Текст книги "The Assassin's Curse"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Naji paced back and forth through the chiming forest, knocking down tree branches and those sparkling, transparent leaves. I watched him from beside the spring and waited for the thoughts to stop jangling around inside my head.

  Finally I got so tired of listening to him trampling through the underbrush that I asked, "So I guess you found out where the Wizard Eirnin is, then."

  "Yes." He stopped his pacing, glanced at me, and then looked away. The wind pushed through the trees, and the leaves shimmered and threw off dots of pale light, and the tree trunks bent and swayed. The chiming was everywhere.

  "That's it?"

  "What else is there to tell?"

  I narrowed my eyes at him. He still wasn't looking at me, and I could tell he was leaving something out. He'd done it so much when we first left Lisirra I'd become a master at spotting all his omissions.

  "I don't know," I said, "or else I wouldn't be asking."

  "The Wizard Eirnin lives in the center of the island," Naji said. "It isn't far from here. That's all I know."

  I sighed and refilled the water jar one last time. "Well," I said. "I guess we ought to go look for him." I straightened up and rested the jar against my hip.

  "Are you going to take that with you?" Naji asked.

  "Course I am. It's impossible to tell east from west on this damned island. Chances are we'll wind up wandering back around to the shack before we ever find the wizard."

  "I tracked him," Naji said. "I know exactly where he is." His expression darkened. "Exactly how I knew where you were when the Otherworld attacked."

  I shoved past him, jostling water. He didn't say nothing more about the Otherworld attack, and I let him lead me out of the chiming forest and into the darker parts of the woods. The rain had been threatening us the whole time I laid out by the spring, and now it started again in earnest. Naji plowed forward like it didn't even bother him, like he didn't even notice the rain and the gray light and the scent of soil.

  We walked for a long time. The rain hazed my vision and filled the water jar to overflowing. The trees crowded in on me, looming and close, and I started wondering if it was the Mists. Echo coming back for one last fight. My hands started to shake.

  And then, like that, the trees cleared out and there was this little round house built of stone sitting in the middle of a garden, smoke trickling up out of a hole in the roof.

  Time seemed to stop. I forgot about the Mists and about the island: when I saw that house, there was only Naji's curse, which was also my curse. And we'd come so far across the world to get it cured.

  This stone-built house hardly seemed capable of that sort of magic.

  Naji was already knocking at the front door. I ran through the garden to join him. They looked like normal plants, not the weird ghost-plants Leila'd had growing in her cave. They drooped beneath the weight of the rain.

  The door opened up a crack, and a sliver of a face appeared. Naji didn't say nothing. Then the door swung all the way open and this man was standing there in a rough-cut tunic and trousers. He had that look of the northern peoples, like somebody'd pricked him and all the color had drained out of his hair and skin.

  "Well, look who's on my front porch," he said, speaking Empire with this odd hissing accent. "A murderer and a cross-dressing pirate."

  I looked down at my clothes, ripped and shredded and covered in mud and sand and dried blood. I'd forgotten I was dressed like a boy.

  "So are you here to kill me or to rob me?" the man said. "I generally don't find it useful to glow when undertaking acts of subterfuge, but then, I'm just a wizard."

  You know, that pissed me off. We'd traveled half around the world to get to him, and there were monsters chasing us and Naji's curse was impossible to break, and here he was cracking jokes about our professions. I took a step forward, pushing Naji out of the way and spilling water on the porch.

  "Mister," I said. "Do either of us look like we're capable of any kind of pillaging right now?"

  The man looked like he wanted to laugh. "That one might," he said. "But you look halfway crossed over to Kajjil."

  "How do you know that word?" Naji asked.

  "What? It's not one of the secret words." The man winked. "Though I know plenty of those, too. You two come on in. I'll fix you something warm to drink, get you a change of clothes."

  Naji slumped into the house, and I followed behind, setting the water pot next to the door so I wouldn't forget it on my way out.

  It was nice, everything clean and tidy, with simple wooden furniture and bouquets of dried flowers hanging upside from the rafters. A sense of protection passed over me when I walked through the doorway, rum-strong like the feeling I got when I put on Naji's charm for the first time. I headed directly for the hearth, cause there was a fire smoldering in there, licks of white-hot flame. Naji sat down beside me, his hands draped over his knees. The firelight brightened his face and traced the outlines of his scars.

