Page 17 of Fate of the Argosi

‘What is it?’ Chedran demanded. The full weight of that mesmerising glare of his settled on Kievan. ‘What have you been hiding from me?’

He never even gave her the chance to answer. That fire inside him was raging fit to set ablaze the whole barracks.

‘You’ve all been hiding this from me, haven’t you? After all I’ve done for you, the sacrifices I’ve made, you keep secrets from me? Laugh behind my back?’ He jabbed a finger in my direction like this was all my fault, which for once it wasn’t. ‘You wanted to emulate her, is that it? Prove you could strut about the Jan’Tep territories, play at being Argosi wanderers, tell yourselves that neither borders nor armies nor spells could keep you out? Perhaps even ambush some unwitting Jan’Tep initiate, leave them bruised and bloodied so you could return home with tales of your daring.’ Again he pointed at me. ‘Did you think such brazen arrogance would make you just like your hero, the glorious “Ferius Parfax”?’

Anger blinds us as much as pain. Love is even worse. Put anger, pain and love all together, though? You can’t see what’s right in front of you.

‘They weren’t lookin’ to beat up any Jan’Tep initiates,’ I said. ‘They weren’t trying to follow in my footsteps at all. I was just the inspiration for them to pursue an even dumber path to get themselves killed.’

‘Why then?’ Chedran asked, still turned away from me. I guess he figured if he saw my face at that precise moment he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from throwing the first punch. ‘Why did they venture into Jan’Tep territory?’

‘Because the Mahdek were once strong.’ I gestured to Kievan. ‘How did you put it, sister? We were “the first mages on this continent”?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Chedran barked. ‘No Mahdek has felt the pull of magic in generations. Even if a shaman or spellshaperwasborn, only an oasis could awaken th—’

He froze, looking for the first time like prey cornered by a predator. His gaze swept over the twelve kids he’d risked so much to protect, searching for which of them had been the secret the others had kept from him.

It’s in the silence that secrets reveal themselves, in the nervous giggles and awkward gestures that a proper Argosi should’ve picked up on right away if she weren’t so busy resurrecting bad memories. Durral might have a point about leaving your pain out in the desert where it can’t do anyone any harm.

The laughter from the back of the barracks was almost frantic now. Remeny, the kid with the tousled brown hair, was pushing Conch away forcefully because the spire goat kept trying to knock his fringe away from his forehead. ‘Quit it, you silly goat!’

Kievan tried to stop me, but I shoved her aside. The rest of the kids – even the little girl and her twin brother – rose to form a wall between me and Remeny. They looked like they were ready for a scrap.

So much for being their hero, I thought.

‘Please, Ferius, let me explain. It’s not wh—’

‘Shush now, sister,’ I said, a weariness coming over me as my arta tuco – that’s the Argosi talent for figuring out the workings of things – began putting together the disparate pieces of what the runaways had kept from Chedran, and what one of them had been hiding from the others.

I don’t want this, I thought, my hand instinctively reaching into one of the pockets of my waistcoat, where my disharmony cards waited.I just want to leave here with Arissa and Conch and Quadlopo, then pay off a few more debts until I can walk the Path of the Wild Daisy without this deck weighing me down.

‘Who’s stopping you, girl?’I could hear Enna ask.

‘You, Mamma. You and Pappy and all the lessons you taught me about following the Way of Water.’

‘Come on now, Remeny,’ I said, talking over the kids blocking my way. He kept trying to smooth that lustrous brown hair down to cover his forehead. ‘Nobody should have to grow up so fast, and never all at once, but today’s your day. Today is when you learn the hard lesson.’

‘Wh-what lesson?’ he asked, stuttering as he tried to hold back the tears.

The others were still walling me off from him. I gave them a look. The Argosi don’t meddle with snake charming or mesmerism. We do have our own talent for persuasion though.Arta sivais less about hypnotising someone and more about letting them see the truth of your intentions. The runaways parted, a little reluctantly maybe, but they made a passage all the same.

Remeny was cuddling Conch to his chest now. The spire goat hated that. There must be a deeper kindness in his species than he usually showed me, because he didn’t belch the poor kid into oblivion. I knelt down so that me and Remeny were eye to eye. ‘Here’s the lesson, kid. The difference between the boy you were a few minutes ago and the man you’re about to become is in the hard truths you’re willing to admit and the responsibilities you’re willing to accept.’

The dam broke. Sharp, soul-wrenching sobs of guilt and grief burst out from the boy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he cried, shaking so hard I thought he might come apart. ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to . . . I never should have run away from camp. The others came to find me, but I wouldn’t go back. I needed to find the magic. It kept tugging and tugging me until—’

‘Remeny’s always been drawn to the oases,’ Kievan said, coming to kneel beside me. ‘Even in our encampment in Darome, the silver flow called to him. It was driving him mad, but the elders wouldn’t listen. They insisted he was just acting out. The rest of us, we thought if we could get him across the border, maybe within a few miles of an oasis . . . But we were captured, and Chedran rescued us.’ There was a quiet note of defiance in the way she ended that sentence that told me she wasn’t done yet. She looked back up at Chedran. ‘It worked too. Remeny hasn’t been feeling the pull any more. He’s cured.’

‘Not the word I’d use,’ I said, watching misery and guilt, too long contained, shaking his whole body with each heart-wrenching sob. ‘It’s time now, Remeny. Time to show them what’s been scaring you so bad you couldn’t let anyone else see it.’

A trembling finger inched up slowly to the mess of brown hair that Remeny had no doubt been using to cover up his forehead from the moment Chedran had rescued him and his fellow runaways from those Jan’Tep mages. The shaking got even worse as he brushed the hair away so I could make out the traces of intricate silver lines his captors had etched there.

‘D-do you know what it’s called?’ Remeny asked, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to call it.’

I did, of course, though I badly wished there was some kinder name I could put to the maze of silver lines gleaming across the landscape of his skin. ‘It’s called a spell warrant,’ I told him. ‘Those mages burned a spell warrant onto you.’

11

Fight or Flight

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