by Unknown
He entered, gave a long sigh, and sank down on the narrow bedstead.
“Trayn, it’s Jenna,” she said softly.
“Hmm?” he mumbled, then sat bolt upright. “You can’t be here,” he exploded in a savage whisper. “A lady does not come to a man’s room uninvited and unchaperoned. It spawns unflattering rumors.”
“I realize that,” she shot back. “But this is too important to wait on proper protocol. Things have happened. I had an unpleasant introduction to Commandant Frant. He believes I am here solely to follow his orders and cleanse the Cold Wing. But more distressingly, a spirit waylaid me on my way to dinner and warned that the dungeons have been opened again. I don’t think these are unconnected events.”
Trayn mumbled something under his breath.
“I did not bring this on myself,” she snapped. She actually hadn’t heard his words, but she knew the type of thing he tended to mumble to himself.
“I said, ‘please just one night of quiet before I die’,” he retorted. “I know full well you did not bring this on yourself because I’ve been hearing all evening about this jackass of a new Commandant. It’s not good, Jenna. He was fine the first week, then suddenly got a wasp up his trews about something. Unfortunately, you’re just the type of person to draw his fire.”
“Because I’m a woman or because I’m an exorcist?”
“Either...both,” Trayn shrugged. “But mainly because you have opinions and don’t keep them to yourself.”
“And have the dungeons been reopened?”
He nodded slowly. “Talk is that the Commandant has a witch down there. Holding her with cold iron until a specialist can come hear her confession.”
A cold chill ran up Jenna’s spine. “A specialist—a torturer, you mean?”
“That would be my guess, though that word wasn’t used.”
“Then it is starting again,” she murmured. “That’s the problem with the Cold Wing, you know. It was used to torture and kill witches, people with Talent. And believe me, if there’s anything more difficult than an unquiet spirit, it’s a dead witch with a grievance.” Then she paused and cocked her head, considering. “Is it possible that this is being done without authority?”
Trayn frowned. “The Commandant has complete authority over the Commandery.”
“But only over the Commandery. My point is that there are policies that come down from King’s City. I know the official instruction of the Exorcist-General to all exorcists is to cleanse hauntings, lay the vengeful dead to rest, and not stir up trouble with the Other Side. How can Commandant Frant be going in a completely different direction from official Church policy?”
“A very good question,” Trayn nodded. “Perhaps you and I should investigate the dungeons in our own respective ways tonight.”
“A summoning, you mean.” Jenna didn’t look forward to that. With so many unquiet dead wandering around, it was like opening a floodgate.
“A summoning for you; a casual chat for me. Where there’s a prisoner, there’s a guard. And where there’s a guard, there’s always room for a mug of ale. And the sooner done, the better. If you’ve already crossed Frant, he’ll be looking for charges to bring against you.”
~o0o~
Charges to bring against you. The phrase kept rattling in Jenna’s head as she trekked back to the Cold Wing. If she’d had any idea, she would have bypassed this homecoming and kept going on the road. But now that she was here, it would be awkward to leave again so soon...maybe not even possible. The Commandant was correct that she was dependent on his good will for horses and supplies.
Upon reaching her quarters, she rapped on the door and waited for the bolt to be pulled back. “That took a long time,” Herrin said nervously as she entered and bolted the door again. His face looked pale and pinched.
“Yes, mostly waiting for dinner to end. I am going to do a general summoning,” she said to get that unpleasant fact out there. “And I need your help, so don’t even think about leaving. Besides, you’re safer with me and the dead than with the living at the moment.”
“Trayn knew something?”
“He’s hearing unpleasant things. We suspect that the new Commandant has opened up the dungeons for torture again. Yes, exactly,” she added at her brother’s shocked expression. “This is grim, and it may not be official. If the worst proves to be true, you need to be prepared to run for Mechon Abbey down by the river, carrying a complaint to the Exorcist-General.”
“This shouldn’t be happening,” he murmured, sounding very young.
“No, it shouldn’t,” she agreed. “Now, help with the salt circle. And when the spirits come, I’ll need you to scribe everything I say. There will much too much for me to remember.”
They laid the protective circle quickly with themselves safely inside—or as safe as one could be amidst a crowd of restless souls. Jenna took a moment to focus herself, then intoned, “Spirits trapped between one world and the next in this building of stone and pain, heed my voice. Come to me, speak to me, and I shall listen.” Three times she spoke the invocation, each time feeling the temperature in the room drop, despite the roaring fire on the hearth.
By the third time, it was as if Lord Winter had come to visit in all his icy majesty. And they were no longer alone. To Jenna’s eyes, it was a throng of pale, transparent bodies pressing forward in all directions, held off only by the salt circle surrounding the two of them. “What do you see?” she whispered at Herrin, who sat cross-legged beside her.
“Mist rising from the floor,” he murmured back. “Very dense. How many are here?”
“Scores, maybe hundreds. They run together. Here we go. Spirits,” she said, raising her voice. “I have been warned that the dungeons have been reopened and a prisoner now sits in a cell of cold iron. Tell me how and why this has happened. And how it can be stopped.”
A wave of thin voices washed over her in a jumble. She concentrated on a word here, a phrase there, until she found a coherent voice. “You,” she said, pointing a finger at a wispy figure in a bonnet. “Speak.”
“I was accused when I was innocent,” the figure whined. “I was tortured when all I wanted was to live in peace with my children.”