  The man hung a kettle over the fire and pulled up a chair. I felt like a little kid again, sitting at Papa's feet while he told me stories. But the man didn't tell no stories, he just leaned forward and looked at me real hard and then at Naji. Then he stirred whatever was in the kettle.

  "Are you the Wizard Eirnin?" Naji asked.

  "I surely am." The man glanced over at him. "Leila let me know you were on your way. She told me about the curse." His weird pale eyes flashed. "And I've heard your name on the wind's whispers these last few days." He turned his gaze to me. "I see you emerged from your encounter with the Mists unscathed."

  I looked down at my hands.

  "From what Leila said about you, I wouldn't have expected it."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Eirnin stood up. "I promised you clean clothes, didn't I? Getting dotty in my old age. Wait here." He strolled across the room and rummaged around in a dresser. I watched him. Naji watched the fire.

  "Here we go." He pulled out a long pearl-colored dress, the fabric thick and warm, the edges trimmed in lace, and a gray man's coat and tossed both at me. "You can go change in the back room if you want."

  It'd been awhile since I wore a proper dress, but really, having any clean clothes was a blessing from Kaol. I ducked into the back room and peeled off my old damp clothes and piled 'em up on the floor. It would've been nice to have a bath before changing into the dress, but I didn't know if I trusted a bath in a wizard's house. Still, putting on new clothes made me feel better, despite everything that had happened – warmer, too, cause these were dry.

  When I came back into the main room Naji was dressed like a right gentleman, in a white shirt and dark brown trousers, no black anywhere on him. Eirnin handed me a ceramic mug filled with something warm and sweet-smelling. I knew I shoulda been more cautious, but I'd been soaked through and cold and more shaken from my encounter with the Mists than I cared to admit, so I sipped some and it washed warmth all the way down my throat. It was some kind of liquor, sweet like honey but spicy, too. I sat down next to the fire and drank and drank.

  "Can you help me?" Naji asked.

  Eirnin laughed. "Help you with an impossible curse?" he said. "I don't know. Tell me about it."

  Naji looked down at his own mug. "What do you want to know?"

  "Anything you can tell me."

  The room got real quiet. All I could hear was the fire crackling in the hearth and the rain whispering across the roof.

  "You know you're safe here," the Wizard Eirnin said. "I don't traffic with the Otherworld."

  Naji tightened his fingers around his mug. The firelight carved his face into blocks of darkness and light.

  "I was in the north," he said. "I had an assignment. To track down the leader of a splinter group that had fled there." He sipped his drink. "It was winter. Dark, cold. I had tracked the leader to the settlement of one of the northern tribes. They'd taken him in. I wound up killing some of their tribesmen. I didn't intend to, but the leader had expected me – or someone like me…" Naji's voice trailed off.

  "So which one of those, ah, accidental deaths got you the curse?" Eirnin asked.

  "I don't know. They caught me – the only time I've ever been caught – and dragged me out into the snow. Everything was white. And then a woman came out of one of the tents. She looked like she was carved out of ice. And she was ancient, older than the mountains.

  "She told me that someday someone would save my life. When that happened, she said, I would be indebted to them forever. I would have to protect them."

  "I take it that's you?"

  Eirnin's question broke the spell of Naji's voice. I jumped about a foot and spilled some of my drink down the front of my dress. Naji didn't look at neither of us, just stared into the fire.

  "Yeah, it's me," I said. "I told him he didn't have to, but–"

  "Well, it's a curse," Eirnin said blandly. "He can't help it." Then, to Naji: "What happens if you don't keep her safe?"

  "It hurts me."

  "Care to be more specific?"

  "A headache, or a pain in my chest or my joints. It depends on the level of the threat."

  I thought about meeting with Echo in the woods, about the cold curling mist.

  Eirnin nodded.

  "So can you help me?" Naji twisted around and the expression on his face was so desperate that, for a moment, my stomach twisted up in empathy.

  "No," said Eirnin.

  All the air went out of the room.

  "What?" said Naji, and his voice was cold and dangerous, like the blade of his knife.

  Eirnin didn't do nothing, though, didn't shrink back, didn't even act like he was scared. "What did you expect, Jadorr'a? It's an impossible curse. You know that. Even that one knows it." He tilted his head at me.

  Naji's face twisted up with rage.

  "I do know that woman, though, that ice-woman. She's quite traditional. Always casts her spells in the old northern style." Eirnin paused. His eyes flashed again. "The north is different from the hot civilized places of the world. We have different understandings of things. Of words."

