Chase the Morning

‘Very romantic!’ sneered the old man. ‘Now do some work for once in your lives – build me a fire here! Boil me up some water from the tap there!’ Jyp and I glanced around the revolting lot and exchanged dismayed glances. ‘Go on!’ cackled the Stryge. ‘A little dirt’s never killed me. There’s wood by the wall, there; and paper enough!’ I gathered the wood, while Jyp impaled foul bits of paper on his sword, street-cleaner style, and together we got a fire laid and lit on the ashen patch. Meanwhile the old man sat hunched over the calendar, brushing his fingers slowly against it and crooning softly. Jyp came back with an oil can full of dubious water and rested it deftly among the sticks to heat.

‘If he thinks I’m going to drink any bloody potions …’ I whispered to Jyp, and then jumped as he clutched my arm. Another figure stood at the edge of the firelight, and for a moment I was afraid we’d attracted attention from the road. But this was a figure as scruffy as Stryge, a much younger blond man in a torn donkey-jacket and tight ragged jeans. Lean-faced and sallow, his sparse beard pointed but unkempt, he stood surveying us with narrow, hostile eyes. Stryge looked up and grunted something, and the young man padded over and squatted down beside him, gazing up at him with a peculiar intensity. Jyp’s grip tightened.

‘What’s he got to be here for?’ he hissed at Stryge. ‘I’m not staying here with him – get rid of him! Lose him –’

The yellow-haired man spat back a volley of curses in a thick Irish accent, and sprang up to face him.

‘Jyp, no!’ I hissed, hanging onto him. ‘If he can help –’

‘Enough!’ thundered the Stryge, with a force I wouldn’t have credited. ‘Sit, Fynn! And you also, pilot! Upon pain of my utmost displeasure!’ Jyp’s knees seemed to fold under him, and he slumped to his haunches beside me. The young man ducked down, cowed, by Stryge’s side. ‘Fynn will do you no harm while I’m here, be assured of that.’

‘He’d better not,’ said Jyp between clenched teeth. Fynn sat silently, head lowered but glaring at us. There was something about him, the snarling curl of his lip, the way the hair grew back from the low widow’s peak on that sloping brow – the colour of that hair. I began to feel less than well. It wasn’t so long ago I’d seen that odd yellowish shade.

The water was bubbling in earnest now. The Stryge, with Fynn scrabbling at his back, came and seated himself cross-legged on the far side. He muttered and gestured over it as it seethed and spattered, slopping over the side into the fire. Wisps of steam drifted across its dark surface, like mist on the night sea. For a long time, still muttering, he stared into it, squinting from various angles. Then he picked up a shaving of wood, and tossing the calendar aside he laid the shaving lightly on the surface of the water. We all leaned forward to watch as it bobbed there, aimlessly at first. Then, abruptly, it changed direction, glided slow and straight to the edge and sat there quivering. Jyp sucked in his breath sharply. ‘So that’s their heading, eh? By south-south-west, a quarter … Why, that’ll be –’

‘The Caribees,’ said the Stryge quietly. ‘West Indies, most likely. Knew I didn’t like the smell. First that dupiah, now this … Ach.’

‘But why?’ I demanded. Fynn giggled, but the Stryge silenced him with a raised hand.

‘Fair question. Because their main plan failed, that’s why. Smuggling that deadly thing in, for some purpose or other. So they came after you.’

‘Me? Why me?’

‘Simple. You brought it upon yourself. Poking after them with your sendings like that. Your spells.’

‘My –?’

‘They must’ve been on the look-out already. They’ve their own ways of looking, just as you have.’

‘You mean the computer? But there’s nothing magical about that.’

The old man cackled suddenly, as if at some private joke. ‘Anything you say, mon enfant. Your sendings came too close, and they traced them back. Just warned you off at first; but you would persist. Then they took a closer look. Decided they wanted you.’

‘Yes, but why?’

The Stryge shrugged. ‘How should I know? I would not want you in a gift, but have I the brain of a Wolf? Perhaps your sendings made them think you to blame for the plan’s failure, and to excuse themselves they would take you back to whoever is behind it. When they lost you, they went for the next best.’ The thin lips curled contemptuously. ‘They’d checked on that, too. The person you care for most in the world – and who cares most for you.’