the paddle, and picked her up under her arms. He dragged her out. Then without any thought for her safety or her life, he heaved her bodily across the sodden grass. She is lighter than she looks he thought. She woke and rasped, ‘My tree?’ He pulled her upright straining-tired muscles against her weight, then putting her arm about his shoulder, they stumbled towards the tree she pointed to. It was the first tree in the grove, the one that stood alone at the head of a neat line of cherry trees that filed across the slope of the orchard and back towards the flank of the mountain. In its solitary position it overlooked the bay towards a curvature of cliff. The entrance to the only habitable place on the Isle of Uminoki was concealed by the bow of one arm of cliff passing before the other. Beneath the tree, the turf was soft and verdant, an ideal place to picnic or watch the stars. A perfect place to make love and wishes. A grassy slope, grazed short and neat by fluffy sheep and not too fussy goats, dipped gently towards a berm at the top of a silver pebble beach. Raweni helped her to her tree, then stood quietly beside her while she put her arms around its trunk and whispered, ‘I am home, if you will have me back.’ She pressed her cheek against the smooth glossy bark while a wave of Eleri Imole rippled through the air. It passed from the tree in a sheet of scintillating light, which cocooned her before passing like an echo, suddenly visible, in crystal rainbow hues into her body. ‘I am you, and you are me. Eleri Imole,’ she whispered as the light disappeared into the grass at her feet. She leaned against the tree utterly spent while blood, and sap, began to ooze in a small trickle from the side of her mouth. ‘Help me.’ She turned to Raweni. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he replied but stepped forward and took her hands in his. She inclined her head towards the top of the slope, above the berm. ‘Help me meet them, properly. There.’ She gagged on her words but continued. ‘I want to stand there.’ She inclined her head towards the spot, then he half-dragged, half-carried her to the apex of the small mound, while his own knees turned to water and his muscles and joints dissolved in waves of burning hot pain. A band of blue, ribboned through the clouds like a rip in grey wool. A flock of Fire Drake headed towards the open ocean, calling that the storm had passed. The wind died, and the scent of the sea when it came was full of salt and sand, tangy; it filled his nose and caressed his tongue until he licked his lip and thought, I need water. ‘Here?’ he asked while he took her arm from about his shoulder, but Semy only nodded, her gaze was fixed on the people who hurried along the shore. Mucus and blood ran like black cherry sap, and a strange crimson resin had begun to run steadily from a wound that had opened just below her left ribs. ‘You said you weren’t injured.’ He looked for something to staunch the flow but there was nothing. The hood was in the bottom of the canoe and his legs may as well have been there too, for any use they would be to them now. He put his hand on her wound to staunch the flow, but she laid her hand on his and moved it away. ‘I am not injured,’ she rasped and gulped. ‘I ate the cherries Cassandra gave me. The circle is closing, and my wish-mother and father come.’ She paused while her head bobbed uncontrollably, then with an effort that rippled through her in waves of pain, she continued. ‘Hold me upright. Quickly my sword, I want to,’ her words bubbled away in a wave of thick blood that smelled like fermented fruit and cloying perfume. Her death and the death of magic and light, the diminishing of Eleri Imole was intoxicating, he felt his blood rise, and a dark lust came over him that disgusted and attracted him equally. He knew that he relished the taste of her, no, not her, it is Eleri Imole. Then, he knew in that moment, that, was what the Lords of The Dark Flame fed upon, that was the thing that stoked their lust and the thing that slaked their thirst. He turned his face away from her and hid his shudder of revulsion at his own dark thoughts, but she knew. ‘It is enough to drive one mad, the desire to consume it. This is an echo of what Silas feels when he is near the Eternity Eel heart, but he is only Galanglas. You, by birth, are one of them, Raweni. Whether you wish it or not. Choose carefully which one of them you will be.’ ‘Neither. I am a free man. I chose the middle way.’ He paused while a fleeting moment of clarity set something in his heart and mind. ‘I chose the Dagger Path. I chose the middle way,’ he said while he wiped blood off her breast plate. ‘Now, you sound almost wise, Raweni’ she replied in a hushed voice frayed at the edges and strained to breaking with her pain. ‘If only my wisdom had been earned another way.’ He thought of the library at Koura Pourewa, his favourite place in the world, once. He snorted. The Dagger Path was not inside a book, nor inside his head. It was beneath his feet and at the end of his arms, on his tongue every time he called power to him. In every word he uttered and every foul deed he had done, the Dagger Path had unfurled, a stream of consequences he had made. I tried to take the middle way he thought and knew it was a half-plea, half a prayer. ‘Wisdom? Any other way than the loss of An Aon…’ he let his words trail away. ‘Me too.’ Semy groaned the words past a lump in her chest that felt like landslide full of grief. He knew she wanted to look like a brave and courageous wish-daughter, someone her wish-parents could be proud of, not a battle worn creature that had been ill-used too. The poison that he suspected Cassandra had given her, was rotting her from the inside out. She stunk of it, sickly and rotten like death. He shook while he got his anger under control, how could he seek revenge on Cassandra when she was probably dead? He hoped she was, he balled his hands into fists and exhaled, his temper would serve him no purpose here. Here, he would be noble before the tree-wish-nymph who had given her life to save him, but more than that, her bravery deserved an equal measure from himself. The lesson she had shared in the cave and her inevitable death had taught him that he did have a choice. He would neither walk in the light, nor the dark. He would take the Dagger Path, his way, and if his middle had more shade in it than twilight, then let it be so. He would find Atarangi, and Silas as soon as he was able. Help them give the perishing eel heart to Ri Fiali. Everything had turned sour, everything had gone wrong, and he was sure it was because Silas had not eaten and the price to be paid still waited, hungry. ‘You look well, Semy.’ His voice broke on the lie. ‘A fine wish-daughter, a brave shield maiden,’ he reassured her. Though he knew his voice was strained and his words sounded hollow while he took the sword from its scabbard and placed it in her hand. It shone with a magical light, the light of Eleri Imole, as if it were fresh from the forge. Her flesh felt unresponsive, cold, and her fingers too weak to grasp properly. He closed her fingers around the hilt and rested the tip on the ground. ‘Lean on it,’ he whispered but knew she had not heard him. Then, he smoothed her hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. ‘You are a daughter to be proud of, Semy Cherry-wish.’ He placed both hands on her shoulders and waited for her to meet his gaze, though there was not much light or life in the pit of her eye, he thought he saw recognition. ‘Thank you, for saving me.’ Semy returned her gaze to the distance, while his words caught in his throat and squeezed. She nodded once, a stiff jerk of her head, but did not take her eyes from the two people who made their way along the curve of the bay. Her whole body leaned towards them. She whispered, ‘I think I may fall, Raweni.’ ‘I will hold you,’ he said, and moved behind her. He put his hands about her waist while the flow of sap and resins left her centre, and ran, then solidified across her hips, buttocks, groin, and legs. Her leather breeches and boots were saturated. As the sap hardened it set like muscle and tendon but wrinkled and dried like ancient tree bark. On it flowed, until she began to transform into a tree, not a cherry but something far darker, gnarly, and rooted. The flow vined from her mouth and congealed while it ran down her chin, neck, and over her breastplate. ‘Raweni. Take the wish. Stop the poison before it kills you,’ she bubbled, weakly. ‘No,’ he whispered into her ear, as if he were a lover standing behind her, holding her waist tenderly while they swayed to the rhythm of the final dance. The scent of her death and the diminishing Eleri Imole was a hunger that gnawed at him. It was all he could do to stop himself tasting the flesh of her neck, sucking great mouthfuls of the strange essences that left her and turned her into to something more but also less than she had been. The magic reeked of power but each time the wave of want assaulted him, he set his mind like a compass toward Atarangi and Silas, while he held onto his own thoughts. I walk the middle way. My middle way. I travel the Dagger Path to its end. He wanted nothing of the wish. If she had not mentioned Cassandra and the cherry stones his answer might have been different but the arousal of the strange ravenous hunger he felt for Eleri Imole, alarmed, and frightened him. I will not be made so he thought and knew it to be his own truth. ‘I have been ill-used. I cannot, and I will not accept a wish given with a dying breath,’ he said softly. Semy lifted her chin in way of acknowledgement. ‘You take it, endure, continue to live,’ he begged her. She did not reply but reached out the hand without the sword. It moved in spasmodic jerks, towards the people who made their way along the shore. Sap that ran like blood, poured from her stomach, ran out of her mouth and across her bottom lip like drool. Silken threads the colour of black cherry juice trickled from her nose. It leaked out of