  No one spoke. The house pulsed twice with the manic energy of magic. I realized I was holding my breath.

  "What the magicians of the Empire call an impossible curse is not what we call an impossible curse. A northern curse is not impossible in the sense that is incurable."

  Naji leapt to his feet, his body hard and tense beneath his clean clothes. The sword gleamed at his side. "Then why did you say you couldn't help me?"

  "It's not my place to cure your curse." Eirnin leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of fingers together. "If you want to break one of the old north's impossible curses, you have to complete three impossible tasks."

  The energy that crackled through the house like lightning died away. But Naji kept his eyes on Eirnin, his gaze strong and sure.

  "Do you at least know what they are?" Naji said.

  "I do. Smelled them on you the minute you walked through the door." Eirnin smiled but didn't say anything more.

  Naji glared at him. "Well?" he asked. "What are they?"

  "Impossible," Eirnin said.

  I figured by this point it was taking all of Naji's willpower not to launch at the guy the way he had Ataño. I figured Eirnin knew it, too. You could see how he'd have gotten along with Leila.

  "Perhaps you'd like to write them down," Eirnin said. "I have parchment around here–"

  "No," said Naji. "I don't."

  Eirnin smiled. I wanted to hit him myself. "Alright. First one: Find the princess' starstones and hold them, skin against stone."

  Well. I'd no idea what a starstone was, but I didn't think that sounded too bad. Lots of princesses around. Naji just kept on staring at Eirnin, though.

  "Second one. Create life out of an act of violence."

  Naji's face darkened. "Are you talking about rape?"

  "I'm afraid it's not that specific."

  Naji pressed his hands against the side of the mug, his face all twisted up in anger. I waited for the mug to shatter.

  "You want to hear the third one?" Eirnin asked.

  "You know that I do."

  Eirnin smiled. "The third task," he said, "is to experience true love's kiss."

  "Seriously?" Naji asked.

  "Quite. You'll have to find someone who loves you for who you are." He paused. "And good luck with that, murderer."

  Something brightened in my heart, like the first star coming out at night. But then Naji opened his mouth.

  "Leila," he said. "She's the only one…"

  The light blinked out. I got real hot and looked down at my hands.

  "Leila!" Eirnin roared with laughter. "That woman has never loved another human being in her entire life, and never will. I wouldn't put all my eggs in that particular basket, if I were you. Which, fortunately, I'm not."

  Naji stood up and hurled his mug against the wall. I jumped at the sound of breaking porcelain and twisted my hands up in my dress. I wanted a way to get out of that house without anyone knowing why. And to get away from Naji, the Otherworld be damned.

  Naji stalked out the front door and slammed it so hard the foundation shuddered.

  "Looks like it's just you and me," the Wizard Eirnin said.

  I stood up and straightened out my skirts. Worthless, this old man was. What a waste getting blown out here, away from civilization and people who could actually help us, to some place that used to belong to a nightmare world.

  "The stories are true. This place did spawn itself from the Mists." Eirnin leaned forward. He was so pale he looked like a ghost. "They won't hurt you, you know. Not if they think you can help them. Remember that, my dear, the next time Echo comes calling. That's what she called herself today, isn't it?"

  I stumbled backward at the sound of her name. "I should go." I hesitated, knowing that you never want to cross a wizard the wrong way. "Thank you for the clothes and the…" I waved my hand at the mug. "And for helping Naji. I mean, I wish you could have done more–"

  "I'm sure you do." He gave me this weird knowing look that I didn't like one bit. "You be careful out there, little pirate. Things come out of those woods that know how to get at you. The Mist's not the only thing you need to worry about."

  I stared at him. "I ain't little."

  Eirnin grinned. That was it. I slammed out the front door.

  I hadn't been walking long when Naji stepped out of the shadow of a pine tree. I shrieked so loud my voice echoed through the woods. I'd been mired in my own thoughts. Cause I was trying not to think about Echo and the mists, I thought about Naji instead, and the thing I learned in the Wizard Eirnin's house. I'd handed my heart over to him, a damned blood-magic assassin, without even realizing it.

  "I told you I don't want you wandering off alone."

  "Stop talking to me like I'm a little kid. You're the one who left me."

  Naji fell into step beside me. "You left the water jar behind."

  "Kaol and her sacred starfish!" I stopped in the middle of the woods, whirled around in the direction of his house. "Damn it, I'm not going back there." I pushed my hair out of my eyes. "At least he gave us something to drink."

