The Maelstrom

  Trench Nineteen had been filled in with earth and smoothed flat. All that remained was a discolored seam along the ground, and even that was disappearing as workers laid out stakes and twine to mark the gardens that would come. Ms. Richter had declared that all the land between the citadel and the outer walls would be transformed into groves and orchards to honor the fallen. Even with the aid of dryads and druids, it would take many years for such an undertaking to reach fruition, but once it was completed, it would be the greatest garden on earth.

  Trench Nineteen was gone, but a monument had been erected for its battalion. There were memorials for every Rowan battalion at the places where they had fought. One could see them here and there across the grounds or at the base of walls and towers, larger white obelisks set upon blocks of rose granite. Each memorial flew its battalion’s flag and bore the names of the fallen around its base. Max gazed at the Trench Rats’ standard flapping in the wind. He counted four hundred and eighty-seven names inscribed beneath it. When he murmured the number aloud, Scathach spoke up.

  “I’m no mathematician, but I believe that means there are over seven hundred names not inscribed on that stone.”

  “It’s still too many,” said Max.

  “How many more would there be if you hadn’t trained them, or fought with them, or acquired that iron on their behalf? Your losses were half that of the other trench battalions. They were volunteers, Max. Their deaths are sad, but they are not tragic. Look at me.”

  He did so, studying the sharp planes of her face and the shining gray eyes that studied him in turn.

  “You are no stranger to war,” she said. “You are grieving, but there is something else bothering you. What is it?”

  Max nodded and quietly told Scathach how close he had been to summoning Astaroth.

  “I’m glad you did not,” she remarked. “A blood debt is ugly business and you must not play the Demon’s game. There is a reason he chose you for such a thing, my love. I do not know what it is, but it was no accident. You must be wary of his words.”

  “I am,” said Max, bowing his head. “But there are times, Scathach, when words don’t matter to me. There are times when I could turn the entire world into that dead black chasm. It scares me.”

  “It should,” said Scathach sagely. “Some people are born great, but no one is born good. That is a choice they must make for themselves. You were born greater than others. Your choices will be harder and you are not infallible. I know … I’ve read your poems.”

  Max grinned and pressed his forehead against hers. She kissed him as Old Tom chimed eleven o’clock. When it had finished, she smiled and gazed for a moment at her shadow on the grass.

  “Come,” she said. “We have honored the dead. It’s time to honor the living.”

  Max would have known the healing ward blindfolded. He knew the number of steps down its hallway and the acoustics of its high ceilings and archways, but most of all he knew the smells. The air in the ward was always warm and faintly scented with the aromas of hearths and oils and innumerable herbs that were laid on tables and patiently mortared into medicines.

  The ward was crowded, but it was easy to find the bed they sought. It was in the back, separated from the others and walled off with panels of runeglass whose sigils gave off a soft white glow. Walking quietly to it, Max and Scathach slipped between a slender gap in the panels to gaze at William Cooper.

  The man was fast asleep, lying peacefully beneath a white blanket stitched with Rowan’s seal. Miss Boon was also there, snoring lightly in a bedside chair and half mumbling some sentence from the tome that was slipping from her fingers. Stepping lightly forward, Max took the book from her hands and laid it on a table. Cracking open her eyes, Miss Boon sat up abruptly.

  “I must have dozed off,” she said, blinking and looking about. “Forgive the mess.”

  She gestured absently at several coffee mugs and plates of half-nibbled sandwiches.

  “David’s had a bad influence on you,” Max teased, offering the other chair to Scathach. “How’s our guy?”

  “Remarkable,” she declared, taking Cooper’s hand. “He opened his eyes for the first time last night. And whenever I read aloud to him, he groans. It must be therapeutic. It’s very nice of you two to visit, but do be careful, Max—you’re about to step on Grendel.”

  Glancing down, Max spied the Cheshirewulf lying at the foot of Cooper’s bed. The animal was almost wholly translucent as it dozed, only appearing now and again when it exhaled. There was something standing atop its head, however, perched like an Egyptian plover upon a crocodile. Looking closer, Max saw that it was indeed a bird, a brightly colored kingfisher with mismatched eyes.

