Chương 41: Chapter 40 - The Balance of Magic

I asked Scaredy-stone to take us back the way we'd come. He told me they didn't know where we'd come from. Two sentries had spotted our boat on the way in. While one had gone to get the bracelet man—"Vance!" I cried. When Conrad heard the familiar name, he looked over at me. Scaredy-stone paused and cocked his head. Of course they'd get Vance. That's what the lurkers did when someone was in their swamp who wasn't supposed to be there. I put my hand to my forehead.

And Vance, who was supposed to be watching Kappa, would come into the swamp, expecting to confront a group of giggling teenagers, and run into a murderer and her devoted follower. I let my hand drop. It hit my jeans with a wet slap.

"One thing at a time, Emerra," I said under my breath.

"One ridiculous and unnecessary complication at a time." Conrad walked over and laid his hand on my head. He rubbed it in that familiar way of his, only a million times gentler out of consideration for the fact that I looked like a human crash-test dummy.

"Vance has his revolver," Conrad said.

"He should be fine." I took what little comfort I could from that fact.

"What about the other lurker who was watching?" I asked Scaredy-stone. The other one had followed the boat from a distance. While up in one of the trees, he'd seen me, tied and gagged. He found that unsettling enough he went back to Lurkerberg to fetch a war party, so, unfortunately, they couldn't take us back the way we'd come.

"How did you find us?" I asked.

"Searched," Scaredy-stone said. My heart clenched. I was living on my last gram of luck. If they'd been a few seconds later—"Mera," Conrad said, "I don't know how long we have before the swamp starts messing with my senses."

"Right!" I threw up my hands.

"Then I guess we're going 'searching!' Let's see how much luck I can wring out of that gram."

"What?" I was too busy wading into the swamp to explain. The lurkers knew enough about water flow to understand the concept of a channel. Once we overcame the language barrier, Scaredy-stone led us back in the direction that I was fairly confident we had come from. You know, like, at least fifty-one percent confident. The back of the boat was that way, so we went that way.

Scaredy acted as our guide while the other lurkers melted into the background, where I might see a bit of movement out of the corner of my eyes, or glimpse the tiny white sparks as the magic that hung like mist in the air fizzled off their skin. But it wasn't just the lurkers; seeing anything was a problem for me. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness—I could make out shapes with nothing but a hint of starlight—but between the scattered cloud cover and the trees, there were times I couldn't get even that much light.

The mist had become thicker too. Conrad had to take my hand to guide me past a bad patch whenever the shadows or the mist swallowed me whole. As we walked, slogged, tripped, slid, and waded our way through the swamp, I tried to explain to Scaredy that he and the other lurkers should avoid killing Lily and Brandon if they could. I don't know how many details and arguments he understood, but I could tell by his scowl that he'd caught the gist of it. Yes! —I was forced to agree with him—yes, they were bad people.

They were dangerous. They had tried to kill me. But none of that mattered. Scaredy hissed his disapproval. Conrad had my hand. He squeezed it to get my attention.

"Mera, you're trying to explain justice, culpability, and equitable punishment using a proto-language," he said.

"I don't think he's going to understand. And what if Carver tries to kill them? That woman is hauling around her favorite murder weapon."

"Of course I'd want them to defend themselves!" I cried.

"But only if they have to!"

"Can you explain that subtlety to them?" My heart sank. That was the problem, and I'd known it long before Conrad had said it. English might as well have been another proto-language considering how well I could express myself. I could, maybe, scrape together the right words—I was, after all, an expert in small and easy-to-understand words—but first I had to figure out the ideas I wanted to express. I tugged on Conrad's hand to get him to stop. Scaredy, who'd gone ahead, noticed and returned to see what was wrong.

I squatted down until I could see the soft specks of starlight shining in his eyes.

"Most important," I said, "save yourselves. That's more important than anything." I spread my arms out as wide as I could.