her ears and stuck her dark hair to her neck in matted wedges that glistened with resinous mucus. She wept tears of blood, but he did not wipe them away, he did not dare let her go. Revolted by her demise, the sudden heaviness of her body gone to something like flesh made of wood but trapped by her scent and the release of Eleri Imole, his arms shook with effort, but he held her about her waist, steadfast, while he watched her life sap run over the back of his hands. Within its running fluid he saw the strange light of Eleri Imole, it luminesced like a million stars and small suns caught within the liquid of her lifeforce. It found its way into small invisible cuts on his palms and bow-finger, where it stung like hot needles dipped in acid. ‘I do not want, nor do I accept you,’ he said. But Eleri Imole was an indifferent supernatural light. He clenched his fists against its intrusion into his flesh and held her with his forearms instead. The transfiguration from flesh to wood was past her chest. It ran like gnarly branches down each side of her neck, but she stood upright and at a reaching angle, strangely graceful, and welcoming, as if the petrification of her flesh were a summer gown she wore with pride, while she came undone, and the circle closed, and Raweni wished that he had danced with her at Pios Parras. Instead, his memory of her would be this, a masterpiece of deception, a cruel fate she had accepted from the palm of a two-tongued Fae. Destinies path she had danced along and a fate she had eaten willingly. ‘I hope you died, horribly, Novantae,’ he muttered and knew that Semy had not heard him. ~ ~ ~ ~ The couple were running inelegantly along the last few yards of the shore, the man stopped momentarily, then leaning forward he gathered his breath, both had ceased their shouting. The small woman, with weather darkened skin and the plain clothes, sandals, and cropped trousers of fisher folk, glanced briefly at the man. Then, she set her shoulders square and eased into a lolloping sort of a gait, not fast, but it would get her to where she needed to be without her having to pause. As she gained the bottom of the rise, a gust of wind lifted the fringe of her short silver hair revealing a face mapped by age, and dark shrewd eyes. She looks like Semy he thought while her eyes flashed with irritation at the trespassers on her land. Then horror, as she realised it was not a girl but something else. Sudden recognition halted her in mid-stride. The pause was momentary, a recognition of something that lanced across her face like a painful memory. She pulled herself together with a burst of speed while she shouted, ‘I am coming. Wait. Do not go. Wait until I get there.’ She shouted over her shoulder, ‘Negai Musume,’ to the man behind and picked up her pace for the final sprint to her wish-daughter’s side, leaving her husband to follow in her wake. ‘I am.’ The words frothed crimson and black out of Semy’s mouth while the veil began to descend behind the mirror of her eyes. The woman scrambled up the berm and launched herself across the turf. ‘Hush now. You hush, now. I know. I know who you are. I know my Lore, wish-daughter of mine,’ the old woman panted her words. Her face was streaked with tears that shone like platinum beads on her leathery old cheeks. She gulped at the air and with considerable effort got her breathing under control. Semy moved her mouth, but no words came. The woman began to stroke her face. Blood coated her hands in a film of reddish-brown that set like jelly across her weathered fingers. ‘Hush my love, heart of mine. You are returned, and I-’ the woman’s voice broke. Raweni removed his forearms from Semy’s waist, she would not topple, she was not nymph anymore, nor even a Tree-wish. Perhaps her eyes held a tiny light, diffused Eleri Imole, but it was distant and cold. No more than a spark, just visible behind the veil, like a small silver-blue pearl. Her mouth jerked. Though whether it was in an effort to speak or an automatic response while the last of the fluids left her, he could not say but watched while her jaw worked and the final gore of what had once been flesh and blood, left the thing that had once been Semy Sakura. He released his grip. Semy had set like a rooted stump. Then he bent and wiped his hands on the wet turf, rubbing them back and forth until the small cuts and lacerations were clean and stinging. He rose but did not meet the woman’s eye, he knew she thought he was disgusted at the blood and sap on his hands. How could he tell her he was not? How to say he did not want to eat her wish-daughters magic like a foul demon, like a lord of the dark flame. How to explain that the magic had entered his blood and set a hunger in the pit of his stomach that felt like a whole ocean of want and tasted like a vat of oily lust. The woman nodded to the man when he arrived out of breath and panting. Then she slid her gaze to the sword Semy still held. He removed it from her hand gently and took it in his own. With his other hand he held Semy’s fingers and said, ‘You are everything,’ he croaked and could say no more until he breathed words that were wet with grief, ‘I am proud and honoured you came home to us, your parents.’ The woman continued to stroke Semy’s face with one hand and with the other she stroked between her shoulder blades. ‘Hush my child. Our love, our hearts one desire.’ The petrification was almost complete but with a groan that sounded like tree trunks rubbing together in a strong wind, Semy creaked forward. Just a small stoop while her jaw worked slowly, hesitantly, as if she struggled to eat words from the air. Raweni said quietly, ‘She has retained the magic of the wish. I did not want it.’ At a withering look from the woman, he closed his mouth and averted his gaze. Then the woman put her ear close to Semy’s mouth. ‘Wish-mother, take it. For you and wish-father,’ she whispered in a voice that rattled and scratched like dry vine leaves against a stone wall. The woman whispered something back and Semy hissed her last words, ‘I will...’ Her jaw continued to work for a moment longer, while the last of her life sap bubbled viscously from her mouth and nose. ‘We will be together, daughter-mine.’ She repeated the words until the light went out in Semy’s eyes and her hands stopped pawing at the empty air. Then they stiffened and clawed until her fingers turned to petrified wood and her pretty, studious face, hardened into knolls and lumps. Her body had gone and in its place the trunk and roots of a stunted, dead tree, stood rooted and starkly-dark against the emerald grass. Raweni cleared his throat and steeled his resolve against his grief and the stinging wetness he felt behind his eyes. Ill-used. They are ill-using us all. He would tell Silas’ parents how they had set off to find Mordeana Never Dead and had instead been lured further into the schemes of the Witch Queens. Just as he drew a breath to begin, he felt the cold tip of the sword against the back of his neck. He had not even heard the man move. He was so old he should not have had any sneak in him. Creaks and squeaks but not soft-soled stealth, and his voice when it came held a rich tone and an authority he had heard in the timbre of Silas’ own speech when he said, ‘My wife reads and knows things that even learned scholars do not. So, when she shouted over her shoulder that this was my wish-daughter come home, I did not question it. Truth be told the magic creature looks a lot like my mother-in-law. Gaia bless her sharp tongue and long-departed soul.’ Raweni sensed the shrug but remained still. ‘That, I can accept, but you, young man, are trespassing, without an invite or an explanation. Battle worn and stinking of dark arts. Before you, are the remains of-’ he trailed off. Raweni lifted his hands, slowly. The woman had let go of Semy and had her hands folded defiantly under her chest. ‘I am Silas’ friend. A friend of your son.’ ‘I will be the judge of that,’ the woman harrumphed, and her nose wrinkled, dismissively. It was then that he saw it, the unmistakable undead-cast that lustred like silver fish-skin pulled tight across bone, a slight red around the eyes, but for some unknown reason, not as bad as Riamh’s. They were both old but not decrepit and they had moved like folk in their middle years when they ran along the curve of the beach. They had smelled magic on him which meant that they either possessed their own or had been a part of magical activity. He studied her face until she narrowed her eyes at him. They look too well-rested, like they sleep, but that is impossible he thought, but replied instead, ‘You do not understand. I know who you are. The tea, I know the tea.’ He flicked his gaze toward the cliffs where the cave was, as if that would somehow explain everything and make it all right. The woman met his gaze with fire in her eyes and murder writ across her face. She sucked air against her cheek, impatiently. ‘I am Te Tama Raweni. Mordeana Never Dead’s apprentice,’ he blurted out and watched as regret and fear dawned on her face when her jaw loosened, and her shoulders slumped. It felt like a weight lifted, like the leaden cloak that had been about his shoulders since Semy had spun him here, was gone. At last, the madness of the travel-spin had abated but the Memitim poison thrummed in his veins, and he knew that his eyes were bulging and mad. He felt pressure on the back of his neck, and heard the sword cut through his flesh before he felt its sudden sting. Then the man gasped behind him, ‘Light of the flame, Shifurawa, it’s the Raven’s boy.’ A sharp crack passed through the air, and every tree in the grove dropped their leaves simultaneously, just as everything vortexed to black and he folded into himself, over and over again. ‘The Eve of Destruction has passed, now the real fight begins, Mizunoue.’ He heard the woman speak the words from a great distance, but her voice was not frightened, nor portentous, in it he heard an acceptance of her fate that was harder than a mountain made of diamonds.