  “And who is this?” he wondered.

  “That’s my charge, Aberdeen,” explained Miss Boon, laying her wrist on Cooper’s forehead. “I was afraid Grendel would eat her, but they get along famously! She chirps; he growls. It’s very charming.”

  Stepping carefully past the two, Max stood over Cooper’s bed and looked down at him. The wound from YaYa’s horn had closed and the pentacles upon his skin had faded away entirely. His head had been shaved, but already there were scattered patches of short blond stubble. The man’s countless scars, boxer’s nose, and grisly burns would have appalled many a stranger, but Max merely smiled. William Cooper looked precisely as he should.

  Miss Boon reached for the book on the nightstand. “If you two don’t mind, I’ll continue reading him some Middlemarch,” she said. “It’s just so hefty and satisfying.”

  Tossing slightly, Cooper groaned as if having a nightmare.

  “Quick,” said Max. “Start reading!”

  Mistaking his urgency for a shared love of George Eliot, Miss Boon quickly found her place. “ ‘Here and there, a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind.…’ ”

  Gasping, Cooper suddenly opened his pale blue eyes.

  “William!” cried Miss Boon, flinging the book aside and taking his hand.

  The man grimaced as he struggled to sit up.

  “Prop some pillows behind him and give me a hand,” ordered Miss Boon, tossing one to Max and helping Cooper lean back against the headboard.

  For a few seconds, Cooper merely looked at them, his eyes going from Miss Boon to Max and then to Scathach, who was sitting quietly by the runeglass.

  “I know you,” the Agent muttered in his flat Cockney accent.

  “We haven’t officially met. I’m Scathach.”

  Cooper nodded slowly, as though emerging from a very long and horrid dream. He glanced up at Max. “I cut you,” he muttered, his inflection teetering between question and statement.

  “I’m fine,” said Max. “Scathach came to my rescue.”

  “And Grendel …,” continued Cooper, horrified.

  “Grendel is lying at the foot of the bed,” said Miss Boon. “Aberdeen is keeping him company.”

  Cooper blinked at the ensuing, unseen chirp.

  “Xiùmĕi,” he whispered, staring at his hands. “I killed her.”

  “No, you did not,” said Miss Boon firmly. “The Atropos killed Xiùmĕi, not you.”

  At the mention of the Atropos’s name, Cooper sat straight up and stared at Max. “There are clones,” he said. “Clones of you. And they’re working for the Atropos. The leader gave them my compass … the one that points toward you.”

  “I’ve met those clones,” replied Max grimly. “David buried them under half a palace near Bholevna. They’re probably dead.”

  “Don’t you believe it till you’ve seen the bodies,” muttered Cooper darkly.

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” said Scathach pointedly.

  “You,” said Cooper, turning to her once again. “Who taught you how to fight like that? You fight just like Max.”

  Scathach shook her head and smiled. “I beg to differ,” she replied. “Max fights just like me.”

  T
he Agent stared at her, nodding ever so slightly as he came to understand. “You’re from the Sidh.”

  “I was,” she replied. “I live at Rowan now. You might even say I report to you.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Cooper, frowning.

  Pulling back her sleeve, Scathach displayed a small red tattoo on her wrist.

  “You’re in the Red Branch?” exclaimed its commander.

  “The Red Branch needed a replacement for Xiùmeĕi,” Max explained. “Ms. Richter was confident that you’d find Scathach qualified and appointed her in your absence.”

  “Shoot,” muttered Cooper, sinking back against his pillow. “From what I’ve seen, Scathach should be running the damn show.”

  The man sat quiet for several minutes, periodically gazing at his visitors as though still skeptical that the entire episode was not a dream. At length, he cleared his throat and nodded up at Max. “Gotta question for you,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Would you consider being my best man?”

  Max was taken aback. He glanced at Miss Boon, whose jaw had come unhinged.

  “And what do you need a best man for, William?” she interjected.