"It's this big important. I want all of you guys"—I pointed to his pale chest—"to be safe." All he did was watch me. I held my hands out wider than my shoulders, but not stretched to their limit.

"Medium important— this important—get the lamp if you can." I brought my hands in until they were about a foot apart.

"Smaller important, don't kill the other humans."

"Why?" Scaredy barked. He knew that I knew that word. So there we were again, dancing around concepts so big I could only feel them. And the lurkers didn't have a word for "please."

"That 'why' is mine," I said, putting a hand to my chest.

"That 'why' is precious to me. A small important is still important." Scaredy scowled again, but as he padded back to the lead, he cast a thoughtful glance my direction. I stood up. Conrad was also giving me a thoughtful look. I blushed. It wasn't like I'd had a choice, but I was suddenly aware of how much I'd sounded like a pretentious five-year-old.

"What?" I grumbled. Conrad looked away, his ears wiggling in mild embarrassment. He grumbled, "I wouldn't have thought of that." We slogged on through curtains of mist and in and out of the shadows of the giant cypress trees. Around us was nothing but the sound of water. The unnatural silence started grating on my nerves. I asked Conrad about it, but he said he couldn't hear anything either. Just the lurkers.

It was nice to know I wasn't hearing things (yet), but it did raise the rather alarming possibility that every living creature in the swamp had been smart enough to get out of there—except us. Ahead of us, the mist thinned until it was sheer enough that I could make out shapes in the whiteness.

"We're getting closer," I said. I ran-splashed a few steps ahead, stopping when I reached an opening in the trees. The water reached up to the middle of my hips. I turned and peered into the mist, searching for the thinnest bit of cloud soup I could find.

"Do you smell anything?" I asked Conrad. He raised his nose.

"Faint traces. Nothing I could follow." I looked down at Scaredy.

"Which way is your nest?" He pointed behind him, to the right.

"Then we go that way," I said, pointing ninety degrees off the way he indicated. Scaredy didn't bother acknowledging me before hopping away. When Conrad caught up to us, he said, "Why this way?"

"Because there's less magic this way, but it doesn't lead out of the swamp," I said. About a hundred yards further in, Conrad said, "I smell them. I've got the trail."

"Are they close?" I asked.

"Assuming they're still on foot, we should be able to catch up to them in five minutes or less." I called out to Scaredy and explained that we needed to talk to him. He led us away from the path we'd been on, up to a drier area, where I explained the plan to him using the "kindergarten method"—no more than five sentences (three was better), very short, very clear. Darius had taught me how to use it so I could help with Kappa. I got mad when I caught him using it on me, and madder when I realized how well it worked.

Scaredy nodded after each sentence to show he understood. When I was done, he pointed me back to the path we'd been on—then pointed again, more emphatically, and asked multiple times if I knew where I was going.

"No, he can—" I stopped and pointed to Conrad's muzzle.

"He can smell them. We'll be fine." Scaredy looked at Conrad for a second, then nodded one last time. As far as he was concerned, humans were hopeless, but the wolfman had managed to track them back to their nest. Scaredy turned around and disappeared into the mist.

"Is he going to talk to the others?" Conrad whispered.

"Yeah," I said.

"Do you think they'll listen?"

"If we hurry and get there first, I think it won't matter." We set off. The plan was simple. Conrad was going to run in, grab the bowl from Lily Carver, and get it to me. I would give it to the lurkers, and they would get out of there as fast as possible while Conrad finished dealing with Carver and Brandon. There was a chance that Lily Carver might be crazy enough to try to brain a wolfman, but she wouldn't be tall enough, and Conrad wouldn't have any problems overpowering her and Brandon.

The lurkers would act as backup in case Carver tried to run— if Scaredy could talk them into it. We told them to leave Brandon alone. He didn't have the lamp, so he shouldn't matter to them, but he could probably kick pretty hard. The mist thinned as we got closer to the lamp, making it easier for me to catch glimpses of white light between the trees. I didn't need Conrad to guide me any longer, which meant we could move that much faster.

