‘Oh, I’m sure it is,’ Ferius said. ‘Positively deadly. It’s just that, well, in Darome and most other places, they’re mostly known for rooting through bins and occasionally stealing food. See, the rest of the civilised world wouldn’t call that animal in there a “nekhek”.’
‘What do you call them?’ my father asked.
‘Oh, they have many names, mighty Ke’heops. The Berabesq call them senhebi, “wind leapers”. The Daromans call them felidus arborica, “forest gliders”. But most folks on the frontier just call them squirrel cats.’
‘Squirrel cats?’ I asked.
Ferius, her eyes filled with tears from laughing so much, barely held back her chortling long enough to say, ‘Your ancient enemy is basically just a really, really big squirrel.’
18
The Red Deck
‘You’re really starting to annoy people around here, you know that?’ Ferius and I were walking down an alley towards the seedy little guest house where she was staying. There were nicer ones in town, but apparently this was the only one willing to rent her a room. The Jan’Tep do not hold grudges. That sentence was really starting to sound hollow in my ears.
‘Can’t help it, kid,’ she said. ‘You people have endless ways of amusing me.’
‘Well, you’re not amusing anyone.’
It had taken stern words from my father to keep half a dozen people from challenging Ferius. She’d thanked him politely but told the crowd they were more than welcome to set up appointments at her guest house, where she’d happily kick their asses one a day for as long as they wanted to keep it up. Finally the council had ordered everyone to leave the oasis and to stay away until further notice. It probably would have made more sense to keep the nekhek locked up somewhere inside, but both my father and the council were of the view that the oasis had the best magical wards and would make it much easier to use sympathy spells to draw any other nekhek later on. The crowd hadn’t needed much incentive to disperse after that. Fear of the creature’s poison and disease was enough to keep them away.
My guilt over not telling Ferius about the dowager magus’s interest in her faded as my irritation with her grew. ‘You’re wrong, you know,’ I told her.
‘I’m wrong about lots of things. Which one in particular is bothering you today?’
‘The nekhek. It’s a lot more dangerous than—’
‘Squirrel cat, kid. It’s just a big damned flying squirrel. Might as well learn what a thing is if you’re going to kill it.’
‘Whatever. I’ve seen pictures of all kinds of animals in books, and that thing doesn’t look like a squirrel to me. Besides, squirrels aren’t even native to this part of the continent.’
‘Neither are you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She tapped a finger against my forehead. ‘Look how pale your skin is, kid. You reckon a climate like this breeds people who burn so easy under the sun?’
I looked around and saw a couple walking down the street and pointed them out. ‘There are plenty of Jan’Tep with dark skin. There are Jan’Tep with different shape and colour eyes too.’
‘Exactly. You Jan’Tep aren’t a race, you’re just a collection of different families. Mages who came from all over the continent to fight over the oases across this territory. Sometimes you waged war over them, other times you just merged with other tribes who’d come for the same reason. I bet not one of you has a drop of blood from the original people that lived here.’
‘So what?’
‘So maybe the squirrel cats were drawn here for the same reason. Maybe they like magic too.’
I felt as if I was losing the argument, but I wasn’t sure how. ‘My people belong here. We need the oasis to give us the strength to protect ourselves from those who’d hunt us down or enslave us for our magic.’
Ferius snorted. ‘Enslave you? That’s rich.’
‘What do you mean? And what does any of this have to do with our right to protect ourselves from the nekhek?’
Ferius stopped and put a gloved hand over my eyes.
‘Hey!’
‘Stop squirming, kid. Just picture the animals you saw in your books. Can you do that?’
Focusing on an image, making it crystal clear in the mind’s eye, is something mages are trained to do from their first lessons. ‘Of course I can,’ I said.
‘Good. Now think about the animal back there in the square.’
‘I am.’
She slapped the back of my head. ‘Not the monster in your stories. Not the thing everyone tells you to see. I want you to picture the actual creature trapped inside that cage.’
It’s hard comparing a drawing made from pen and inks to a real thing you’ve seen, but I did my best to envision them side by side in my mind. ‘Fine. I’m doing it.’
‘Well? Can you really tell me that those two things aren’t related?’
‘I …’
The truth was, I couldn’t. While they didn’t look exactly alike, it was probably just because I’d always pictured the animals in books as … I don’t know, further away? I’d seen the nekhek up close. I’d seen what it could do. I’d felt its rage. ‘I still don’t think it’s the same thing.’
Ferius removed her hand from my eyes and started back down the alley. ‘Of course not, kid. The creature you’ve captured, why, that’s the dreaded nekhek! Demon slayer of Jan’Tep mages! Also, rampant eater of other people’s rubbish, and hoarder of nuts.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘Maybe it looks like a …’ I felt so stupid I couldn’t even say the thing’s name out loud. ‘Look, I’ve seen how vicious that creature is. Wait until the council uses it to reel in all the other nekhek in the area and kill them. Wait until you see what a pack of them looks like. Then maybe you’ll understand.’
‘And what are you going to do while they’re torturing that animal?’ she asked, stopping in her tracks.
Something sharp in her voice surprised me. I had to walk ahead of her and turn back round to see her face. There was no humour there. No jokes. Her eyes were deadly serious.
‘What do you mean? What do I have to do with this?’
‘You said that animal saved your sister.’
‘I said it killed a sick dog before it could bond with her. That’s not the same thing. Maybe the nekhek just likes to kill other animals.’ I was lying to myself though. I could still see the look on the creature’s face after it had snapped the diseased dog’s neck. If anything, the nekhek had looked enraged at having to do it.
Ferius reached into her waistcoat and pulled out a deck of her cards. These weren’t the regular ones like she’d given me, nor were they the sharp metal ones she’d used as weapons. The backs of these cards were the darkest red I’d ever seen, almost black. She fanned them and held them out to me. ‘Pick a card, kid.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘You said those men were trying to hurt your sister. You were begging anyone or anything to save her, and that squirrel cat came along and you got what you wanted. Isn’t that right?’
‘You’re distorting the facts,’ I said. ‘You’re making it sound like—’
‘Pick a card, Kellen.’