James Roy - The Gimlet Eye

Taking a deep breath, Amelia put her hand on the door handle. It was so cold against her palm, and it tingled with frustrated, fermenting magic. ‘Courage, Amelia,’ she whispered. She twisted the handle, and with a clunk, the door swung open on creaky hinges.

The room was almost completely bare. The walls were white, but grimy and empty. The light within the room came from a single candle burning low in a large rack-like candelabrum in the corner. The candelabrum had once contained row upon row of candles – hundreds of them – but now there were barely a dozen or so left unburnt. The hundreds that had burnt out were now nothing but deformed globs of melted wax in their holders. Apart from the candelabrum, the room contained nothing but a bed, with a chest at its foot.

A very small, very old woman with long, white hair lay in the bed. The tissue-papery skin of her face was starkly pale against her plum-red dress, which had the remains of some tattered embroidery and beading still attached to it. She turned her head as Amelia opened the door and looked in.

‘Yes, child?’ the old woman said.

‘I’m… sorry,’ Amelia stammered. ‘I think I’m in the wrong room.’

‘Who are you looking for?’

‘I’m looking for Dorissa. She was… she’s a magician.’

‘Only for a little longer,’ the woman replied. ‘Amelia, it’s me. I’m Dorissa.’

Amelia frowned, and took a step closer. ‘Is it… No, it can’t be

…’

‘I’ve changed, haven’t I?’ Dorissa said. ‘It’s all right – you can say it.’

‘Then yes, you’ve changed. A lot. When I last saw you, you were

…’

‘Larger?’

‘I was going to say younger.’

‘It’s this place, Amelia. It’s Skulum Gate. We age faster here. See that?’ Dorissa said, pointing with her eyes at the remaining candles. ‘That’s all I’ve got left.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When the last candle burns out…’

‘No!’

‘Yes. So you’d best talk fast.’ Dorissa struggled to sit up, and Amelia rushed over to help her. ‘Amelia, you shouldn’t have come. You’re in great danger. And staying here for a few moments will take days, perhaps even weeks or months off your life. So please, Amelia, say what you came to say and leave.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Amelia, when Florian came to power, he knew that he needed to keep some magicians around, but only those he could control, like Anira, or those that would be too obviously missed.’

‘Like Stelka.’

‘Yes, like Stelka. But he couldn’t be seen to be killing off all the other magicians, so he gave us our own place… this place, Skulum Gate. But it was enchanted, and our process of aging has been sped up. One thousand candles, they gave each of us. Yes, they burn slowly, but it’s still not enough. And some burn faster than others.’

‘Can’t it be stopped?’

‘You want to stop magic of this kind?’ Dorissa’s clear blue eyes filled with tears. ‘If only I knew how. The street outside that door was once filled with people like me, magicians you would have known. Escalayn, Angard, Aylia, all bedridden now, like me.’

‘Not dead?’

‘Not yet, but it won’t be long. Died of old age, Florian will say.’

‘What about the baby-woman who showed me here?’

Dorissa sniffed. ‘Moreon?’

‘That was Moreon? She was one of my tutors for a while! I should have picked the voice. Why didn’t she recognise me?’

‘She probably did, Amelia, despite the disguise. Down here we get used to seeing people looking older than we remembered them. But she’s most likely ashamed, and wouldn’t have wanted to be recognised by you. There is a handful of Fallowclann in Skulum Gate. They dabbled in crooked magic a while back, and turned back part of the ageing process, but they went too far. They could go back to the outside world, but they’d be considered freaks. They’d never survive, especially with Florian at the top of the pile. And not just Florian – the other one.’

‘Janus?’

‘Yes, that’s him. He knows far more magic than he lets on.’

‘He’s just Florian’s chief advisor,’ Amelia said.

‘Is that what he calls himself? Well.’ Dorissa snuck a glance at the candle. ‘My dear Amelia, you really should tell me what you came for. I wouldn’t want you to come to any harm.’ She patted the side of the bed. ‘Sit.’

Amelia sat. ‘Something terrible’s happened,’ she said. ‘They’ve taken Stelka.’

Dorissa nodded, and patted Amelia’s hand. ‘Yes, I know.’

The dark, glassy orbs hung in the water, their pale gaze fixed on the scout-pod and its four occupants.

‘There are so many of them,’ Tab murmured. ‘What do we do now, Verris?’

‘We need to speak with them.’

‘Are these black things the Yarka themselves?’

Verris shook his head. His eyes were fixed on the orb directly before them. ‘No, they live in those things. I think.’

‘And what do they look like?’

‘Like that,’ Danda said. She was facing the other way, and Tab and Verris turned to follow the direction of her gaze. Shadowy figures were moving through the water. They were semi-transparent, like krill, but about the size of a large cat. Their antennae streamed behind as they propelled themselves through the thick water with impossible speed, and their eyes glistened blackly as they swept closer. There were twenty of them, perhaps more, and they swarmed around the pod. Then, one by one they settled on the deck and the railing, their heads moving from side to side as if they were watching Tab and her companions with first the right eye, then the left, then the right again.

‘Aren’t they going to say anything?’ Tab said under her breath.

‘They are saying something,’ Danda replied. ‘You can’t hear them?’

‘No. What does it sound like?’

‘Listen,’ Verris said. ‘It’s a bit like the sound of bubbles, only very high-pitched.’

Tab listened. For a while she heard nothing, but then, gradually, she began to hear the language of the Yarka.

‘They’re asking by what magic we’ve been able to come here,’ Danda said.

‘And what have you told them?’ Verris asked.

‘I’ve told them nothing. I’m simply the interpreter. What would you like me to say?’

‘Explain that we have magic that allows us to come underwater without the need for air. But don’t let them know that even we don’t understand that magic,’ he added.

There was a moment of quiet as Danda spoke in the high, bubbling voice. Then, after the Yarka had replied, she turned back to Verris.

‘They say that they don’t mean how did we come to be in the water – they want to know how we came to be in their world,’ she said with a wide sweep of her arms.

‘Tell them that we came through a vortex. Do they have a word for that?’

‘I’ll work something out,’ Danda replied. More bubble-speak followed. ‘Now they want to know what we want.’

‘Tell them that we would like to buy icefire from them.’

‘You want to just come out and say it?’ Danda asked. ‘No… getting to know them? No exchange of gifts?’

‘The gifts come later,’ Verris said, and Tab saw his eyes go to Torby, just for a moment.

‘Very well.’ Danda returned to her translating, but something she said made the gathered Yarka stir from the railing and deck like seagulls rising for a morsel of food. ‘They didn’t like the part where I mentioned icefire,’ she explained.

‘Perhaps we should have worked up to that,’ Verris said. ‘Very well, apologise for my haste. Tell them that we mean them no harm, but that we wish to come to an arrangement that benefits all of us.’