"What is it?" Conrad asked.

"What?" I whispered back.

"You suddenly smell uneasy." I shook my head. I didn't have time to try to explain something I didn't understand. There was a lot of green light mixed in with the white, and for some reason, that made me very uneasy. The area Brandon and Carver were standing in had fewer trees than the surrounding swamp, and the ground was angled. Brandon was in water up to his ankles. Carver was in water up to her calves. When they heard us coming, they turned to see who it was, allowing me to see their faces.

Carver's expression was still one of sublime certainty. Nothing could harm her now. Not when she was that close to god. Brandon's face was pale and twitchy. He was frowning, and his eyes darted around the shadows. The magic had been at work on him. Stolen story; please report. We waded out from behind the trees, into their line of sight. Lily Carver's perfect calm cracked. Her eyes widened and she clutched the lamp to her chest, making it and the pendant at her neck flare.

Brandon swore, lifted his shirt, and drew a handgun. The muzzle was shaking, but it was pointed at us. Oh, crap. Conrad and I stopped. My hands went up almost fast enough to break the sound barrier. It took Conrad longer to raise his, and there was a lot of surly reluctance about it.

"I thought you said that Shine was the only one that had a gun," Conrad growled. I dragged my attention away from the pendant that was shining twice as radiant as before.

"He's not a cop!" I said.

"How was I supposed to know he had a gun?"

"This is Louisiana. Half the people in this state have a gun!"

"What the hell are you?" Brandon screamed. He was staring at Conrad. His eyes were so wide that I could see white all around the irises. They've never seen Conrad as a wolfman. They don't know what's going on. And now we were stuck, hands in the air, standing across from a hysterical man carrying a gun and a woman who wanted us dead. Conrad could probably survive being shot again, but if he went unconscious, that would leave me a sitting duck—except a duck could survive in a swamp better than I could.

And I'd thought that introducing Conrad to Olene Durand was nerve-wracking. I licked my lips.

"Um…Hi! Yes. Over here, Brandon." His eyes flicked to me, then returned to Conrad.

"I'm Emerra Cole," I said, "in case you didn't catch my name. The person you're currently aiming your weapon at is my friend, Conrad Bauer. I know he looks scary, but I promise you, he's very nice." In my head, I heard the sound of Shine's shoulder snapping. Not important right now.

"Shoot them both," Carver said. My mouth moved faster than the speed of thought: "You don't want to do that!" Carver paused.

"Why not?"

"You've already shot Conrad once this evening. It only makes him angry. If you shoot him twice, it'll make him twice as angry." Carver looked at Conrad, her eyes narrow.

"That's right!" I said with manic cheerfulness.

"He was the wolf."

"A werewolf?" she said.

"A lycanthrope. Anyway, as you can see, there's no point in shooting us, so I suggest you save your bullets."

"It might be less effective to shoot him, but what if we shoot you, Miss Cole?"

"I'm pretty sure that'd make him angry too. Look, we're unarmed, and we just want to talk to you."

"I don't believe you." That was unfair. Both statements were strictly true. Two minutes ago, the second one would've been a lie, but that was before I'd seen her. Never had I so completely and instantly changed my mind. Something was happening between the lamp and Carver's pendant. The runes around the rim of the lamp were glowing enough to cast light, and the flame at the top of the stem burned with the fury of a welder's torch. Clouds of mist poured into the bowl, churning like water at the bottom of a waterfall.

The rush was so violent that it looked like it should've made a sound. The fact it didn't was eerie. But part of the mist that was rushing toward the lamp bent away from the bowl, toward the pendant, feeding it. The pendant was shedding green and white light. The ribbons of white light were rimmed with bright blue, and they were being absorbed by the bowl like the mist.

The green had changed from uniform fragments of light into blazing multi-hued bands with colors ranging from lime to a dark forest, and they quivered with an energy I could see. Magic at rest was purple. Activated magic was white. Wards could be blue, but I'd only ever seen green magic once before. Olivia had been holding back a trap. Green was magic under tension. Lily Carver was wearing a magical bomb around her neck.

