‘No,’ Mark said, ‘Something else happened that morning and it happened again our first night in the cavern.’
Steven was sweating despite the chill.
‘I could see home, Steven. It took a while to figure out what it was, but when you slashed through that big pine, I could see the corner of Miner and Tenth. There was neon. At first, I couldn’t believe you had missed it. It was a clear view across the Fold. And then in the cavern, the little campfire went out the moment you fell asleep. It was as if the thing needed you to be awake to keep it burning. Garec and I woke you up and asked you to start another fire, a real fire, with one of the logs from the Capina Fair.’ Mark smirked recalling their awkward raft. And you did it.’
‘So?’ Steven was nervous, as he continued to glance back along the ridge he was only half-listening to his roommate. ‘So what’s your point? I’ve made fifty fires. They’re not that hard to do. The staff is always ready to get one going – they’re something this company needs.’
‘You’re not paying attention!’ Mark almost shouted.
‘Steven, that night you started a fire without the staff,’ Garec said. ‘You sat up, glanced at the fire-pit, called up a nice little blaze and went right back to sleep. The staff wasn’t anywhere near you.’
‘And that night, I saw home again,’ Mark said, ‘the 10-minute lube joint on the corner, that awful orange sign we can see from the driveway.’
Steven knew the sign – he had seen it as he ran towards Miner Street after realising Lessek’s key had been hauled away to the city dump. He looked at his friends. ‘So what? What do you want me to do? I’m telling you I can’t just turn it on like a faucet.’
‘And we’re telling you that you turn it on like a faucet all the time,’ Mark said. ‘I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m telling you the truth. Why didn’t the staff shatter against that tree in the Blackstones?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do, Steven and so do I. It wasn’t the staff’s magic that knocked the tree down.’ Mark stared at him, unblinking. ‘It was yours.’
‘Oh, good Christ, Mark,’ Steven was flustered. ‘Do you not get it? Nerak is coming here to kill us, right now. I don’t have any magic. I’m a bank teller, for shit’s sake, and a pretty poor bank teller at that. I don’t know where this magic is coming from. Maybe I have done from time to time without the staff, but I’m quite sure it’s the staff’s magic. Maybe it’s around me like a cloud. Maybe it works if the staff is nearby. Maybe-’
He was interrupted by another explosion, as devastating as the first, from somewhere on the ridge above them.
‘How did you know?’ Mark pressed, ‘just now, how did you know it was Nerak?’
‘I smelled tobacco juice on his breath.’
‘But there was more, wasn’t there? And it didn’t come from the staff.’
‘I… I don’t know. Maybe, yes.’
‘Yes,’ Mark said, ‘yes, because Gilmour didn’t feel him there and the staff didn’t feel him there. He was well hidden, Steven, but you felt him, didn’t you?’
Steven nodded, almost imperceptibly. It was true. He had felt Nerak, smelled him, even disguised as that broken little man. His hands had stiffened and he had balled up his fists in an effort to stretch them. He had thought he was tired, or cold, but he had felt something. The tobacco juice had simply confirmed his suspicions.
‘And you tagged the dog-piss out of him,’ Garec interjected. ‘Was that the staff, or was that you?’
Steven looked at Garec and then at Gilmour. The old man had said nothing. ‘It was both, I think,’ Steven answered. ‘I lashed out, and I know the staff’s magic was there, it just blew up in my hands, but there was some of the other in there as well.’
‘So you do it,’ Mark insisted. ‘You cloak us now, because anything Gilmour does to hide us will be like lighting a signal flare.’
‘Okay. I’ll try.’
‘No. Don’t try, Steven, just do it. When you came back through the Fold, you were certain you could take it over. We needed maths, magic and compassion. How in all Hell you’re going to do it, I have no idea, but you were confident. That’s what we need you to do right now, recapture whatever it was that had you believing so strongly.’
‘You said, “We can paint the damned thing yellow if we want to!”,’ Garec quoted.
‘That’s right,’ Mark slapped a hand hard against Garec’s back. ‘That’s what he said. Well, Steven, get painting.’
Steven took a deep breath. It was hard to concentrate, knowing Nerak was so close by; he didn’t know how to keep his mind focused. Turning to Gilmour, he asked, ‘Is there a spell I should try?’
Mark interrupted, ‘No. You don’t need one. In all the time we’ve been here, you haven’t uttered one spell. I want you to do just like you did in the cavern with that wall of fire or those flying rocks. You needed them. You imagined them and ka-blam!, they were there. I saw what was left of the grettan that attacked you. It looked like someone rammed a Tomahawk missile up its ass. And you did that after you lost consciousness – and while the ugly bastard was having your leg for a snack. Steven, you just gave Nerak the first beating he has taken in five generations. He had no idea what hit him.’
Steven nodded seriously, listening carefully now to what Mark was saying.
‘I’m almost sure of it now,’ Mark went on, ‘he has no clue what’s inside that stick of yours, and even less notion that you have found some hidden power inside yourself, or inside this world or between you and the staff or- well, shit, who knows? But as long as he can’t feel you, he has to fly blind. That gives you the upper hand.’
Steven looked again to Gilmour, ‘What do you think?’
‘I think for the time being, I can be of little help.’ His neck and his ribs had ached since the moment Steven slashed through Nerak’s disguise and he had a terrible suspicion that it was he who had allowed Nerak back into Eldarn, when he had opened the book of Lessek’s spells. In trying to learn what he needed to defeat his old nemesis, he had opened the gate for Nerak to come back: that rush of warm, humid air, that had been Nerak. Gilmour had failed again.
‘That doesn’t instil me with a lot of confidence,’ Steven replied.
‘Mark is right, though,’ the old man said, ‘remember the way you saved Garec that night on the beach.’
Steven tried to corral his thoughts and recall the energy he felt battling the wraith army, the power at his fingertips when he called up the wall of fire, the way his knowledge of physiology had transferred itself to the staff when he healed Garec’s injuries. He let all the images wash over him, bringing whatever insight they might have. He remembered the dump, the thin air that took his breath away when he climbed the fence, and then the thick air, dense with potential and power, that he had reached out and felt swallowing his hand. It had pressed back against him as he watched three tears open in the Fold. He concentrated: Nerak was close by and searching for them right now.
How could he create a cloaking spell without knowing what a cloaking spell ought to do? Did they need to be invisible? He was certain that was beyond his reach – but invisible to Nerak’s power? That might work… but how to think it? What to feel? Gilmour was supposed to be the sorcerer, not him.
Well, Steven, get painting. He heard Mark and Garec urging him on, could feel their eyes on him. He felt embarrassed… ‘This isn’t working,’ he sighed.
‘Why? What’s the matter?’
He looked around. ‘Let me try it over there. Maybe that’ll help.’ He dismounted and moved off a little way into the woods, away from where the others could watch him so closely. He heard something large and fast rush by overhead – at home, it would have been a low-flying jet, but here – here, he knew it was the dark prince, casting about for them. Hurry up, he told himself, Steven, you’d better hurry up.