‘Ask him if he knows what it is,’ Ferius said.
The squirrel cat reached forward and picked the card up in its paws. From my vantage point I could see that it was one of the dark red ones she’d shown me that morning. It was a seven of diamonds, though I had no idea if that had any significance. The squirrel cat looked at the card, then at Ferius. He ambled over, walking on his hind legs with the card in his paws, and dropped it in front of me. ‘Tell her the deal is acceptable.’
‘What deal?’ I asked.
He just stared back at me with no discernible change in his expression. I was fairly sure he was trying to communicate that I was an idiot.
‘He’s agreeing to the deal,’ I told Ferius.
She gave a nod. ‘Good. Pass me back the card.’
I did, and watched as she held it in her hand for a moment, as if memorising the intricate illustration on its surface. When she put it back in her waistcoat she seemed a little more … I don’t know, tired? Finally she looked over at the animals. ‘Well? Go on then, critters. Get out of here.’ When the lead squirrel cat opened his mouth to speak, she stopped him. ‘Tell the little bugger to save any last speeches or posturing for somebody who cares.’
The animal grunted, then chittered to the others. As one, they turned and ran out of the oasis and into the deep shadows of the night, away from the city and towards the mountains. I’d kind of expected him to stop and say something to me. It bothered me a little that he didn’t.
Ferius sighed and then glanced towards the lights of lanterns coming towards us. ‘All right, children. Let’s get back to that song we’re all going to sing.’
‘Yours will be sung in screams,’ Tennat said from where he still lay on the ground. I thought it was a pretty good retort, all things considered. His hands started moving, preparing a somatic shape. ‘Once my father learns what happened here he’s going to use spells that will tear the skin from your flesh, the blood from your—’
Ferius looked over at me and grinned. ‘Now where have I heard that kind of threat before? You think he’s part squirrel cat?’ Then she put the heel of her boot on Tennat’s right wrist. ‘You know, boy, since it’s obvious to me now that your only aim in this life is to become the most heartless, vicious thing you can, maybe you should keep quiet until your bite is as dangerous as your bark. The only thing your precious daddy and his fellow mages are going to care about is the fact that there’s a tribe of nekhek close to their city who aren’t afraid to fight. They aren’t going to be too impressed by the fact that you and your little friends came here to torture the one they’d captured, only you were so stupid that even a weakling like Kellen here –’ she pointed at me, which didn’t make me feel any better at all – ‘managed to beat the three of you senseless long enough to set the little monster free.’ She knelt down on one knee and got right up in his face. ‘Third, you don’t know for sure that Kellen’s father isn’t going to come and do you serious harm if he finds out what you tried to do to his son, “mage’s council” or not.’
‘But we have to tell people what happened,’ Panahsi said, standing sturdier now, though his eyes were still a little unfocused.
‘That’s simple,’ Ferius replied. ‘The four of you, good friends that you are, were taking a late-night stroll to do some innocent astronomy work outside the city when you saw that herd of nekhek here freeing their fellow. Being brave souls, you all tried to stop them, but you got overwhelmed. All of your injuries –’ she looked over and winced at the sight of me. Still not helping – ‘came from the nekhek.’
Nephenia shook her head. ‘But, Lady Ferius, no one’s going to believe that we—’
‘Of course they won’t believe you,’ Ferius interrupted. ‘They’ll know you’re lying, especially since one of you obviously paid the guards to take a break. But people will think it’s because you were coming here to show you weren’t afraid of the nekhek. See, we give them the obvious lie so they don’t look for the bigger one.’
You wouldn’t think that people who had done the kinds of things to each other that we’d just done would be able to let it go so quickly, but my people are pragmatic. Nephenia didn’t want the conflict to escalate. Panahsi was so tired he just wanted it to be over for now, and Tennat, well, Tennat probably figured he could use this against me – or the others – somehow. Or both. In the end, Ferius just seemed to know how to pull each person’s strings and convince them that, for now at least, her solution was in everyone’s best interests.
By the time the first five or six men and women entered the oasis, glow-glass lanterns in hand, the deal had been struck. People were asking me questions, but I really had no way of answering. Once the fight had ended, whatever mixture of fear and shock had been keeping me going started to slip away. I was fading in and out of consciousness until Ferius declared that she needed to get me to my parents and the others should get home too.
The last thing I remember is Nephenia looking down at me just before she turned to leave. ‘You hit me, Kellen,’ she said.
23
Injuries
When you’re fifteen years old and nearly a man, waking up repeatedly to find yourself being carried home is kind of embarrassing. This time it was Ferius doing the carrying, which made it worse.
‘You’re strong for a girl,’ I said, cringing as the words came out of my mouth. Lately I was discovering that the more beaten up I got, the dumber my thoughts became.
‘Strong for a girl, I suppose, but just about average for a woman.’
‘I don’t know many women who can carry me,’ I insisted. ‘I’m not that skinny.’ Somehow it was important to win this point.
Ferius let out a little puff of air in a ‘pfft’ sound, which I gathered was meant to be dismissive. ‘Kid, the only women you have around here are born and bred to do their little magic spells and be pretty to look at. Kind of like what passes for men.’
I was fairly sure that was an insult to all my people but I wasn’t quite sure which part to argue against, so I just tried to focus my eyes on the street ahead of us. It was pitch black for the most part, families long having gone to sleep. We were halfway to my house, and normally the glow-glass lanterns on every corner would have illuminated our way, but Ferius didn’t have the magic required to light them and I wasn’t in the mood to try, so we proceeded in darkness. I wondered if this was what it was like for all the Sha’Tep servants who had to start their work day before dawn, shambling to whatever shops or households where they would perform their assigned duties in the dark. Did they carry torches? Ferius seemed to have pretty good eyesight because she walked sure as can be along the street towards my home.