Again, no pain from the needle. I wondered if he’d forgotten about it.
Fog closed around us, granting a semblance of privacy. I decided to push my luck. “My lordship, I’ve been meaning to ask. Since you’re pretty much at war with the whole concept of ‘order,’ I don’t suppose you have a problem with . . . how to put this . . .”
At the trepidation in my voice, the sorcerer looked at me with interest.
“You know . . .” I waggled my head on my serpentine neck, wishing I had eyebrows. “Men being with men?”
“Enough,” he hissed, and I snapped my beak shut.
The mad sorcerer twitched with impatience as we rode. The reason for this soon became clear, as the book-laden construct marched closer and handed over the top-most text. Bouncing as we were over the uneven ground, I feared he’d drop it, but his bloodless grip proved strong. He swiveled in his seat to brandish the relic at me. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
The glassy cover looked worn, peeling at the edges. A shiny red apple served as the focal point, beneath a shooting star. Two youths completed the scene, their mouths open in exaggerated awe, hands clasped to their cheeks. Though terribly ugly, the painting was extraordinary in its realism.
“Do you have any idea?” the sorcerer repeated. “No, of course you don’t. Physics. The ancient mysteries of time and space. The primordial forces that ruled our land before the Descent of God.” Passion left him breathless, and I was struck by his eagerness to share. The sorcerer typically didn’t talk to me with this level of enthusiasm.
“I thought the heretical texts were purged, my lord,” I said, with some hesitance. Glenda had told me that, after I’d accidentally admitted to my ignorance of, well, everything. I knew this much, though: “Reading one would be a crime against, like, humanity itself. Who in their right mind would have protected these books for so long?”
“Historians. Librarians. Merchants dealing in black goods. Wealthy families passing along unspeakable heirlooms, enchanted for preservation over the centuries. And of course, those who despise God, and wish to see it burned from this world like the infection it is.” The sorcerer looked suddenly older, his surge of energy leaving him. “There have always existed those who hate God.” Bringing the heavy book to his lap, the sorcerer manipulated it open single-handed, and began to read.
As the construct clopped up the incline, swishing its bristle-twig tail, I claw-walked across its driftwood back to speak more directly to the sorcerer.
“My lord, I figured it out.” I snaked my neck, trying foreye contact. “Why you hate me. You’re just mad that I don’t actually care about slaying God, or whatever.”
“That is disappointing,” he admitted.
The remainder of the ride, we spent in silence.
CHAPTER 9
In Which Glenda Is the Real Victim because This Concussion Is Seriously Fucking with Her Day-to-Day Life, and What Hardships Has Cameron Ever Experienced? Aside from Her Shooting Him Full of Arrows, Which He Deserved Tenfold, for God’s Sake!
Getting concussed was, as Glenda’s physician had put it, a health no-no.
Cerulina had eventually succeeded in dragging her to a clinic versed in the forbidden arts—commonly used by elves—and Glenda, reassured by the shriveled, knife-eared woman’s demonstration of knowledge, nonetheless felt she should be dodging the heretical words being thrown at her. ‘Neurofibrillary tangles,’ ‘white matter,’ ‘shearing’; it all overwhelmed.
Regardless of the cause, something remained wrong with Glenda. Headaches plagued her. Sunlight needled, making her squint even on cloudy days. Her anger was more easily triggered since she’d come off Passionweed, though it came cold and detached. It felt strange, this fury. It brought no bodily disruption, no change to her pulse; only the idea thatsatisfaction would be had if the object of her passing malice were to be brought low, somehow.
Worse still were the blackouts. Just yesterday, after dropping from a tree perch she’d been using to scout, Glenda had woken squatting on the ground, body trembling and saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Time would heal the damage. That was the grand conclusion, after all that juggling of terminology. “Don’t get hit in the head again,” the physician had joked on her way out.
Glenda decided, then and there, that all this new venom existed to be funneled. She would destroy Sir Cameron. The prophetic vision had brought her such distress upon first viewing, with its black arterial gush and candy-red bubbling. Now, it was a pleasant daydream.
“You gave me light sensitivity, you stupid oaf,” Glenda muttered, scratching an unflattering caricature into the soil with the heel of her foot.
The path to her revenge presented itself almost immediately. Cameron was not only her enemy, but the enemy of humanity at large. The Elders had burned a dragon heart,a dragon heart, for the prophecy that required his demise. She only needed to insert herself into a stratagem already in construction.
Of course, she’d sent letters via butterfly-dove to her noble family, emphasizing the danger to the world at large and imploring them to send resources—the elf kingdom having been dismissive, thus far, of the threat a human man could pose—and of course, Glenda’s mother ensured that her summons were answered.
The humans stepped up their contributions as well. Four dozen mages of fresh-reached adulthood, after sacrificingtheir youth to magical study and drilling incantations with a discipline that put the military to shame, would drain themselves completely for this. An entire generation of New Albion magic-wielders, voiding their potential at once.
It wouldn’t be enough to defeat the mad sorcerer. A similar stunt had been attempted earlier in the war, and he’d deflected their magical barrage with embarrassing ease—the one notable effect being that he lost weight, and never regained it. No, they just needed to blind him for a moment, to puncture his defenses and create a brief window of opportunity. Glenda volunteered herself for a central role and—given that her letters had at long last brought elven assistance in the war—how could they deny her?
Drills kept her occupied most days now, the repeated proving of her ability. She took pleasure from the dumbstruck gaping of human onlookers as she and a team of assembled relatives bounded over practice walls, slashed at hanging dummies, and picked their way, cat-like, along narrow beams.
They would breach the castle, all grace and sinew and pointed ears. And bloody justice would, at last, be hers.
CHAPTER 10
