Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

“Thief-wards don’t stop dogs ,” explained Mari.

Bella lunged forward to swallow the ring again, but Mari grabbed the dog’s collar and hauled her back.

“I’ll give that a wash in the pond, shall I?” asked Lawrence. Clearly, as Bella’s owner, he felt he was expected to retrieve the ring from the vomit.

“No!” shouted Mari and Jac, but Lawrence had already picked out the ring from the noisome pool. He gripped it gingerly with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, but somehow the ring slid fully on to his thumb.

He gasped, made a choking sound and fell to his knees. Scales began to form on his throat. Shining thumbnail-sized scales of gold-edged scarlet. His back rippled alarmingly with the hint of wings beginning to form. His eyes turned entirely red. The awful dark red that was almost black, like the crusted blood of an old wound.

Mari pointed her wand and began to speak Brythonic words of power. A brute-force attempt to stop the draconic identity subverting any more of poor Lawrence’s body before she compelled it to return to the ring.

If she could.

Even after so long immured under the earth, the dragon contained within the ring was powerful. Princess Inga would have known its name and the words to compel its service, but Mari did not. She could only set her strength against the worm.

Power against power, with no finesse.

Even if she won, it would be fatal for Lawrence. His body would be destroyed, either by the dragon’s emergence or by the magic Mari must employ to prevent it.

But it had to be done, or the dragon would fully manifest and all the villagers present would die, and many more soon after. Nether Warnstow and all the villages from the sea to Morcoln would burn, before Sir Henry or some other powerful wizard or witch could intervene.

Mari reached deep inside herself for a word of power that she had learned but never used. But before she could bring it, sharp and terrible, into the world, Jac pushed in front of her. He raised a small, heavily engraved bronze box, with the lid open. It was impossible to see what was inside. Indeed, it didn’t seem to have an inside, only an absence of one.

He spoke a simple spell; one Mari did not know and afterwards could not recall.

Next came a painful, metallic ringing, like a cymbal crash-struck too close to Mari’s ear. She flinched. Lawrence screamed and roared at the sky, flames bursting from his mouth. A moment later the ring flew from his thumb to the box. Jac slammed the lid shut and locked it with a golden key he wore on the chain of black iron around his neck.

Lawrence fell to the ground. The scales faded from his neck, his clawing hands relaxed, no fire came with his panting breath, his eyes became human once again. Dr. Ware rushed to his side and felt the pulse at his neck.

Mari looked at the box Jac was tucking away inside his coat pocket.

“I might not be good with wards, but I do know a thing or two about powerful ancient relics,” he said. “We always have to be ready for little antics like that.”

“I’m glad you were,” said Mari sincerely. “I think I might have mastered the dragon, but poor Mr. Evenholme would not have survived. As it is, he seems to have escaped the worst. It wasn’t in him for long.”

Lawrence had managed to sit up. Dr. Ware checked his throat, but not in an urgent, worried way. Most of the other villagers crowded around, asking questions that presaged the likely transformation of this event into years or even decades worth of anecdotes to come.

Mari let Bella go. The dog rushed to her master and began to lick his face. Her vomit-laden breath prompted Lawrence to leap to his feet without assistance, indicating he was recovering very well indeed.

“Lawrence! What are you doing? Why is everyone fussing over you, and what has that dog of yours done now?” The vicar’s shrill cries grew louder as she hurried over from the church.

“I think a speedy exit is called for,” said Mari.

“Yes,” replied Jac, but he made no motion to leave.

“Would you like to have lunch, Dr. Jacoby?” asked Mari. “The food looked rather good at The Lamprey and…” she glanced at the pool of dog vomit nearby and wrinkled her nose “…despite the circumstances, I am absolutely starving.”

“I would be delighted, Dr. Garridge,” said Jac.

Of course, by the time they’d idled their way to The Lamprey, talking six to the dozen about Norse princesses, capture boxes, the differences in wards of wood and bone and metal, and much else, the lunch hour service was finished, and Bella had somehow got ahead of them and vomited again on the pub’s doorstep.

But that is another story.

The rainforest whispers in a language all its own. Its voice is the drip-drop patter of water to the leaf-littered earth and the cackle of bright-breasted parrots in the canopy. But danger covets the cloak of the forest’s dense skirts. It lurks hidden, concealing the wicked teeth and misshapen bodies of those human mutations created in the buru labs but deemed not worthy.

The aliens sent their abominations into the wilderness to die. But humans are strong. Even corrupted, they proved stronger than their creators gave them credit for.

Now, they roam.

They hunt.

And they should be feared, but I’ll brave them today. For word runs hot over the buru comms channels. The aliens are planning a search. Unguarded tech rests out here somewhere.

Whispers of a wreck.

A ship I can, maybe, use against the invaders.

I push open the access hatch leading out from the ancient World War II bunker. The wild ginger clump concealing the entrance parts as the door swings on well-oiled hinges. I step clear.

The light is filtered green and the air smells clean outside. Not like the damp, musty corridors below; corridors filled with everything I own—supplies and munitions. I glance back. It’s not much, but it keeps me safe and it’s a place to call home.

Home.

More like just walls and a roof built from the ruins of our invaded civilisation. But it’s all I have left.

No, not quite all.

I glance up. Soleil is where she always is, sleeping in the branches of the tallest tree. As much as I’ve tried, she refuses to join me below ground. Her eagle head is tucked tight beneath a shining wing and her lion body disappears into the shadows of dense leaves behind. She looks every part a griffin from legend. My heart clenches. As always, I can’t help but remember all she was, and that which she no longer is.

If only I had been braver. If only I’d left my hiding place when she had screamed for me.

Her true voice still rings in my mind—

Aster! Help me!

What I wouldn’t give to change the past. But I can only influence the future. Only protect her as best I can.

I whistle low. Soleil responds, head emerging and bright eagle eyes blinking. She tips off her branch and glides to the ground. I rest a hand on her beak. She keens quietly in greeting.

“Ready to hunt?” I ask, knowing she understands me but cannot answer.

She tilts her head and her golden eye swivels to mine—an eye weighted with the wisdom only a human soul can own; a human soul tied to a mutated form. I sense her eagerness.

I holster the pump-action shotgun across my back and check my ammo belt. On one hip hangs my grandfather’s xiphos . The old man gifted the ancient Greek blade to me when we brought Soleil home. Both are my responsibility now.

“Let’s go then.”

The forest never welcomes. It despises our presence here, holding its secrets close. I press forward into the sombre wall of green and black. The vegetation parts reluctantly around me. Spikes pluck at my shirt and the rotten stench of carrion flowers fills my nostrils. I flick away a fly and shoulder my way past a dense curtain of broad-leafed vines. Soleil follows, her cat-like reflexes gifting her silence as she moves through the undergrowth.