  “Because I’m getting married,” replied Cooper matter-of-factly.

  Miss Boon’s eyebrows nearly shot off her forehead. “My God, he’s still possessed,” she said. Leaning forward, she stroked Cooper’s hand and spoke to him as though he were a very sweet and dense child. “William, who exactly are you marrying?”

  The man’s pale, ruined features broke into a grin as he kissed her hand. “I’m marrying you, Hazel.”

  The teacher flushed fire red. “W-well,” she stammered, blinking rapidly. “I’m hardly an expert, but aren’t you supposed to ask me first?”

  “But I have,” explained Cooper, placing her hand over his heart. “In here, I’ve asked you a thousand times. And you almost always said yes.”

  The woman’s glasses promptly fogged. “I shall have to consider it,” she replied, primly wiping their lenses. “But it might be prudent for Max to clear his calendar should he be needed to serve in that capacity.”

  “I’m all for prudence,” said Max, smiling. “In any case, we should probably get going.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Boon, rising and smoothing her robes. “Yes, you should. It’s going to be an absolutely historic afternoon, and the Director would never forgive me if I kept you. You should both go at once. No need for ceremony.”

  They had almost escaped when Max heard Cooper call his name. He stopped and turned to see the Agent pointing decisively at Middlemarch.

  “Take that with you.”

  At nearly four o’clock that afternoon, Max stood beneath the arched, interlacing canopy of branches that formed the Sanctuary tunnel. He wanted to watch the crowds gathering in the orchard and all along the garden paths to the Manse, but he could not take his eyes off Tweedy. The Highland hare was a nervous wreck, pacing back and forth and addressing his clipboard as though it were his personal assistant. When David sneezed, Tweedy gave a start and snarled his medals on his shawl.

  “Look what you made me do!” he grumbled, untangling them.

  “Sorry,” sighed David.

  “Well, come on,” said the hare, beckoning impatiently. “Let me have a look at you.”

  “You have looked me over eight times,” growled David. “I look fine.”

  “A sneeze can wreak havoc on the fringe,” said Tweedy knowingly. He stood on tiptoe to examine the silver mantle over David’s navy robes.

  “This entire outfit is a sham,” David declared, flapping his sleeves throughout the hare’s careful inspection. “These are instructor’s robes. The school expelled me over a year ago. I should just wear my regular clothes.”

  “You will not,” gasped Tweedy, outraged. “I’ll not have you looking like some penniless friar for the greatest moment in Rowan’s history! Do you have any idea what’s about to transpire?”

  “I do,” said Max drily. “You’ve made us recite the program twenty times.”

  “That is because practice makes perfect,” retorted the hare, hopping over to reinspect Max’s dress. When he could find no fault in the armor’s gleam, the tunic’s drape, or the boots’ polish, he stabbed a paw at Max’s spear. “And remember that you are to keep that blade sheathed, McDaniels! We don’t want an untimely scream to spoil the ceremony and cause a general panic. It is because I pay attention to these details that the Director—”

  “—trusts you with matters of highest importance.”

  Tweedy’s whiskers twitched as the boys finished his sentence.

  “You two can stand there grinning like imbeciles, but this is no laughing matter. Oh, why can’t you be more like Mina?” he moaned. “She’s quiet and well mannered and—dear me—she looks like an absolute angel!”

  “Thank you, Tweedy,” called Mina, peering down from atop YaYa.

  “Don’t lean, child,” pleaded the hare. “Your robes must remain just so. Now, take a deep breath, all of you, and wait for the signal.”

  When Old Tom finally began to chime the hour, Tweedy held up a paw and counted the beats.

  “And one … and two … and three … and now.”

