‘I’d go rest. Come back in a few hours. If anything happens, we’ll wake you.’
I mumbled a protest that Anyan ignored, steering me toward the doors. Iris was waiting for Caleb, and she whisked the satyr off without comment, although she did give me a fierce hug. Caleb and Anyan exchanged an inscrutable glance, but it could have been about a thousand things.
I might have wondered about that glance more if an Alfar I didn’t recognize hadn’t walked into the room, his healing powers already extended toward Trill. A halfling came trotting up a second later, also extending a powerful healing feeler. I couldn’t help smiling at that. The rebels and Alfar were still trying to outdo each other, but for once I didn’t mind.
The rebel healer did pause, giving me an update on the rest of our forces. Many of the halflings had made it back safely, although quite a few had died. The Alfar forces had been wiped out.
I was so emotionally numb by that point that I could barely process what the healer was saying. But I was grateful some had survived and saddened others hadn’t. With every death, I had more and more motivation to go after Morrigan.
Anyan took me to a little room with a cot, where he reached for the zipper on my wetsuit.
‘You need rest,’ he said roughly, peeling the suit the rest of the way off me.
‘So do you,’ I said, peering at him. He looked exhausted.
He shook his head. ‘I’m fine. Now, in bed.’
After the barghest tucked me in, I cadged a few hours of much-needed sleep. After which Anyan insisted I take a quick swim. Luckily we were right on the coast, if a bit high up. But Anyan used the earth to make me a set of stairs leading to a rocky beach. I swam fast and hard, soaking up as much of the ocean’s power as I could to fill my own reserves. Then we were back at the base, being shown to the recovery room, where Trill slept.
We weren’t allowed to go in this time, not least because I was covered in seawater and a general coating of grime. But we could see the little kelpie through the doors.
Trill looked so small, covered in bandages and surrounded by machines.
‘We’ve got to end this.’ My voice was husky, my throat clenched with a combination of grief, relief, and fear.
The barghest gave one of his trademarks grunts, but this one seemed even more full of emotion than usual.
‘Part of me thought that, after we rescued you and got rid of the White, maybe we could just keep a handle on the Red. Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after her. And then, after today…’ I didn’t finish my thought. I didn’t want to say that we’d nearly seen our friend die, so I moved on. ‘She’ll just keep doing things like this until we stop her.’
Anyan put a hand on the nape of my neck, not to stop me from talking but to comfort me as I clarified for myself what I must have known all along. ‘I’ll lose all of you, one by one, just like we almost lost Trill. Next time we might not be so lucky. The creature might not be able to apparate us – I think it just about knocked itself out doing us three this time. Or the wound will be a few inches to the right or left, somewhere that kills instantly. Or we won’t have healers around to keep someone alive till we can get help.
‘She’ll just keep coming, and coming, and coming, until there’s no one left.’
We watched the shallow rise and fall of Trill’s chest for a moment. Then I turned to Anyan and buried my face in his body, wrapping my arms around him.
He held me for a long while, and when he did speak, his voice was rough with grief.
‘You’re right, Jane. We do need to end this. But there’s something you need to know … Come with me to the café?’
Confused, I followed obediently as he led me to the little room that served as a café for the soldiers. He bought us coffee from the machine and sat down across from me.
‘I didn’t want to have to show you this yet, but there’s no better time. While you were saving the sub, Caleb and I had a chat. It was about this. Caleb made it.’
With that, Anyan gave me a handout. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. The only reason one needed a handout was if (a) the information was so complicated it needed to be seen (which this clearly wasn’t), or (b) the person giving the information didn’t want to have to give it.
‘What’s it about?’ I asked, not really wanting to read it.
‘It’s about the second part of the poem. About how to get rid of the Red. The whole second part of the text is actually quite short. The bulk of the work was done by you and Gus, creating the stone, and then doing that first transmutation of the stone into silver. Now, in alchemical parlance, we have to get that silver to gold, or what Theophrastus calls “the second slaying of the dragon”.’
Anyan motioned toward the handout, his expression grim. I read aloud what was written, the knot in my stomach tightening evermore:
‘Then seize again this dragon changed to white
(A change divinely wrought, as I have said,
By means of albifaction twice performed)
And slaying him again with knife of fire
Draw all his blood which gushes blazing hot
And red as shining flame when it ignites.
Then dip the dragon’s skin into the blood
Which issued from his belly’s gory wound
(As thou wouldst dip a whitened robe in dye
Of murex purple); so wilt thou obtain
A brilliant glory, shining as the sun,
Of goodly form and gladdening the heart
Of mortals who behold its excellence.’
We all sat in silence, staring at our sheets of paper.
‘Does this say what I think it says?’ I said eventually. My voice was remarkably calm.
Anyan shook his head, his shaggy hair swinging vigorously.
‘I don’t know what it says yet, Jane. We’re still trying to work out all the possible meanings—’
‘It reads pretty clear to me,’ I said, interrupting the barghest. My hands clenched into fists around my handout of doom.
‘And I won’t do it,’ I added for good measure.
‘Jane, if that’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do. The Red can’t be allowed to live. And if this is the only way…’
‘I just won’t do it,’ I insisted. ‘This whole thing is ridiculous…’
Anyan raised his voice. ‘We don’t know yet—’
‘Anyan! Stop it. It’s clear as day, just like the other texts. It’s telling me I have to gut you and bathe the stone in your blood. That’s not going to happen. We’ll find another way. Or we’ll just chop the Red up again and keep her in some sort of giant blender. Whiz her up every time she starts to recongeal. I’m not killing you.’
Clearly taken aback by my blender imagery, it took Anyan a moment to respond. When he did, his voice was gentle, but firm.
‘Jane, you said it yourself. We have to end this.’
I blinked at him through a haze of sudden tears, seeing the determination written all over his face.
For I knew then that he was ready to die. Because he loved me so much, and everyone else in his life, he would die for us. If sticking the labrys in him and bathing the stone in his blood was the only way we could take down the Red, he’d do it.
My first reaction at that thought was to scream at fate and stomp my feet and go ape shit. But I managed to suppress that urge. Instead, I forced myself to think through the problem.
My voice this time was muffled.
‘I want to see the poem. The real one.’
‘Okay,’ he said, his hand stroking over my hair. ‘We can go over it.’
I looked up into his beloved gray eyes. ‘No. I want to read it alone. I need time to think.’
I wondered what he thought then. That I needed time to adjust myself to the idea of killing him?
He bent to kiss me. The touch of his lips was full of promises that we could not keep.
‘Let’s find Caleb,’ was all he said. We did just that, and the satyr handed over the book he was using without comment, but his expression was full of pity.
Later, alone with the poem, I applied my not inconsiderable English major skills. Unfortunately, it was exactly the same as Caleb’s handout. I focused on the section that was freaking me out:
Then seize again this dragon changed to white
(A change divinely wrought, as I have said,
By means of albifaction twice performed)
And slaying him again with knife of fire
Draw all his blood which gushes blazing hot
And red as shining flame when it ignites.
Then dip the dragon’s skin into the blood
Which issued from his belly’s gory wound…
It was that ‘again’ that sent me into fits, me and my inner English major. It seemed so specific. That and the male pronoun.
But no amount of pronoun specificity or ‘agains’ would change my mind. I wasn’t killing Anyan. I didn’t care if the world would go up in a ball of flame and everyone I knew died. I wasn’t killing Anyan. I didn’t think I could kill Anyan. I had enough trouble killing someone coming at me in full attack mode, although I had gotten better at it, as my taking out the rusalka confirmed.