It looked like too much power for the pendant to handle—it looked like too much power for anything made by humans to handle—but somehow the pendant and the lamp had created a balance. I didn't want to take the lamp from her. I wanted to get her far, far away from that swamp, and then take the lamp from her.

"Please listen to me!" I cried.

"I know you think that lamp belonged to Bourdin. It didn't!"

"You're going to tell me it belongs to the lurkers," Carver said.

"It belongs to the swamp. It has to be here! The lurkers are its guardians."

"So you want me to hand it over to them?"

"No!" I shouted, much louder than I intended. Conrad glanced at me. I went on, "Not…right now. But I need you to be open to the idea that you've made a mistake. There's power in this swamp—""Obviously," she drawled. I grit my teeth. Her precious Gilles Bourdin had probably written all about it.

"Okay," I said, "but that power is dangerous."

"Only to those who aren't ready." For a moment, I could only stare at her, mouth open, aghast. She really, honest-to-goodness meant it. She was a true believer.

"Right," I said, "but you're not ready!" When she frowned, two grim lines carved their way down either side of her mouth.

"You don't know that." I heard the sound of a motor in the distance, getting closer. I decided not to draw attention to it. Things were stressful enough.

"Bourdin himself wouldn't have been ready for this crap!" I said.

"That lamp you're holding has been keeping things under control for thousands of years. Bourdin never worked in this swamp without it. Ayla took it, and the power's been building up ever since. When you came in here to search—""How did you know—" I yelled over her, "When you came in here to search the swamp, after a couple of hours, did you ever see things or hear things? Did you ever get turned around? Disoriented?" Brandon's eyes flicked over to Carver. It looked like he knew what I was talking about.

"Actually," I said, "why did you stop searching?" I turned my head to look at Conrad, "How long ago did you say she'd last been in here?"

"Around two weeks ago," he said. I turned back to Carver.

"That would've been before you knew that Gladwyn had come to get us. Did the swamp play too many tricks on you? Were you ready for that?"

"Shut up!" Carver screamed. Her hands were shaking worse than Brandon's, and her face was scrunched up to force her eyes closed as hard as possible. She looked like a toddler willing away a ghost.

"Brandon, shoot them!"

"Brandon, don't shoot us!" I yelled.

"I'm trying to save your life! I'm trying to save both your lives!" Brandon was sweating. His hand left the butt of his handgun when he started to turn to Carver, but then he resumed his stance. Clearly, the man didn't know who to listen to, me or Lily Carver—but he knew he didn't like Conrad. The sound of the motor was louder now. I was surprised that they didn't seem to hear it.

"How are you trying to save our lives?" Brandon yelled.

"I want to take you both out of this swamp," I said.

"Let's all get somewhere we can think more clearly…" Anywhere else in the swamp, I probably wouldn't have seen the lurker, but right there, where the mist was being swallowed by the lamp and the pendant, the air was clear enough I could see the light shining off the lurker's eyes as he snuck, horizontal, like a salamander, across the wide tree trunk by Carver's side.

"Scaredy, no!" I lunged toward him. Brandon fired his gun, but the bullet went wide. I couldn't tell if he was shooting at me or Conrad. My scream was too late. Scaredy had already leapt, body stretched into a long line, like a bolt shot from a crossbow, fins back, hands reaching. He hit the lamp from the side, wrapped his tiny arms around as much of it as he could, and let his momentum carry him and the lamp out of Carver's hands. The moment it was away from her, the lamp dimmed.

Scaredy hit the ground ten feet away from Carver and tumbled with the stone lamp, flinging lines of water in every direction. The water where he landed was only a few inches deep. He and the lamp could both be seen above its surface. Conrad dodged to the side. I didn't see where. I only had eyes for the ill-named Scaredy and the lamp. Ignoring Brandon, and whatever he was doing with his gun, I ran toward Scaredy. Six other lurkers converged on him before I could get there.

