by Sarah Roark
“A pity a man should have to break his back for hours on end just for that…” Ditmar returned to his task, selecting a new tree, a slightly smaller one this time. He sank his ax deep into its bole. An instant later he cried out as dark liquid gushed forth from the slit he’d made.
“Werner, look!”
Werner came over at once, crossing himself. “Blood!”
“There’s godless filth for you—” Ditmar attacked it with fervor now, all complaints forgotten. Werner joined him. Between them, they soon had it crashing down. The blood continued to flow from it, brighter red now.
“Deo gratias!” Werner exclaimed as it fell. Ditmar echoed him. The fallen trunk before them shivered, all its leaves shaking as though in a breeze. Then a section of it softened and shifted. A moment later the cloaked body of a slim youth lay before them, its right foot severed off. The youth half-rose and lifted his trembling hand toward them. As they watched, it reddened with sunburn and exploded into a fiery mass that soon consumed him completely.
They crossed themselves again, breathing heavily. Then all at once Ditmar broke into some lusty song about the baron’s daughter and went to find another tree.
“Brothers!” Werner shouted to his compatriots. “Brothers, look sharp! We must try them all, and find the ones that bleed!”
As it turned out, they could find only four in the entire grove, but even that gave them great satisfaction. It was a victory they could report to the senior brothers (whose Devil-inflicted daytime infirmity regrettably kept them from joining in) and claim as their very own. Better yet, several hours into the work a band of pagan worshipers wandered unwittingly into their midst, seeking the cup-stone that had already been turned over and pissed on. The men among them had spears, but that would help them precious little.
“Now there’s something I know bleeds, and my favorite sort of tree to fell moreover,” Ditmar smiled as he hefted the ax and went toward them.
“Couldn’t you just give me one of those stones, like you gave to Torgeir?” Hermann grumbled that evening. Jervais restrained a smirk. One night the man was terrified at the prospect of even entering a ritual circle, the next he wanted playthings. Granted, the signal-stones would have been simple enough for even a Ventrue to use, since all one had to do was trace the alpha on the sending-stone with one’s finger to set the omega on the herald-stone alight.
“I’m afraid that was Master Antal’s only pair, and Torgeir’s going to be a good deal further away from me than you are. Now Baghatur wrapped these up very nicely for you in the proper color cloths. The blue bags will send up blue plumes when you throw them on the fire, and the red bags will send up red plumes. The blue plumes are to make anyone that’s watching think the Tremere are up here on the hill working sorcery, so just throw one on every so often. Then if you do get attacked, throw on a red bag.”
“And the other red bag?”
“Is to signal your victory, or at least your survival. I trust you won’t ask me for one to signal defeat.”
Now it was Hermann’s turn to smirk. “No, Master Jervais.” He rearranged Jervais’s sigil-embroidered ceremonial cloak around his shoulders and glanced at Landric and the other four knights, who were likewise doing their best to make Tremere cloaks fit comfortably over knightly mail. “Well. It’s a good thing we won’t need to pass for sorcerers at close range…”
Jervais chuckled and went to check on the young Khazar, who was working furiously in his tent.
“Ready to go yet?”
“Er…” Baghatur held up one flagon. “Here’s the remnant of the antithesis I made to get you out of those roots, it should still be good. And here’s another batch.”
“This won’t do, my lad. It’s a good-sized bog. We’ll need at least one more of these.”
“But I can’t, I’m out of ingredients.”
“What would you need more of?”
“Well.” Baghatur started to speak, then stopped and blinked. When he spoke again, it was more subdued. “I would need some of…Zabor, actually.”
“Ah. For the filtration?” Jervais took out the vial of ash and passed it over.
The Khazar took it uncertainly. “Yes. Thank you, master.” He bowed.
“It’s not me you should thank,” Jervais said. “Hurry. We need to be gone.”
“I give up,” Antal shouted over the wind. “Take me somewhere else.”
