Mike Shevdon - The Eighth Court

“Alex!” I shouted. “Get Amber. She’s down with the Ways. Hurry!”

Alex disappeared behind me, while the thunder cracked and rumbled over our heads.

“If you start to feel it building, let go,” said Garvin, through gritted teeth.

“How can I let go?” I asked him.

“You have to, or we’ll all fry. Just do what you’re told for once, Niall.”

I glanced upwards. I could already feel the static rising in the air, taste the ozone tang. “Can you hold him for two seconds?” I asked Garvin.

“Probably,” he said, clamping his hand on the balustrade. In truth there was little to hold on to.

I released my grip hesitantly, expecting any moment for Garvin to start slithering forwards over the edge. In a panicked moment I darted backwards, grabbing the edge of the sheet that was draped over Fellstamp, dragging it from him while grabbing the leg of Garvin’s trousers, just as he started sliding forward again. I heard him grunt with effort as he reinforced his grip. Below him, Sparky wailed as he swung back and forth, buffeted by the sudden breeze rising under the clouds.

I whipped the sheet around in my hand, whirling it into a twisted strand and then leaned forward, half lying on Garvin to dangle the sheet over to Sparky. He flailed his arm out for it and missed, swinging from Garvin’s grip, then caught it on the second swing. I took the strain, feeling the fine cotton strands’ tension as some of Sparky’s weight transferred to the sheet. Garvin was able push himself back momentarily, gaining a better grip.

There was a flash as lightning stabbed down from the clouds, striking somewhere on the roof above us with a heart-stopping crack. Thunder reverberated through us, drowning out all sound and making my bones ache. I tried to ignore the prospect of another strike closer to home and started drawing in the sheet. Garvin pulled too, gaining a better grip on the parapet. The sheet was stretched tight over the lichen covered stone, and I leaned back to take the strain better. There was a tearing sound and I fell backwards as the sheet ripped in two across the edge of the stone. Sprawled in the doorway, I expected any second to hear the soft thud of another body hitting the paving. Instead, I looked up to see Garvin hauling Sparky over the balustrade, reaching forward to grab his waistband to drag him to safety. He was dumped unceremoniously into the rain gutter, while Garvin collapsed back breathing hard.

“I thought I’d dropped him,” I gasped, lying on my back, winded by the effort and the strain of holding on.

“I’ve got him,” said Garvin, lying in an ungainly sprawl. “If it hadn’t been for the sheet, I wouldn’t have held him. You owe Niall your life, boy.”

Sparky lay looking up at the bruised clouds as the rain started spattering down in huge drops. In a moment, it was a downpour, hammering on the balustrade, streaming into the gutters that ran along the edge of the roof.

“I’m alive,” he said, in a tone of wonder as the rain soaked into his clothes and ran down his face. Where the knife had broken the skin across his throat and the blood was diluted by the rain, it soaked into his white tee-shirt in a pink stain.

“I’m alive.”

By the time Alex brought Amber, it was all over. Garvin and I pulled Sparky in out of the rain and he lay on the floor, marvelling to himself.

Garvin and Amber went down to stand in the rain and pay their respects over the place where Fionh had fallen. It didn’t matter to them that she had betrayed us all, they still went. I went out onto the balcony and peered over the balustrade at the place and in truth there was nothing there. The torrent of water overflowing the gutters had washed all traces of her away. I couldn’t find it in me to feel sad. All this time she’d been betraying us to the Seventh Court. All this time, Garvin had thought it was me.

After a while they reappeared.

Garvin spoke. “The Warders are a team,” he said, “but we are also individuals. When you put on the greys, you take on the mantle and you make decisions of life and death. That’s what we do.” He looked in turn at Amber and me. “When I give you Warder’s discretion, I ask you to use your head, and follow your heart. I place my trust in your judgement and I leave you to decide. I did the same with Fionh. She made her decision, and I cannot blame her if she decided as I would not.”

“She betrayed us all,” I said.

“She followed her heart, as you follow yours” said Garvin, “and perhaps she was a fool for it, but that was her choice. As a Warder she made difficult judgements all the time. As a Warder, if you make a mistake, it’s your life on the line. That was as much true of Fionh as it is of any of us. If her judgement was clouded, then that is between me and her. I gave her Warder’s discretion. It was my responsibility. I should have seen the signs, and I did not.”

I remained silent. This wasn’t the time and the place to point out that she’d deceived all of us.

“She was a Warder,” said Garvin. “And she will be remembered for her spirit, her intelligence, and her courage, not for the mistakes she may have made. I would say the same of any of you, and hope you would say the same of me.”

He looked at me, long and hard, and it was me who looked away. I glanced sideways at Fellstamp, and I thought I saw him move.

“Garvin…?”

“We will all need time to think through the implications of what we have learned,” he said. “This is not perhaps the time-”

“Garvin, it’s Fellstamp…” There was definitely movement. The others moved forward.

Alex spoke. “Is he waking up?”

Garvin stepped forward, leaning over Fellstamp to place his ear over Fellstamp’s mouth. After a moment, he withdrew. “It’s time,” he said.

Garvin took his place at Fellstamp’s head. We placed ourselves around him, Amber and I on either side of him, Sparky and Alex at his feet.

“Should Sparky and Alex be here?” I asked Garvin quietly.

“Why not?” said Garvin. “Let them be witness.”

No more words were said. I expected Garvin to give a speech, or at least eulogise his friend and comrade, but he was still and silent. The room that was host to such a recent drama was so quiet you could hear Fellstamp’s ragged breath — in and out, pause, in and out. There was labour in it now, an effort to draw in air and release it. His skin hung from him like the sheet which had draped him, in folds.

“Not long now,” said Garvin quietly.

When it came it was as a sigh. He released his breath and did not claim another. His body neither tensed, nor showed any sign of pain. He simply left, and his absent shell collapsed in on itself, the magic that had been held at his core, finally consuming his remains. Within moments there was only dust.

Garvin looked at each of us in turn. “It’s done,” he said. “Fionh was right about the end being close, at least.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to him, holding back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm me. “About both of them.”

Garvin sighed. “Not your doing, Niall,” he said. “We make our choices and we wear the consequences, for better or worse.”

“That’s an epitaph for all of us,” said Amber.

Alex and Sparky left quietly, leaving the Warders present to their thoughts. I nodded to Garvin and took my leave, leaving him with Amber. Fellstamp was my comrade too, but even so I felt like an intruder at a private party. They had known and worked with him for many more years than I, and had shared both victories and defeats with him. I had no such claim and left them to their thoughts.

Making my way through the house, I made my way down to one of the empty rooms and found a quiet space to think in an abandoned sheet-covered armchair. I didn’t bother to remove the sheet — the shrouded furniture suited my mood.