The Rostikov Legacy

by Charlotte E. English

Chapter Seven

  Irinanda Falenia stayed in her shop until long after nightfall. The streets would be quiet; few people would be around to see her walking with her eyes half-closed, following a trail that nobody could see but her.

  She’d found a reason to touch the poison-man, when he’d come to her shop before. Not much, and not for long - a mere brush of her fingers against his as she gave him the phial with the supposed ijgaroot. In doing so she had gained a glimpse of his thoughts; scant, but perhaps it would be enough.

  An assortment of images had passed behind her eyes, flashing by so fast she had barely had time to draw meaning from them. She’d seen the bare trees of the forests outside of Ekamet, shrouded in mist; she’d seen a house, huddled low to the ground like a frightened animal; she’d seen a strip of braided, multi-coloured cloth with a tiny brass bell woven into the end.

  She’d seen the likes of this last before. It was a spirit-braid, the sort that was hung up outside of superstitious houses to keep malevolent spirits at bay. It was the sort of protection one would need if one was going to live out in the Bones. Only Konrad scorned such things.

  Konrad. His words echoed in her mind: take some care. When he had asked her to help him, she didn’t think he had meant that she should track the man down to his own house. Perhaps she should take Konrad along, for safety.

  But that would mean exposing her secrets to him, and he had not offered so much to her. If he did not trust her, she would not trust him either.

  She stood in the street for a moment and closed her eyes, summoning her memories of her earlier visions. She waited, hardly breathing, as they replayed themselves in her mind’s eye. Eyes still closed, she began to turn on the spot until her inner sense told her she faced true.

  This way.

  She opened her eyes, only a little; enough to see the street with both her physical and her spiritual vision. Houses and carriages and people passed by in a blur, unnoticed: she saw only the street in front of her feet and the destination.

  Out through the city gate she walked, slow and sure, with the patter of Weveroth’s small feet as accompaniment to her own soft tread. No lights shone in the Bone Forest, save an occasional will-o-wisp bobbing in the distance; but she knew better than to follow those. A pale moon shone fitfully overhead, brightening and fading again as clouds streamed across the skies.

  She had to slow her steps further in order to make her way safely through the forest’s irregular pathways. If she expanded her other senses she could be forewarned about the deep, ice-shrouded puddles that loomed out of the darkness, and about the pits and gulleys and layers of tangling branches that blocked her way. But her physical sight only confused her, burdening her mind with too many impressions. So she closed her eyes and viewed the night-time forest in her mind’s eye alone: a landscape in ghost-white, shimmering in the moonlight, the water gleaming indigo and the earth as black as the grave.

  She knew she passed the site of Navdina Rostikova’s death: the traces of it hovered still in the air, threads of black sickness marking the aether. She gave this a wide berth. It was not very far beyond this place when she came at last to her destination: her spirit vision saw dwellings crouching, crabbed and dark, among the white trees, sensed people moving within them.

  Rumour had spoken before of a community of spirit witches hidden out in the forests, but she had never yet seen it for herself. To the physical eye, these houses would be virtually indiscernible, so cleverly were they built: they blended into the crook of branch and trunk, into the soft rise and fall of the ground, perfectly camouflaged out here in the reaches of the Bones where few people came. Irinanda paused for a moment to admire. For a brief second, she wished that she had not forsaken her mother’s people and moved into the city. This life, wreathed in the natural forces of the Bone Forest, might have been hers.

  But she shook the thought away. This was no perfect world, no ideal society, not even for people like her. Somewhere in this settlement lived the man who had killed Navdina and left her body to rot in filth and uncleanliness, alone in the midst of the forest. The same man now plotted someone else’s death. Even those who revered and promoted the natural balances of life and death were capable of these offences against The Malykt’s Order.

  The house she wanted would be on the edges of this little village, she sensed that instinctively. Her mind’s image showed her a poorly tended, ramshackle version of the neatly assembled properties she saw around her now. This man, she realised, felt very differently from her about life out here. He resented the meanness of the dwellings, the relentless chill and damp of the marsh, the perpetual half-light under the endless, dripping fog. He saw none of the beauties, felt nothing for the elevation of spirit; he saw only privations, discomfort and obligations. He let his house fall to ruin and he consciously broke the principles of her mother’s people.

  He would want the life that Navdina Rostikova had so recently enjoyed, she felt sure. But then why kill the very people whose lives he coveted and admired? Perhaps she could find this out.

  She drifted soundlessly around the edges of the witch village, growing nearer to the poison-man’s home with every step. And then it was before her: the same narrow, crabbed, shabby house she’d seen in her mind’s eye. With a swift pang of regret she let the spirit-vision slip away from her and opened her own eyes fully. It was difficult to discern the contours of the house in this barely moonlit darkness, even though she knew it was there. And the fog muffled all sound, the drip-drop of the rain and condensation all that she could hear clearly. Was the poison-man within?

