The sorcerer stirred, raised his head, and opened his eyes. The sight gave Crake a little fright. They were so bloodshot that they appeared entirely red.
The sorcerer’s lips moved, and a small black twig emerged. He rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other, studying Frey with a flat glare. Then it disappeared back into his mouth, and he began to chew it with a horrible crunching sound.
Ah, thought Crake. Hookroot bark.
The sorcerers of Samarla had other ways than science to draw daemons from the aether, so it was said. They used secret techniques and rituals, the details jealously guarded. That, and vast quantities of highly potent and dangerous narcotics, like raw hookroot bark.
No wonder the sorcerer looked a mess. He was loaded.
Crake’s skepticism deepened. He was beginning to think he was a fool for taking this seriously. Perhaps all the lurid reports from Samarla were just rot after all. He couldn’t see how this enormous ruin of a man could possibly command the same kind of power that a Vardic daemonist did, with their careful formulae and advanced machinery.
Eventually the sorcerer spoke. His voice was a shock, so hoarse and deep and croaky that it only barely passed as human. The foreign syllables wheezed and crackled and rumbled from his chest.
‘Hold out your hand,’ Ashua said. ‘The manky one.’
‘It’s not bloody manky, it’s cursed,’ Frey protested, but he held it out towards the sorcerer anyway.
The sorcerer enfolded Frey’s hand in his own huge, rubbery paws. Frey, who didn’t like holding hands with men at the best of times, was trying not to squirm away. k awbbe
The sorcerer closed his eyes, and there was silence until Crake’s stomach growled noisily. He reddened and gave Ashua an apologetic look. He’d eaten nothing all day, being busy in his sanctum.
Then the sorcerer shuddered. Frey tensed and tried to pull away, but the sorcerer clamped his hand tight. For a moment, they were frozen like that.
‘Er,’ said Frey.
The sorcerer’s head tipped back, his dreadlocks sliding from his shoulders. He began to tremble. His chewing became frantic. A strange humming noise was coming from his nose, getting higher and louder.
‘Er, fellers, I’m not sure I like this…’ said Frey, but the sorcerer was strong, and Frey couldn’t work his hand free.
Crake scoffed as white foam began to bubble over the sorcerer’s lips. He’d seen charlatans like this before. Mediums, pretending to contact the dead. Spit and blood, even the Awakeners were nothing more than a bunch of confidence tricksters, when it came down to it. He wouldn’t be fooled so easily.
But despite his doubts, Crake became worried as the sorcerer’s fit worsened. A little scared, even. The man’s contortions were really quite distressing. He was horrible to look at. Frey was frantically tugging away now, but it was like trying to move a rock. Crake looked over at Ashua and Slinkhound, and he thought he saw them exchange a sly and wicked glance. Some kind of conspiracy? What were they up to?
And then he caught himself. He was becoming paranoid and scared. Of course he was. Everyone did, in the presence of daemons. His subconscious was reacting to the unnatural.
Whatever the sorcerer was doing, it was working.
He watched with growing amazement. How could it be? Some kind of trickery? A subtle form of hypnotism, to make his audience feel something that wasn’t there? No, that was ridiculous. Crake’s senses were finely honed from years of chasing daemons, and this was exactly the feeling he got when he was in the midst of his experiments. The sense of wrongness, the involuntary fear reflex. And it was all being done without machines, without devices.
There was only one explanation. It was all as the reports had said. Somehow, between the drugs and their strange techniques, the Samarlans could deal with daemons without using science at all.
The sorcerer’s fit subsided to shuddering again, making his flesh wobble. He spoke again, howling words through foam-flecked lips. Frey recoiled in disgust as his face was spattered.
‘He says…’ said Ashua. ‘He says you took something that didn’t belong to you.’
‘Hey, I didn’t steal anything! I just took it from someone else who stole it.’
Ashua shushed him as the sorcerer spoke again. ‘It’s old, he says. Thousands of years. A daemon from before…’ She paused, frowning as she worked out the translation. ‘Basically, he’s not sure what it is. He says… it builds itself from everything you’re afraid of, whatever that means. He says…’ She shrugged, more and more confused. ‘He says to beware the Iron Jackal. Make of that what you will.’
‘There was an emblem on the inside of the relic case, you remember? I thought it was a dog or a wolf.’
‘Reckon you thought wrong, then.’
‘Can he get rid of it? The daemon?’ Frey asked. Ashua put the question to the sorcerer, who had fallen quiet and was breathing heavily.
The sorcerer’s eyes rolled in his head and he spoke again.
‘No,’ said Ashua. ‘He says no one can.’
‘Oh,’ said Frey. ‘Well, that’s just great.’
‘No one but you,’ she added, as the sorcerer kept speaking. His tone drifted from high to low, raspy to breathy, hoarse to sharp, as if he were a signal being tuned in and out. ‘He says you have to take the relic back to the place where it came from.’
‘I don’t even have it,’ Frey said.
‘Will you shut up?’ Ashua snapped. ‘I’m listening!’ The sorcerer was talking over them both, as if they weren’t there. ‘Um… restore it to its rightful place… by full dark of the full moon. ..’ Her face cleared and she smiled in understanding. ‘That’s how you lift the curse! It’s like the legends said: it’s a curse to protect against thieves. The only way to free yourself is to return whatever you stole.’
‘So it is a curse?’ Frey said.
‘Yes.’
‘Not just a manky hand, then?’ he added, with a certain amount of triumph.
‘You are bloody impossible,’ Ashua said.
‘What happens if he doesn’t bring it back in time?’ Crake asked.
‘Right, good question,’ said Ashua. She put it to the sorcerer, whose head was lolling back on his neck, milky saliva drooling from the corner of his mouth. The sorcerer crunched at his hookroot twig again, and his head k anod questio came up, fixing Frey with bloodshot eyes.
Ashua translated as he spoke. ‘He says… the daemon that guards the relic… it will get stronger with every passing day. You’ve seen it once. It will come for you… three more times. The third time will be at full dark on the night of the full moon. If it hasn’t killed you already by then… it will become fully… er
… manifest… to reclaim the property of its master.’ She paused, and looked at Frey, and Crake saw genuine concern on her face. ‘And that night will be your last.’
Frey stared at the sorcerer for a moment. Then he pulled his hand away violently, and this time it came free. The sorcerer cried out and fell back, flopping to the ground where he lay gasping like some vast, blubbery creature of the deep dragged on to dry land. Frey ignored him, getting angrily to his feet.
‘Nobody tells me which is my last night alive,’ he said. He looked at Crake and frowned. ‘Wait, which is my last night alive?’
‘Full moon’s in twelve nights’ time, if you don’t count tonight.’
‘Right!’ said Frey. ‘Well, I plan to live a lot longer than twelve more nights.’ He pulled out a compass from his pocket. Crake recognised it: it used to be his. Months ago, he’d thralled a daemon to it so that it always pointed towards Frey’s silver ring, which Frey had since given to Trinica. ‘All we need to do is find Trinica and get that relic back.’
‘And then we need to find out where it came from in the first place,’ said Ashua. ‘And then we need to go there and put it back.’
‘Yeah, yeah, one thing a time,’ said Frey. ‘Let ’s get hold of it first. She’s not gonna be pleased when I come asking for it.’