He slipped on the glove and hefted the Elemental. I looked over at a tree about thirty feet distant. “Think in your mind that you want the Elemental to hit that tree. Then throw it that way, like a spear.”
Delph looked doubtful, but he scrunched up his face — which was a bit comical, though I hid my smile — took aim and let fly.
The Elemental traveled a few yards and then dove into the dirt. Delph looked over at me, smiling. “Cor blimey. Is that all it does? Har!”
I took the glove from him, picked up the Elemental, thought about what I wanted it to do and let it fly. The tree disintegrated in a flash of light when the spear struck it. I held out my gloved hand, and the Elemental flew back to it, like the hunter hawks I had seen Duf training up.
Delph had thrown himself to the dirt when the Elemental hit the tree. When he looked up, I gazed down at him with what I hoped was a sufficiently patronizing look.
“No, that’s what it does, Delph. Har!”
Soon, Delph could hit just about anything with the Elemental. I didn’t know if it would be necessary when we tried to pass through the Quag, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t be either.
Late that night, Delph and I sat at my digs in front of a meager fire while Harry Two snoozed at our feet. Making up my mind, I stood and said, “Now you need to see something.”
“What?”
I slid my trousers down.
“Vega Jane!” he exclaimed, looking away, his face as red as a raspberry.
I ignored this and lifted up my tattered shirt and my shirtsleeves, exposing my belly and my arms. “Look, Delph. Look.”
“Cor blimey, Vega Jane,” he said, his voice shaky. “You gone mental or what?”
“It’s not what you think, Delph. I’ve got my under thingies on. Look!”
He slowly turned his head back. His gaze ran up along my legs to my belly and up my arms. His jaw fell. “What in Noc’s name is that, I ask ya?”
“It’s the map through the Quag. Quentin Herms left it for me. He had it on parchment. But I was afraid to keep it, so I inked it on my skin.”
He drew closer. “The way through?”
“And I’ve memorized all of it, Delph. But you need to as well.”
“I wouldnae b-b-be staring at your … at your Wu-Wugness,” stammered Delph, turning away once more.
I frowned. “Well, you’re going to have to, Delph. If you want to go. We both have to know the way, just in case.” I held up the Quag book. “You well know what awaits us in there.”
For the next thirty slivers, Delph studied the marks on my skin as I walked him through the map of the Quag. I would do this for as many nights as possible until the directions were firmly entrenched in his brain. As the slivers passed, Delph’s eyes slowly closed. Soon he was snoring in his seat. I lowered my shirt and drew up my trousers, sat in my only other chair and looked through the book on the Quag.
Harry Two whimpered a bit at my feet. I looked down and thought he might be having a bad dream. I wasn’t sure if canines could dream, though I didn’t see any particular reason why not. And anyway, Harry Two was quite a special canine.
I slowly turned page after page in the book, taking in as much information as I could. Quentin Herms had been as meticulous in documenting the Quag as he had been making pretty things at Stacks. But the things he had documented and re-created in these pages were not to be taken lightly. On nearly every piece of parchment there was something that could kill you. Like a creature that was three huge bodies attached. And while you might be able to cleave them apart, the book warned that Woe be to the Wug who forgets that destroying one part of the thing does not equal victory.
But there were some beneficial creatures as well, including something called a Hob that would help you so long as you gave it a small gift each light. Cheeky blighter, I thought, trading kindness for coin.
I finally closed the book and peered into the fire. One smoldering log caught my attention. Its bark was reddened, nearly transparent because of the bite of flames. My grandfather and my parents — swallowed whole by fire.
But it was my grandfather who had initiated the flames. He had wanted to go. Morrigone was imploring him to stay. And he had gone anyway. And now my parents had gone too. And perhaps they had done so because they wanted to leave as well.
Which meant they had chosen to leave us. No, to leave me.
Well, I could not burst into flames to leave Wormwood, but I could go through the Quag to do so. For now that was my overriding obsession. To leave Wormwood and find my grandfather and my parents, because they were not dead. They were simply no longer in Wormwood. Which meant they were somewhere else. Which meant there was somewhere other than Wormwood.
Now another emotion seized me and I sat down on the cold stone floor and did something I almost never did. I started to weep. I rocked back and forth. I hurt all over. Almost like I had been swallowed by fire myself. My skin felt burned and blackened. I was gasping for breath, so hard was I crying. It was like I had saved all my sessions up to let it loose now.
I was startled when I felt it.
The big arms wrapped around me. I opened my eyes and there was Delph sitting next to me, holding me and weeping along with me.
Harry Two had awoken as well. He had sidled over to us and was inching my hand up with his snout. Trying to make me look at him. Probably trying to make me feel better. But it’s hard to feel better when your entire family has left you.
And done so by their choice.
“’Tis okay, Vega Jane,” Delph said into my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. “’Tis okay,” he mumbled again.
I touched his hand to let him know I’d heard. But it would not be okay.
Nothing again would ever be okay.
But come what may, I was going to leave this place.
Because I had come to learn that while Wormwood was full of many things, the truth was not one of them.
And the truth was what I needed.
I had nothing else left.
VIGINTI SEPTEM: The Duelum
WHEN I LEFT for Stacks one light, there it was. The cloth banner was strung across the High Street in Wormwood, connected by metal hooks and stout ropes into the fronts of two buildings facing the cobblestones. It read:
GREETINGS, ALL WUGMORTS. THE NEXT DUELUM WILL BE HELD IN A FORTNIGHT AT THE PITCH. FIRST PRIZE FIVE HUNDRED COINS. ALL ELIGIBLE MALE WUGMORTS BETWEEN FIFTEEN AND TWENTY-FOUR SESSIONS OLD MUST COMPETE.
Underneath this was a statement that a meeting would be held in the village square this night where more information would be provided, along with a directive that all Wugmorts attend.
Duelums were twice-a-session competitions pitting strong males against one another on a broad pitch on the edge of Wormwood proper. And even though he was only sixteen sessions, Delph had won three of them, including the last.
The coin prize was startling enough. For as long as I could remember, the only prizes one got when winning a Duelum were a metal figurine of a male Wug holding another male Wug over his head and a mere handful of coins.
I wondered if Delph would win again. He and Duf could certainly use five hundred coins.
I stared up at the banner for a few moments. I would have thought, with all the work on the Wall, that it would have been postponed. Male Wugs were working hard enough without having to stop and beat one another’s brains out. Yet it had little enough to do with me.
I headed on to Stacks, arriving one sliver late, but no one said anything. I changed and went to my workstation to begin my tasks. I looked around at the few other Wugs left at Stacks. I could sense in the muttering, the stealthy looks and one Dactyl flexing his impressive muscles that they had heard of the Duelum and were sizing up the competition. I was the only female there, so none of them was looking at me.