  Turning, she looked for Weveroth. She had forgotten him for a time, all her thoughts and senses occupied with the task of finding her way. But he had followed. He crouched behind her, fluffing out his drenched fur.

  ‘Is it safe?’ she asked him. He hopped forward, nose questing, and disappeared inside the house.

  She waited, but he did not come out. That was clear enough. In she went, following the route that Weveroth had taken to find the door.

  The house consisted of a single room, not spacious, its narrow confines cluttered with furniture and objects. Spirit-braids hung inside the doorway, like the ones she had seen in her visions. She ducked under them, taking care to avoid clattering the bells that hung from the ends and announcing her presence to the community. A bed was tucked into one corner, cupboards lined the walls and a table stood near the door. All were made simply from wood and braided withies; the covers on the bed were sewn from rough cloth and hides, warm and comfortable but simple indeed.

  The house contained everything a person might need for reasonable comfort, but it absolutely lacked in luxuries or even beauty. Except for one thing. A willow-woven box rested on a shelf, placed in pride of position as if it contained something special. Opening the lid, she found a collection of three rings and a bracelet. All were finely worked out of precious metals and stones: gold and silver, ruby and even one small diamond.

  They were as out of place here as she herself would be in the grand houses of Ekamet. That they did not belong to the owner of this dwelling was obvious enough. Had the poison-man indeed killed Navdina? Had he taken these from her body? But that didn’t make sense: the newspapers had said that Lady Rostikova had not been robbed by her killer.

  She had little time to consider the question further, for a squeak from Weveroth warned her of danger. Closing the box’s lid, she cast about for somewhere to hide. It was hopeless, of course: the room was far too cramped to afford any hiding place, and she herself was too big to fit into any of the tiny cupboards, or underneath the low bed. Could she reach the door without being discovered?

  She whirled, but too late: a tall man stood in the doorway, staring at her. It was the poison-man, she recognised him immediately: not only by his height and his features and the colours of his skin and hair and eyes, but also by the impression he left on her spiritual senses. His imprint on the aether was befouled, corrupted, shrouded with the sickness of his own s
oul and the filth he had inflicted upon the spirit-world by his crimes.

  ‘I know you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The apothecary.’ He entered the house, letting the bells on the spirit-braids ring as he brushed past them. ‘I could see you were one of us,’ he continued, ‘even though you’ve forsaken your village and your people and you live in a foreign city. I thought I could trust you not to betray me. Not to betray us. But you’ve followed me here. Why?’

  She grinned at him. ‘You’ve betrayed your own village, and far worse. You’ve no right to speak of betrayal. Besides, you are quick to jump to conclusions. Perhaps I simply wished to… hire you.’

  He folded his arms, staring her down. ‘Hire me. For what?’

  ‘Twice now you’ve come to my shop, seeking lethal poisons. From that I conclude that you’re open to certain assignments that many would balk at. If I wanted to have someone removed, would I be correct in speaking to you?’

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I might have traded those poisons.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she shrugged. ‘But I doubt it. Traders are only concerned with which poisons are the rarest and most valuable. You were looking specifically for the most virulent poisons, the ones that are always fatal to the imbiber. That tells me a great deal.’

  ‘How do you know I used them myself?’

  ‘I don’t. But that’s a fine collection of jewellery you have there, and I doubt you were given it for any innocent reason.’

  His eyes flicked to the box on the shelf, then back to her face. ‘You’ve been snooping.’

  ‘Yep.’ She grinned again. It wasn’t the reaction he expected from her; no one ever did. It made blunt honesty combined with levity a useful tool for throwing people off balance.

  It worked, again. He looked uncertain, then confused. ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘So you are available for hire. That tells me a lot, too.’

  ‘Such as?’ He folded his arms and glared at her. In that posture, and with his colouring and height, he reminded her a little of Konrad.

  ‘It tells me you’re an outcast here, or if not that then barely tolerated. And that’s why you had to ask me for information. You’re banned from the Old Knowledge, aren’t you? Some of it you take anyway. But poison-craft isn’t one of those things. There are no books out here, and nobody would teach you.’ She stared at him hard, all traces of levity or even friendliness gone from her manner. ‘And that’s because you’re tainted. Corrupted, probably beyond recall. You’ve already transgressed too greatly to redeem yourself. So you felt, why try? You became an assassin, one of the worst kind. When somebody came to you asking for a slow, painful, hideous death to be inflicted on Navdina Rostikova, you were quite willing to oblige. As long as they paid well. And they did, didn’t they?’ She glanced again at the box as she spoke. Its contents were extremely valuable. He’d been well paid for his newest, worst transgressions against the Order of the Worlds.

