Page 44 of The Salt King

“Me? No,” said Jericho.

“I guess it’s to do with salt light then,” Avelyn said, only half coherent. “It doesn’t touch you.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, that’s why you’re always cold. It . . .” He traced the shape of the dark aura in the air. “It stops about three inches from you. Like you’re antimagnetic. Anti . . . pho . . . tonic.” He pulled his hand across his eyes, which ached. He’d fallen asleep in his contact lenses, and now they felt stiff. He should have asked Jericho if he had a spare case and some solution going—he probably would, there were medical supplies in the cupboards behind him—but he couldn’t stand the idea of letting Jericho see his real eyes. That would have been worse than being naked. “What time is it?”

“Half past three. You’ve still got some afternoon left.” He came across. “You look a bit warm to me, do you mind if I—”

“No! No,” Avelyn said, jerking away from Jericho’s hand. Then he sighed and let his neck bend. “I’m sorry. I’m okay. It’s not a fever.”

“Well, if it turns out that it is,” Jericho said, managing to seem both unoffended and not quite sure what else could be going on, “you owe me a salt cake and unprotesting silence while I lecture you about drinking alcohol right after a major injury.”

“All right,” Avelyn said, grateful. His contact lenses were settling down, fortunately. He’d be all right till tonight.

Jericho perched on the edge of the closest armchair and skewered him with one of those unembarrassed stares, candles and salt light making galaxies in his eyes. He was the palest person Avelyn had ever seen. In Hreod, you didn’t say that someone had light skin, but bright skin: that was right.

“Stop it. I’m fine,” Avelyn told him.

Jericho folded his arms, thoughtful. “Are there wild animals in the mine?”

“There are eels in the lakes, and eel owls. They’re tiny and adorable and they make friends with you if you give them shiny things. I can’t think of anything else, but . . . did you have something in mind?”

“That boy just now, he was bitten by something in the deep. Third one this week. Something’s going on down there.”

Down in the deep, the King sleeps, and dreams.

Even though the Lodge smelled reassuringly of woodsmoke and candle wax, he tasted salt dust, the grit of it, the seawater acridity grating at the back of his throat, and on the edge of the fire crackling and the plink-plink of the kettle on the stove, he could hear a roar that wasn’t really there: masonry collapsing, support beams breaking, his uncles’ hands on his arms, all but hurling him out, away, and not following.

“People . . . see things in the deep,” Avelyn said, very carefully. “The salt light can be quite bright, and it can be like . . . Have you ever seen mirages in fog? If you stare at it for long enough, you see towers and giants. It’s the same in the deep. The deeper you go, the more salt light there is, the more it happens. People can . . .” He drew his breath in slowly. “People go mad down there. They do all kinds of dangerous things.”

Jericho looked troubled. “Maybe, but he didn’t bite himself. Too big a mark for a human.”

“Maybe someone’s dog, or a hunting fox? Animals go nuts too, it’s why they don’t use horses to pull the carts.”

Jericho rolled his head a fraction in a way that said he had long since given up on trying to extract a lot of sense from life. “Anyway, do you want some coffee? I just made some.”

“God, yes, please. Just black.”

Jericho held out the cup, right at arm’s length, so that he didn’t come any closer than he had to.

Avelyn took it and held it against his heart, because he had cooled down suddenly, and now he felt as though the fen had knitted cold into his bones. “Thank you. I don’t expect the ferry is running again yet?”

“No, I’m sorry. Some of them went to look about an hour ago. But even if it were, you wouldn’t be going anywhere,” Jericho said, much fiercer when he was being a doctor than when he was being a Jericho.

In all honesty, Avelyn wasn’t sure that he could. He felt much better than he’d thought he would, but that still wasn’t brilliant. “No. I’m going to start interviewing people though. You wouldn’t happen to have a list of the people who’ve had some kind of major cure, would you?”

Jericho made an unwilling sound. “I’d really prefer you didn’t work today.”

“I’d really prefer it if I was allowed to nuke the South African rugby team and keep the World Cup permanently in Cardiff, but you know,” Avelyn said.

“I—this might be a silly question, but how does a Hreoda come to support the Welsh . . .?”

“Father Li,” Avelyn explained. “When I first went with him to Rome he made it pretty clear that unless I cultivated a good interest in the fate of the Welsh team, we couldn’t be associated anymore.”

“Oh, I see. It’s Stockholm Rugby Syndrome.”

Avelyn stared at him for half a second, and then the laughter cracked through, because that was another joke like “appalling allegations.” People who liked Father Li twisted themselves in knots not to mention he had technically kidnapped a child; people who didn’t absolutely did mention it. He had never once met anyone who understood so entirely that it was a benign kidnapping that they could joke about what it wasn’t.