Olena shook her head. When they first took off, her hair had been well braided in a thick rope, but that was long gone. One could take her for the wild vila of so many peasant tales now, with locks black as midnight whipping about in the chill air and her skin chalk white under the moon’s radiance. They’d quickly found that the best course was for Olena to hold Antal’s left hand. If she let him go entirely, he was too afraid to concentrate; if she carried him, he couldn’t conjure the bale-fire properly.
“You’ve dried it out now,” she shouted back. “One more, master.”
He spread his hands, and another ball of flame appeared between them, expanding into an amber-bright bead. Then he sent it down into the forest canopy. This time it caught. Nothing could be seen of it other than a tiny trail of smoke, but if it or one of its siblings would only blossom a little over the next hour or two, then a conflagration would start that only weather-witching of the highest order could put out. And if several of them caught and endured, then perhaps not even weather-witching would save the eastern alkas.
They flew back over to another spot where they’d been working before so that Antal could try to fan it with a friendly wind. Olena gave a cry of satisfaction as a glow of orange sprang up from within the tree crowns.
“There, you see? It’s begun.”
“Yes, it has.” Antal cast his gaze across the wide, shadowy blanket of foliage. Who knew how long it had stood here, how long the people had come? And that other billow of ash coming out of the very edge of the forest there, was he mistaken in thinking that was not one of his fires, but hearth-smoke? “Just as in Hungary, no one will be able to mistake where the Tremere have been.”
“Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down…”
“You can open your eyes, Baghatur, we are down,” Jervais called out heartily as the gargoyles rotated their wings and slowed to a stop just short of the ground. The Khazar’s feet fumbled a bit in the soft heaped peat and spongy moss of the bog-floor. Then he recovered himself.
“Now you’ve a good idea of the strength of your concoction, don’t you?” the older Tremere asked.
“Yes—yes, master.”
“Good. Your job is to portion it out as evenly as you can. Dig little holes and bury it.”
“Yes, master. And you…”
“My job is to spread it. Put your hand down on the soil here. Push on it. Feel that? It’s more water than anything else.”
“I see. That’s why it’s you and me here instead of the others.” He peered around. “Interesting. I’ll be curious to see if the moss affects the rate of absorption or—”
“Exactly. Now you understand what you need to do?”
“Oh. Oh, yes.” He padded here and there among the dense stands of pine trees, pouring out a little from the flagon each place he stopped. Jervais chose a puddle to start from and knelt down before it, thrusting his arms elbow-deep into the acrid muck. This would have to begin very small and grow gradually, with careful attention to the rhythm of the miniature tides he was generating in the mass of peat-soil. Even so, it might not be possible to kill the whole mire. But if he’d chosen his spot as well as he hoped, then it would be enough to cripple the vis well, and perhaps even the flow of the ley line itself.
“Master!”
“What?”
“There’s a…ugh. How, er, singular.”
“There’s a what?” Jervais called irritably.
“Well, look.” Baghatur reached into the weeds at the edge of a pond and dragged up a bloated arm. Its black-nailed fingers flopped back. “She’s weighed down with gold je
welry.”
“Hedge-wizards,” Jervais scoffed.
“I don’t suppose you—want it?”
“No. You have it if you like. Go ahead and drag her out, anyway, if it’s one less ghost serving the Telyavs that’s all to the good.”
He bent to his work again.
Five ravens and a hawk touched gently down upon the grass at the hill’s foot. A moment later there were no birds at all, but a hunched old woman, a young woman with brambles in her hair and four men who immediately lifted their spears and began to search the brush around them.
“What a horrible stink,” Daine whispered.
“Yes. I know I’ve smelled it before, but…” Deverra frowned and stared up at the billows of blue-gray smoke. “All the ingredients. It’s been too many years.”
“Now, at least, there must be only six.” Valdur was one of the Curonian group. None of the old magi were left among them except for Bernalt, but at least they took this business of numbers seriously once it was explained to them.