  He snorted and took off into the woods, paying no mind to the snapping of branches. I trailed behind him. "So now what?" I said.

  "We go to the shack," Naji said.

  "That ain't what I meant." I ran up beside him. "I mean with the curse. You know a way off the island? You said the Order was protecting you – why couldn't they just bring us both back? Don't tell me it ain't possible, I know the stories."

  He stopped. "How did you know?"

  "Know what? About the Order?" I almost laughed. "You mean they can actually do that?"

  "Of course they can." But then his expression changed. It went from hard and anger to… almost sad. "I spoke to them this morning. Magic is strong here. They'd certainly be able to send an acolyte through Kajjil."

  Water dripped out of the trees and landed in dark spots on my new coat. "They aren't coming, are they?"

  Naji looked at me, and then he shook his head.

  I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

  He walked off, his face tilted down to the ground.

  "And why not?" I called after him. "They don't want to bother with you when the Mists are on your tail? Or are you damaged goods now that you got that curse?"

  He stopped. The wind rippled his hair and his new clothes. When he turned around his face was a mask.

  "They wouldn't have rescued you," he said. "They wouldn't risk bringing an outsider through Kajjil."

  "Guess I just ruin everything for you, don't I? Give you headaches and keep you from getting rescued–"

  "I told them no," he said, "even when I thought – when I hoped – that Eirnin would have cured me."

  The entire world suddenly seemed to stand still. Naji and me were statues. The forest was no longer shaking with wind and rain. Even the dripping had stopped. But my heart was still beating, pounding too fast inside my chest, threatening to break me open.

  "What?" I whispered.

  "Give me your hand," Naji said, and then he walked over to me and grabbed it without waiting for me to move. The shadows crowded in around us. I didn't quite understand what had happened until we were standing in the shadow of the pine trees that grew beside our shack.

  "I didn't feel like walking through the woods again," Naji said, and he stalked into the shack, leaving me shaking outside.

  "Hey!" I shouted. My voice disappeared on the wind. "Naji!"

  He didn't come back out, and so I went in and found him staring at the fire.

  "Did you mean that?" I leaned up against the doorway. "About staying with me even if you were cured–"

  "Yes." He looked at me over his shoulder. "Close the door, please. The wind will blow the fire out."

  I stepped inside and sat down on the floor beside him. The fire crackled in the hearth.

  "It was the only decent thing to do," he said.

  My heart warmed, and for a moment I thought about leaning over and kissing him on the cheek.

  The first impossible task.

  "Besides," he said, "the Mists would have snatched you up the moment I left. Even if you didn't give in," and he looked away from me as he said this, "even if you weren't tied to me because of the curse, they would have used you. Somehow."

  The warmth in my heart froze over.

  "I can take care of myself," I snapped.

  Naji fed another stick into the fire.

  "I bet I can get us off this island."

  Naji didn't say anything.

  "Any Confederation baby knows how to build a signal fire," I went on. "I would have done it sooner but I figured we should get your curse cured first."

  "And we still haven't done that."

  I glared at him. "You know how to do it now. It just ain't anything we can do on the island. We'll have to build a bonfire on the beach," I said. "And feed it green wood so it'll let off plenty of smoke."

  "It's going to be difficult to keep a beach fire burning here," Naji said. "Because of the storms."

  "Long as we keep the fire going in here, we can relight it."

  "That's not very efficient." He sighed. "I know a way, but–"

  "A way to what? To keep it burning?" I looked at him. "Then why haven't you done it? Why didn't you do it as soon as they told you they wouldn't rescue us?"

  The look he gave me was sharp as his sword.

  "Kaol," I said. "You like it here, don't you? You like cold rainy islands half out of the world. No wonder you're an assassin."

  He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he said, "Scars don't spontaneously emerge overnight, Ananna. They come from somewhere."

  It took me longer than it should've to figure out what he was getting at.

  "Oh," I said. "Oh, then you don't have to… I can just relight the fire–"

  Naji stood up and brushed past me. He stuck a stick into the hearth and yanked it back out with a spray of ash and sparks.

  "It's fine," he said, in a voice that suggested it wasn't.

  "Naji–"

  He walked out of the shack, and for a moment I sat there, not knowing if he wanted to be left alone. The wind picked up and knocked tree branches against the side of the shack, and I thought about how if it wasn't for me he'd be off the island right now, back in the dry fragrant heat of Lisirra. And then I wondered what exactly had happened when he got his scars, if he'd had someone to help him when it all went wrong.