Three of them went to see if he was all right. The other three lurkers went for the lamp. Scaredy's head wobbled, but he managed to sit up. Two of the lurkers at the lamp grabbed it by the rim. They looked like they were about to take off with it. I slid the last three inches toward them on my knees with my arm stretched out to stop them.

"Wait!" They hesitated.

"I need that lamp," I said.

"Ours!"

"I need it!" I motioned to Carver.

"Something's wrong with—" My sentence choked and died. When I'd moved my arm, I caught sight of what was happening. Three sets of large black eyes—one of them mine—stared. Lily's arms were thrown behind her, and her back was bent backward. She was arched so far, it looked like she should've fallen, but she was being held upright by the pendant that had risen from her chest.

It was suspended away from everything, as if the colored light pouring out from it in all directions—blue, teal, green, white—had enough force to push it into the air. The beams of magic slowly bent toward the ground, arching like reluctant rainbows being pressed toward the swamp by a ten-ton unseen hand. Where the light touched, the water churned and frothed. The mist around Carver dove into the churning water like it was drawn there the same way it had been drawn to the lamp.

The water started to rise, bubbling up black, green, purple, brown. The unseen hand that had worked on the magic seemed to reach Lily. She was slowly lowered into the swamp. Her chest and head went under last. Her eyes were still wide open when they were submerged. The pendant followed. When it touched the water there was a pulse of light, like a heartbeat. I couldn't tell what color it was, since the veins of it ran under the murky water, but I could see them.

A thousand branching threads of light reaching out in all directions. Like the veins in your hand. Or the veins on a leaf. All of them stemming from the point where Lily was lying in the water. When it pulsed again, I could make out the silhouette of her body. Her arms and legs were spread wide. Her hair was floating around her head. That can't be right. The water isn't deep enough here. The light pulsed again. Some of the veins had wrapped themselves around her arms and legs making her a part of the web.

Another pulse, it had her by the waist. Another pulse, she was nothing but a clump of tangled light in the water.

"Ohhhhh, no." I skittered backward in a rushed crab walk, trying to get away from the center of the light veins as fast as I could. Ten feet did not feel like enough. Ten miles wouldn't have been enough. I bumped into the lurkers and had to stop. They were craning forward to see what was happening. I had to grab one of them and pull him back. Another pulse. The veins, that I would have sworn had reached out to the furthest ends of the Sauvage Preserve, had pulled back.

The new concentrated pattern looked like a monstrous disintegrating form. It's not disintegrating.

"Disintegration" is when it's spreading out. The water stopped churning.

"Conrad!" I tried to avoid sounding hysterical, but my voice rose at the end. I heard splashes as he came up to my side. I didn't dare turn my head.

"I'm here," he said.

"Where's Carver?" I pointed. A layer of water rushed off the sides of a tremendous figure as it rose from the swamp. It was at least as tall as a three-story building. It had two arms, two legs, and a head that was nothing more than a lump of mud and plant matter that rose like a mountain between its shoulders. The top of that lump reached a third of the way up the tallest cypress trees. One of the shapeless arms, twelve feet around, had pulled out of the ground right in front of us. Water cascaded down from above.

Water rushed around us, trying to fill the sudden gaps. Conrad and I stared up, and up, and up.

"Oh, fuck that," Conrad muttered. One of the lurkers put the stone lamp in my lap.

"Yours." By the time I looked around, they were already disappearing into the trees.

"Get up," Conrad ordered. The lamp was burning less intensely now, and thanks to Lily Carver, I knew it wouldn't burn me if the flame was completely white. I didn't think it'd be going back to normal any time soon. I held it to my chest and sloshed to my feet.

"Back up slowly," Conrad said.