  Thrusting out his chest, Tweedy led them out of the leafy tunnel and into the sunshine. Max blinked at both the sun and the enormous crowds. He and David were walking on either side of YaYa, each holding one end of a golden sash that was draped over the ki-rin’s shoulders. Mina was perched atop the saddle, looking uncharacteristically clean and scrubbed in white silk robes trimmed in silver lace. Tweedy had tried to explain that a magechain was not a proper accessory for an Ascendant’s robes, but the girl had refused to part with it. It glittered around her neck, resplendent but for its lumpish centerpiece; a wax-dipped acorn crudely wrapped with copper wire. Apparently teleportation was such a rare ability that there was no official gemstone or token to commemorate it. David had improvised. Privately, Max thought he should have commissioned the dvergar.

  But Mina’s magechain was not her most interesting accessory. That honor belonged to a thick golden rope that was coiled around the girl’s arm from her shoulder to her wrist. As they proceeded through Rowan’s orchard, Max occasionally gazed up at it.

  And it gazed back at him.

  The golden rope was a dragon.

  After the battle, Mina had found him amid the carnage on the beach, resembling a muddy eel, half choked with sand and seaweed. According to David’s account, the girl had identified it as a dragon right away, but he had been skeptical. No true dragons had existed for a thousand years, and even those comparatively meager specimens were more like spiny serpents and scaly bats than the godlike creatures of antiquity. The ancient dragons had been of the Old Magic, wild spirits of terrible power.

  But when Mina washed the creature in the bloody shallows, David spied a glint of gold and tiny claws folded flat against its snakelike body. When the creature arched back and revealed whiskerlike spines along its chin, all doubts evaporated. It was indeed a dragon. Only time would reveal its kind or purpose. Mina had not seemed to care. Once it coiled about her arm, she named him Ember and announced that he was her charge.

  As intriguing as Mina’s dragon might be, most eyes were on the girl herself. Thousands of people lined the paths through Old College and many were straining to get even a glimpse of the wondrous child who had appeared before Prusias, broken his seven crowns, and sent him fleeing over the sea.

  In truth, the assembly’s numbers and proximity made Max more than a little nervous. He disliked crowds ever since the Atropos had targeted him, but it was not his own safety that concerned him: it was Mina’s. A cultlike fervor was starting to gather around the girl. Some had taken to calling her St. Mina and people of various faiths were starting to project their own beliefs and prophecies upon her. Max had experienced some of this himself, but it had never reached such a groundswell of intensity or zeal. Once the Promethean Scholars had dec
lared Mina the first Ascendant since Elias Bram, even some of Rowan’s senior faculty seemed to regard the girl as a holy object.

  Max could not regard her in this light. For all her astounding and mysterious power, she would always be his little Mina—a girl who liked to play marbles and cook inedible stews and explore tidal pools after a rain. When she grinned down at him, he returned it and dearly hoped that some part of her would remain free from the incredible hopes and expectations settling on her shoulders.

  A king’s crown is heavy. An Ascendant’s robes are heavier still.

  Bram never wore those robes and, indeed, never even answered to the title on those rare occasions when an awestruck scholar had the opportunity to address him. David said his grandfather had given up both long ago and had advised Mina to do the same when he’d heard of the pronouncement. But in this, as in many things, Mina was stubborn and took her own counsel.

  Max had looked for Bram, but he never saw the Archmage during their slow procession through Old College. He had not even seen him since Prusias’s attack. When pressed, David would only say that his grandfather was “gathering himself” and that Max might not see him again for a very long time.

  The Archmage might have been absent, but Ms. Richter and just about every other member of Rowan’s leadership were gathered at the cliffs nearest the spot where Gràvenmuir had once stood. As they rounded the Manse’s pluming fountain and proceeded toward the Director, Max recognized some familiar faces.

  Nigel Bristow waved and cheered with his wife and daughter. So did the Tellers and even Thomas Polk and others who had returned to Rowan from the inland settlements. The goose Hannah had to chase down Honk after the willful gosling went tottering after them. Madam Petra was gazing down from a prime perch atop Old Tom’s steps, as were many of Max’s former classmates. But the greatest joy Max felt was when he saw Bob standing near the front with Sarah, Cynthia, and Lucia. His helmet and cudgel had been put away. Bob wore a cook’s apron once again and his favorite blue-striped shirt. When Max passed by, the ogre bowed his head.