  I threw my coat around my shoulders and ran down to the beach.

  Naji was set up a ways down from the shack. The bit of fire was smoldering on top of the sand, and Naji was tossing driftwood into a big pile. I gathered up some pine needles from the forest's edge and added them to the driftwood.

  Naji looked at me but didn't say nothing, and I didn't say nothing to him.

  With the two of us working together, it didn't take long for us to get a good-sized pile. I picked the hearthfire up off the sand. Naji jerked his head toward the woodpile, and I dumped the fire onto it. The pine needles curled up and blackened and turned to ash.

  "Stand back," Naji said, his voice a surprise after us working in silence for so long.

  He pulled out his knife and pushed up the sleeve of his robe. His scars glowed faintly, tracing paths up and down his arm, undercutting the glow of his skin. He closed his eyes and took to chanting and dug the knife into his skin. The fire brightened, turned a gold color I ain't never seen in fire before. I felt something tugging at the edge of my thoughts, trying to drag me closer–

  Blood dripped off Naji's arm, splattered across the beach. He caught some of the drops with his free hand. His chanting sounded like it was coming from a thousand voices at once. I wanted to be closer to the fire but I knew I needed to do what he said and stay back.

  And then he flung the blood into the flames and there was this noise like a sigh and the fire erupted out so hot and bright that I fell backward onto the beach. It was still bright gold, and figures were entwined in the flames, swirling and dancing, and Kaol help me but I could feel their desperation, like if they stopped dancing my whole world would end.

  Naji grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet. He left a smear of blood on the sleeve of my coat.

  "Stay away from it," he said. "This is not a cooking fire."

  "What'd you do?" I asked.

  "Gave myself a headache," he snapped. "From putting you in danger."

  I almost said, It's just a fire but the firelight caught on his scars and I thought better of it.

  I glanced over at the fire, golden light and dancing bodies, and thought about the assassin stories Papa always told me. How there was no way to defeat them, no way to intimidate them. Funny how wrong stories can be.

  Naji led me up the beach, one hand gripping my upper arm. Anytime I tried to look back at the fire he jerked me forward again. When we got far enough away from it he dropped his hand and stopped on the beach. The seawind blew his hair away from his face, revealing the dark lines of scars. The dark sand stirred around our feet. It was almost the same color as the sky.

  "Marjani will be back for us," I said. "I know it."

  Naji sighed and folded his arms over his chest. "And what does it matter?" he asked.

  "It matters a whole hell of a lot–"

  "For you," he said. "I'll still have this curse, whether Marjani comes for us or not. Whether anyone comes for us."

  "It'll still matter to me! I'm as much cursed as you are! I have to follow you around and I can't do anything that I want to do. Can't set up shop on a pirate's island, can't work the rigging on a Confederation ship."

  He didn't answer.

  "And it's not really impossible anyway," I said. "Isn't that what the wizard was getting at? You just have to complete those three tasks…"

  Naji turned to me, and I was expecting fury but all I got was this look of sadness that made my heart clench up. "The tasks are impossible," he said. "That's where the name comes from. Three impossible tasks, one impossible curse."

  At least one of the tasks isn't impossible.

  I almost said it out loud. I almost said, I'm in love with you. Even though it didn't make sense, me being in love with him, even though it pissed me off – because he treated me like a kid sometimes and he sulked around when he was in a bad mood and he hated the ocean. But I loved him and if I kissed him then it would complete one of the tasks.

  And if one of the tasks was completed, then the other two could be as well.

  Naji sat down on the sand, his legs stretched out in front of him. He looked so sad I didn't think I could stand it. After a few moments, I sat down beside him. The sea misted over us, and I could taste the salt in the back of my throat.

  "I don't think the tasks are really impossible," I said.

  "And what do you know about magic?"

  I pushed the sting of that aside. "I saved your life with it."

  He didn't answer. I scooted close to him and put one hand on his shoulder. He tilted his head toward me, his hair tickling the tops of my knuckles.

  "Marjani will come," I said. "She'll keep her word."

  "She didn't actually promise–"

  "Shut up. She'll come. And then we'll get a boat, and we'll find the princess' starstones and get into battle after battle until you figure out a way to create life from fighting."

  He scowled out at the horizon line. The gray northern light fell around us like rain, and the sea slammed against the underside of the island.

  And in the secret spaces of my mind, I imagined true love's kiss.

To be concluded in THE PIRATE'S WISH.