"Don't trip. Don't you dare trip." I kept glancing behind me, then back up at the swamp colossus. I was afraid of catching my heel in the murky terrain, but I was terrified of the thing looming over me. Its legs and arms were nothing but columns, its body was nothing but a heap of green and brown, but it seemed to be breathing even though it had no mouth to breathe with. White mist flowed in and out each time it did. Something that big couldn't be alive! It shouldn't have been able to move. To defy me, it turned.

As it swung its top around, its body creaked like a bending tree. It lifted one leg and set it down. I could feel the earth tremble through the mud. The colossus continued lumbering toward us, gaining speed with every step. It moved with a horrible mindlessness, ripping up smaller trees, snapping branches, and tearing down swaths of hanging moss as it came. It used one arm to club down a small cypress that stood between it and us. The crack of the wood echoed over the water.

I knew it would do the same thing to houses. It would slaughter anyone who got in the way without feeling their bodies smash like grapes beneath its feet. Conrad reached around to the back of his belt and pulled out a gun.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"Brandon." It says exactly how selfish I am that, between the time Conrad drew the gun and when he clicked its safety off, I thought about asking what had happened to Brandon, then dismissed the idea because, at that moment, I didn't have the mental capacity to care. Conrad fired. I clapped one hand over my ear and winced because I couldn't protect the other. He fired over and over again, emptying the magazine in only a few seconds. Tiny pocks appeared where the bullets hit the colossus.

There was no other reaction. The only caliber of weapon that might have slowed it down probably required a military ID and two keys, turned simultaneously, to access them.

"Worth a shot." Conrad dropped the gun in the water.

"Run!" We turned and ran. Scaredy was there, mouth open, staring up at the colossus. Conrad scooped him up without breaking his stride. When I started to fall behind, the wolfman grabbed my arm and pulled me along. The water quaked and the mud beneath my feet shook. The sound of snapping wood filled the air, growing closer and louder. Off to the side, there was a loud buzz, dismissed by my brain as "less important."

"Mera!" That was one sound I couldn't ignore. My head whipped around. Kappa was leaning over the side of Vance's boat, yelling my name at the top of his small lungs. Vance was driving his boat as fast as possible, skimming over a channel that ran parallel to us. Still running as fast as we could, Conrad and I angled to meet them. I stepped off an invisible bank into nothing and went under, clutching the lamp to my chest. Conrad reached around my waist and hauled me up to a place where I could get my footing.

I sputtered and kept running. Vance slowed down so we could catch up, but he didn't stop. He yelled over the sound of the motor, "You kids mind telling me what the hell's happening to my swamp?"

"Only if you can get us the hell out of here!" Conrad yelled over the sound of cracking trunks. Vance motioned with his head. All aboard. I tossed the lamp inside the boat. It landed with a metallic thunk. Conrad held Scaredy over the edge and let go. The lurker rolled to the bottom. Kappa was there to stop him. I grabbed the edge, but it was too much to ask me to pull myself up while the boat was moving that fast.

Conrad grabbed me by the waist again, put one hand on the edge of the boat, and launched himself over the side and into the center. He let out a painful grunt when his knee hit one of the benches. I felt his arm clench around me, then his grip eased, and he let me drop to my feet.

"Everyone in that's comin' in?" Vance yelled. I looked for the lamp. It was there, by the front.

"Yes," I said as I stumbled over to it. Had I broken it? Cracked it? It was stone, but it wasn't all that heavy, and the walls of the bowl were only a half-inch thick. I picked it up and flipped it over. It was fine. My breath of relief caught in my chest when the loudest cracking sound yet shot through the swamp. I jerked and looked up. Behind the boat, the colossus had ripped through the line of trees and made it to the channel. The water it displaced sloshed up the sides of the boat and into the bottom.

Vance swore and twisted his wrist around the tiller handle. The boat surged forward. All five of us watched the colossus lumber toward us in a heaving run. It grew smaller and smaller as we sped away, until it was lost in the trees.

"Do you think it'll stop?" Conrad asked me.

"No." I squeezed the lamp to my chest until my ribs hurt.

"Well," Vance grumbled, "that's one for the story book."