  ‘You’re not here to hire me.’ He said it flatly, his manner turning menacing. But she was unmoved.

  ‘The Malykant hunts you,’ she said softly. ‘Do you know that?’

  He froze at her words, turning pale. His hands shook and he swallowed, hard. It took him some moments to get himself under control.

  ‘You know this as fact?’

  She shrugged. ‘The newspapers said Rostikova was opened up and missing a rib. You know what that means. Didn’t you read the reports?’

  His lips twisted into a smirk. ‘No books out here, as you said. No papers either.’

  ‘You should have known you’d be hunted,’ she said coldly. ‘Deaths like hers, they stain the aether. Permanently. And the only thing that will ever clean away that taint is your death.’

  He was shaking again, his eyes wild. ‘No! That’s not true. It’s never happened before.’

  ‘You’ve killed others, is that what you’re saying? I’m not surprised, but I think you’ve been lucky. Or circumspect; the patterns of your crimes were thinner, flimsier, and they faded into the aether so that barely a hint of your wrongdoing was left. Not this time. The Malykant will find you.’

  ‘With your help?’ His voice had gone deathly quiet, and the way he was staring at her began to seem frightening.

  Summoning her courage, she stared him down. ‘Maybe,’ she said in a similar tone. ‘But with or without my help, he’ll find you. You’d better tell me everything now, and maybe he’ll have mercy on your miserable spirit.’

  ‘Everything? Such as what?’

  ‘Such as the name of your new target. The person the ijgaroot was intended for. Or the name of the person who hired you. It’s somebody rich, from the look of the reward. Somebody from the city. Give me a name.’

  His lips twisted in contempt as he looked at her. ‘If you believe me to be so easily cowed, you are not so sensitive a reader as I thought. Though you’re good, I’ll admit. You read me back in the shop, didn’t you? That’s how you found me. I should have taken more care. I knew you for what you are, even though you’re a foreigner.’

  Foreigner. Nanda had heard that word many times before. Her pale colouring was close enough to that of the majority of Ekamet’s residents, but her pale white-blond hair and sky-blue eyes marked her out as other. Her parents had been born far away, far to the north; and though she herself had been born in Ekamet she was not really one of them. It had been difficult, forging her place among them.

  It was one of the things that drew her to Konrad. With his dark colouring, he too stood out in Ekamet. But he too had found a way to work himself into their society.

  ‘I am a reader,’ she said, lifting her chin proudly. ‘And a witch, though my roots are, as you say, far from here. It doesn’t matter. The spirit-world is the same, and the natural Order is the same. And both reject you utterly.’

  ‘I can’t let you leave, of course,’ was all he said in reply. ‘Not if you found me so easily. You’ll find me again, no matter where I go.’

  The light in his eyes pierced her courage, and she began to tremble. She had got carried away in her indignation at his arrogance, the insolent way he bore himself and his filth, staining the aether further with every step that he took. She shouldn’t have confronted him.

  But it was too late to think of that now.

  ‘Kill me, and you’ll only increase your debt to the Overlord,’ she said quickly. ‘There’ll be no mercy for you.’

  ‘You may be right,’ he agreed. ‘But there are other ways to dispose of you.’

  He advanced on her and she backed away. There was nowhere to go, of course; she soon found herself pressed against the back wall of the house, with the poison-man’s large frame between her and the door. He began to whisper under his breath, invoking spirits to come to his aid. It was the corrupted spirits he called upon, of course; those whose inner lights had been darkened long ago by their actions in aiding others like him. They, too, were outcasts, shunned by The Malykt and all who followed Him. And they flocked to this man’s call.

  He grinned nastily as wisps streamed out of the mist, twisted goblin-shapes that clutched at her hair and her clothes and pinched her skin. A hundred tiny hands grasped her, digging their tiny claws into her soul and tugging, hard. She fought, trying desperately to call her own spirit-guides to her aid; but the poison-man laughed and blew powder into her face and her wits scattered like seeds on the wind.

  ‘Enjoy your precious spirit lands,’ she heard him say, and then he and his shabby house faded. The white spirit-world she’d seen in her mind’s eye became real as she was pulled bodily through. The landscape glowed brightly enough to half blind her mortal eyes, all fierce lightning etched on deep shadow. Shapes formed and faded around her as the wisps whirled and shrieked and drove her mad with their clutching and pulling and their insidious whispers inside her head.

  Her mind had dissolved into a mess of fear, and though she grasped at conscious thought it eluded her. Her thoughts spun and her body whirled in confusion, seeki
ng nothing but escape from the vicious presences that sought to ensnare her soul.

  Screaming her fear and despair, she ran.

  In the space she’d left behind, the poison-man stood, holding his breath as he dusted the powder from his hands. He didn’t notice the tiny gold-furred monkey that ducked out of the house and sped away into the night.