Yes, now they’re six. Alas, we here are only six as well, but only six could come swiftly enough. The mortal Saxons, at least, must die before they could chop down more trees and send more of her children to shameful, helpless deaths in the sun. And whatever the Tremere themselves were doing up there, all hunched and huddled together in a tight circle, could be nothing good.
“First, the ward,” she said. “But then, be ready to attack swiftly. The one thing you cannot allow them is time to think. And remember, it’s better to concentrate and kill one of them than to wound them all, so if you see one beginning to falter, show no mercy.”
They nodded.
Suddenly Valdur fell to the ground, moaning. “My priestess—”
They bent over him. He coughed, and a black foulness splashed out of his mouth and fell upon the ground. Where it touched, the grass withered.
“My priestess, they’re poisoning me… fouling the pannean…”
So that was the nature of the maleficium—mortals by day and vampires by night, nonstop blasphemy. “Stay here, and hold on,” she told him. She took out a zaltys snakeskin from her pouch. “Here, eat this. It’ll help you purge the curse. I promise you, we won’t let them finish. Will we?” She looked up at the others.
Daine nodded. “For Ako,” she whispered fiercely. “For all our fallen.”
They climbed up with souls and minds girded and hands linked, already speaking the prayers that would call upon the favor of the Maker-Unmaker and enlist his aid in this particular unmaking. The Tremere rose as their attackers crested the hilltop, startled, but they couldn’t react quickly enough. This time the Telyavs’ combined will surged up against their weakened ward and dissolved it like aqua fortis.
“Forward!” Deverra cried. Her voice wasn’t what it once had been, but passion carried it. Determined to remind her kin that they did not have exclusive purview over the flames of the Underworld, she sent a barrage of bale-fire directly into the head of the nearest. He fell flat on his back, dead almost in that instant. But as he fell, the cloak opened. Underneath was the bone-white flash of a surcoat with a great black cross emblazoned across it.
And now the other “Tremere” ran forward, throwing their cloaks back to reveal the warrior-garb underneath. Worse, each cross was alight, outlined in a golden glow that both mocked and invoked the memory of the sun. As one, her Telyavs recoiled from the sight. They didn’t flee, but the advance that had been perfectly unified and resolute suddenly became a confusion. The knights closed in with swords upraised, screaming something in that barbaric tongue of theirs. It was all the Telyavs could do to raise their spears and their most instinctive charms as the Saxons fell upon them.
Jervais got up, or tried to. He felt as though his legs had been bought new that evening, and only just now attached.
“I wonder if anyone lives around this little stain of pestilence,” he said vaguely as Baghatur came to help him.
“Someone must, master. Shall we find them?”
“Master.” Rixatrix had tried once to land in the soft soil here, and just as rapidly abandoned the idea. Instead, she coasted over to the trunk of one of the sturdier pines and clung to it. “Tower of red rise up.”
“Good, good…” Jervais looked in his purse and took out the signal-stone. Nothing yet. “Theoretically, that means at least some of the Telyavs are busy. But we’ve still got to wait for Torgeir. Yes, Baghatur, let’s look for a house. Some lone farmstead. Hellfire, a herd of cattle would suit at this point.” The gargoyle brightened alarmingly at that and gave an eager little whine. “No, no. A farmstead. That’ll do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Master wizards, please…”
Fidus straightened his sigils—all seven of them—and turned to follow his new-minted brother magi out of the ritual chamber. He couldn’t help a quick peek at the spectators as he did. There was Jervais, smiling broadly, and his old grammar teacher from Compostela, and his mother, and even Aristotle. And Lucien serving as usher, dressed finely as ever but now bowing. He bowed to Fidus, all the contempt in his princely face transmuted to affectionate respect at last. Yes, it was true what his teachers had said. Knowledge could open the gates of the kingdom to a man regardless of his state or station. “Come, master wizards,” Lucien repeated politely…
But no. Lucien was ash, and this wasn’t his voice anyway. It was the voice of the young mortal knight who’d been sent along with them. The heavy tent-cloths they’d wrapped themselves in for day-sleep tugged, and the leaves on top rustled. Fidus rolled counterclockwise and wriggled to free himself.
