I only called a break when we reached the top of the mountain. By then, twilight had put a velvety light over everything. The forest might be dangerous, but it was beautiful too. The creaking sound of crickets and tree frogs filled the air with a quiet murmur. The corpse lilies on the trunks of the tall trees shone with their unearthly light, and their slightly rotten scent had dispersed for the night. Beyond the sweep of velvety forest beneath us, we could see Willow-in-the-Mist, the tower of its Eyrie shining through the trees. The mages hadn’t managed to leave yet.
I was once in the Temple of the Mother of Light in Elayison, rumoured to be the most magnificent temple in all of the Empire. Its pillared walkways were not half as awe-inspiring as the valley at the top of the mountain. Tall pale tree trunks glowed in the lily light and fireflies twinkled across the dark carpet of ferns. Someone—perhaps the miners, perhaps my mad old uncle Batty, who had spent many summers up here—had trained corpse lily vines all along the path.
The beauty of it all did something to lift the darkness off my shoulders.
“This is an old volcano,” said the ghost. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, lava must have spewed down these hills. Probably accounts for your wonderful soil. I wonder if the crystal mine up here is part of that. The land round that other mine looked volcanic, too.”
“I’d like to see a living volcano,” I said, feeling almost chatty with the relief of being so close to safety. “There’s one a few days’ ride from Crystalline, and the nobles often go down to view it.”
“You are on your way,” said the ghost. “Maybe Klea will take you.”
“I’m not sure Klea will be taking us anywhere,” I muttered. Surely she couldn’t have done it just for the money? But why, then? I was still finding it so hard to accept.
“What’s all that white over there?”
“Ladybless, that’s Uncle Batty’s puffball field.”
“Who is this Uncle Batty person I keep hearing about?” asked the ghost.
“Eff’s brother, and the closest thing I ever had to a proper uncle. He was a funny old man. He spent all day doing drawings he never finished, and couldn’t remember to eat half the time. But every summer he’d come up here to live and get himself together enough to make a batch of Holy Wine. That’s fermented puffball juice. Very rough. The peasants use it in religious ceremonies. He sold it to them and bought smokeweed. It’s hard to grow puffballs. You have to clear the tree ferns away—something about them poisons puffballs. But Uncle Batty could be very industrious for the right reason.”
“Was his name really Batty?”
“No. It was Beam. Lord Beam to you and me. The other mages called him Batty because he was slightly mad. And because he used to see bats when he smoked or drank too much. He hated other mages. Always quoted the old poem: They are mired in corruption and full of bitter bile. He stopped talking to Bright once he turned into a mage. Eff and I often wondered if that was why...”
Cats! hissed Katti. Two enormous glowing cat shapes came bounding out of the undergrowth to our right. Mooncats!
“Run!” I shouted, only to find that we were all already doing it.
“Bright!” I screamed as we ran. “Bright! Help!”
The cats were moaning out a low whining hunting yowl that chilled the soul. I didn’t dare look back, lest I fall and be lost. But I was certain they catching up to us.
From further back came a huge roar.
Run, run! cried Katti’s voice in my head.
As if I wasn’t running flat out already. She kept close to my side and didn’t leave me.
A turn in the path and there was Uncle Batty’s house and, Lady’s mercy, the glow of a fire in the chimney.
By now I had no breath left to shout, and the cats’ yowling was so close I thought to feel their claws on my back. The roaring was coming closer.
My lungs screamed for air.
Up ahead came the fence. Shadow had reached it and was scrabbling with the latch through the slats of the gate. No, he was pushing it uselessly, because he hadn’t realised there was a lower latch. I shoved him aside, pulled up the latch and shoved open the gate. The Mooncats came loping towards us with the intent stare of hunters.
We tumbled through the gate and Katti and I fell over each other. I rolled to shut the gate, but Shadow was already there, slamming it back and pushing on it with all his weight. The Mooncats let out a roar that made the trees echo. I scrabbled to the gate and shoved the lower latch down hard and shot the upper bolt. I couldn’t see how the fence and gate would hold under their weight, but they had stopped coming. They were crouched outside, huffing and roaring.
Another cat roared away back among the trees. The Mooncats turned and with a flick of their tails were gone, pale glowing shapes padding quickly away into the shadowy forest as if to investigate the roaring. Or maybe the scent of a mage drove them off.
“Bright,” I called, as I pushed open the door into the old miner’s hut.
Someone was rocking in the rocking chair by the fire. His face was in shadow, but the shape was all wrong.
This wasn’t Bright.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I STOPPED SO quickly that Shadow walked into the back of me.
“What...?”
“Come in, come in. Be welcome,” said the stranger, waving at us but not getting up. I could not see his face in the shadows only his bare feet in the firelight. Bare feet that glittered with crystal dust. My heart froze in my chest.
He smells of cat. Katti crouched and glared at him.
“What are you doing here? Where is my cousin?” I demanded, ignoring the polite greeting. I was still panting from my run from the Mooncats. I put my hand on my knife.
“Ahh! You are one of the gentry. That explains it. Most villagers would run back down the hill when faced with Mooncats,” said the man in a completely unworried tone of voice.
He leaned over and put a taper in the fire and for the first time I saw his face. I didn’t know it, had never seen him before. He was an older man. His forehead was smooth, without crystal or crystal scar—he had never been a mage—but by the light of the fire I could see specks of crystal glittering all over his skin. A rogue. My spine chilled.
As he reached out and lit the candles in a stand on the other side of him, I saw he was wearing a rough brown Blessing robe. He did not seem to be wearing anything underneath it. Graceson’s brother, Dannel, had been dressed the same way the day I had met him in the forest.
Instead of hanging like normal hair, this man’s grey hair hung in matted clumps, though it was tied neatly back from his face by a band very like that of the village shaman.
“Come, come, sit by the fire and warm yourselves. There is warm food here and drink. Be welcome.”
Shadow’s hand gripped my arm.
“Where’s my cousin?” I asked again.
The man put his head to one side and peered up at me as if considering what to say.
“He’s out looking for you,” he said. I wasn’t sure I believed him.
Behind us, we heard the gate click open.
“That may be him,” said the man.
Another figure wearing long Blessing robes appeared in the doorway. Shadow and I sidled away from him, our backs to the wall. Katti sat, her ears back and her tail wrapped tightly round her haunches. One rogue alone would have been too much for the three of us. Two of them...