“What did you say?” he asked as he emerged. He just wanted to hear it again.
The knight sat back. “I said please wake up, master wizards.”
“I’m up. Torgeir…”
“I’m—I’m getting up.” The other pile of leaves rustled, and the albino’s head and torso emerged. He blinked at the mortal. “All right, what have you seen?”
“The hammering never stopped, not for more than the space of a Pater Noster.”
“It was the same last night…not even to make water.”
They all exchanged looks. Torgeir shook off the last of his cover, and the knight loosened his sword in its sheath.
“Well, that settles it,” Torgeir said. He laid a hand on Fidus’s arm. “Look out. It’s going to be fiery in there, you know.”
“How many corpses have I had to incinerate over the past decade?” Fidus retorted. Then he belatedly remembered he was in mixed company, and gave the knight a sheepish glance.
“Nevertheless…” the Dane pondered. “I think we’d better see to at least a few protections first. Even leaving the fire aside, we have no idea what we’re in for.” He stood. “Keep watching, sir knight. We won’t be more than an hour or two. If anything changes, tell us immediately.”
“Saxons!” Aukstakojis said brightly in that tongue when they entered the shack. “Saxon merchants always pay well!”
But Torgeir answered in Latin, calling over the noise. “We’re not here for ironmongery this time, I’m afraid. And you understand everything I’m saying, don’t you?”
The smith’s face fell slightly. He stopped hammering, set down his tools and turned to them.
“Even the busiest of tradesmen can usually find time to take a piss,” the Dane went on. He collected his companions with a glance. “Come on—”
They pinned the wiry little man against the wall. Torgeir brought out his cross and held it up where Aukstakojis could clearly see it. At the sight of it the smith’s eyes went wide with terror, and any fight that had been in him drained out.
“Look!” Fidus exclaimed. “Brother, look!”
He forced down Aukstakojis’s bushy mustache with his hand and pulled back on his hair to force his head upward. Without the thick garland of whiskers, they could all see that the smith’s nose had no nostrils.
“Yes, I don’t suppose imps strictly need to breathe. Neither do we, but at least we
have the souvenirs of humanity.” Torgeir smiled, allowing his fangs to descend. “No more playacting, smith. I’ve drunk a great deal of ungodly blood here already, and I’m hungry for more. So if you can kill us, then try. If not, speak.” He forced the cross in closer. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” the smith cried in Latin.
“The fire that must never go out. The fire dedicated to Telyavel the Smith, by which his covenant with his high priests is always sealed. She never even told the raiders that you were its guardian, did she? Now is it the forge itself, or only a single coal within? Probably a coal, since she had to move it when she came down from Livonia. Isn’t that right?”
Aukstakojis said nothing. Torgeir nodded at Fidus, who rather joyously knocked his head a sharp blow on the wall. The knight dug his sword’s tip into the smith’s chest.
“Yes, I carried it in a bucket!”
“Fidus, get the tongs and get it out. You’re probably looking for something more like a glowing piece of jet than a true coal.”
“All right…” Fidus’s dark-accustomed eyes watered, but he did as he was bid, poking and grasping gingerly. “Here, this one I think. It’s harder than the rest.”
Torgeir squinted at it too. It was hard to tell in the heated air, but to his sorcerer’s sight the thing did seem to radiate.
“Right. Now how to destroy it?”
“Water?” Fidus shrugged.
“I doubt it,” said Torgeir, but he saved a corner of his eye for Aukstakojis’s reactions, looking for something telltale.
“You can’t destroy it,” the smith insisted. “It is eternal.”
“I’ll just bet. Not much of an oath for Deverra to take, is it, to protect something that’s eternal anyway?”
But Fidus hefted the tongs, considering. Master Jervais had always said the funny thing about conjured devils—assuming that’s what this really was—was that they never outright lied, only by omission. “Well, maybe it’s not destruction she has to protect it from.”