“You have been heard and I grieve with you at the injustice,” Jenna intoned after repeating the words for Herrin’s record. “Lay down the burden of your grievance and move to the Other Side.” The figure gave a wispy sigh and faded away. Some spirits merely wanted to be heard. Those were the easy cases. Another voice pushed into the void. Another story of injustice and torture. One after another, she repeated them for the record. Later she would comb through them for common elements. Then a stronger voice.
“I was taken and my body broken for following the Old Ways,” this new spirit—definitely a woman—began. “I was held in the cell of cold iron for they feared my powers, even though I was dying. But one thing I was able to do—drag my torturer into the limbo of undeath with me, so that he also can find no rest.”
Jenna felt her whole body tense as she realized what the spirit was saying. This was what the living feared most from the dead—not death, but eternal undeath. “Does the cycle begin again?” she asked after again repeating the spirit’s words. “Is the living woman now being held in the cell of cold iron also a witch?”
“I told her what I did to my torturer...and how,” the witch spirit wheezed. “Now she lies in wait.”
Jenna shuddered. This was the worst of everything repeating itself. She had to warn Trayn to warn the other knights to stay clear of the witch on pain of damnation. “How can I stop this cycle?” she cried to the circle of spirits. She felt her concentration, her ability to hold their attention, faltering. “How can I persuade the Commandant?”
“The Commandant is as good as dead,” a voice whispered as the ghosts began drifting away, many sucked into the floor like unwary travelers into quicksand.
“Did you get an answer to that last question?” Herrin asked, quill poised over the parchmen
t.
“Not a good one,” she muttered. “Decidedly not a good one.”
As the last spirits faded, she felt warmth creep back into her body and was able to brew them cups of tea from the kettle steaming away on a hearth trivet. The hot liquid was like life itself after the unnatural cold.
She felt herself sag into a comfortable drowsiness, then abruptly came awake at a soft tapping on the door. But she never had visitors of the living sort. Exchanging a puzzled glance with Herrin, she unbolted the door. A shivering figure darted into the room. “Trayn? What’s happened?”
“Tea first,” he said through chattering teeth. “How can you abide this place?” He sipped from the cup Jenna offered and added, “There is indeed a witch incarcerated in the dungeons. And there’s worse—the interrogatory specialist arrives in the morning. I knew you needed to hear that immediately.”
So they were out of time, and still no answers. No, she did know a few things, like a dead witch who had cursed her torturer. She straightened as another odd bit came into focus. “Who calls the Cold Wing the Amantias Wing?”
“That’s the original name for it—inscribed on the cornerstone, even. But no one’s called it that in years. Not since—”
“The persecutions?” As Trayn slowly nodded, she grimaced. “That’s what Frant called it earlier today. Twice in fact. I would lay money that he’s a blood descendant of one of the Knighthood’s torturers from back then. And his coming here woke up some old evil. We need to break that connection.”
Trayn raised an eyebrow. “How?”
Jenna sagged onto a stool near the door. “I don’t know—yet. If this is just a form of possession, dead salt and Holy Water could break it, but it might be more curse than simple possession. To break that, we might need a—”
“—a witch?” Trayn supplied.
She grimaced and nodded. Suddenly she stood and lit a chamber lamp from the fireplace. “And we shouldn’t delay.” She turned to her brother. “Organize the notes from the summoning and attach a letter of complaint against the Commandant. Then ready yourself for a quick departure. If all this goes wrong, you have to make it through the woods to Mechon Abbey. Oh, and Holy Water. A small vial from the chapel should be enough. I’ll meet you in the Great Hall when I’m back from the dungeons.”
“This is crazy,” Trayn protested. “Trying to get into the dungeons is crazy and enlisting the help of an angry witch is even crazier.”
“Doing nothing is crazier still,” Jenna retorted. “We only have until morning.”
Unexpectedly, Trayn dropped the argument. “Let’s go, then.”
She had envisioned doing this part alone, but one look at Trayn’s face dissuaded her from mentioning that. He had his “it’s my duty” look on his face and in truth, it made sense. He was, after all, her sworn protector. But this might be awkward.
“I’ll try to persuade the guard that our exorcist needs to inspect the dungeons for official purposes,” he offered as they moved into the corridor. “But at this hour, it’s a thin argument.”
Very thin, she thought. “No need, Trayn. There’s a concealed spiral staircase in the corner of the Cold Wing that leads directly to the dungeons below.”
“Truly?” In the lamplight, he looked amazed. “How is that not known?”
“Because no one comes to the Cold Wing and until recently, no one used the dungeons. But spirits told me about it when I first moved in, not that I’ve had had any desire to use it.” She found the hidden door and planting her feet carefully on the steep stone steps, she made her way downward by the dim light of the lamp.
Cold. Cold. Cold. Even as used as she was to the chill of death, this coldness was heart-numbing. She must be close to the torture chambers themselves where so much violence had occurred. She pulled her cloak closer and walked the length of the twisting corridor. Beside her, Trayn was shivering violently. Then she heard moaning from within one of the cells. “Stay here,” she whispered to him.
She backtracked, unbolted the door, and pushed it open. A plump, matronly woman was strung up by her wrists in an iron box. Where the shackles touched, her arms showed burn marks. The bite of cold iron on those with magic. “Don’t do it,” Jenna muttered in a low voice. “I’m trying to help, but damning a soul will just make it worse.”
The woman’s eyes popped open. “Who are you?”
“An exorcist. I talk to the dead and they told me. I don’t know why you are imprisoned, but none of this is right. The persecutions ended generations ago. This is like an old curse someone has stupidly released. I’m trying to make it right. Will you help me?”
“Are you blind?” the woman snapped bitterly. “I can do nothing but hang here, bound by cold iron.”
“Well, there’s cold iron,” Jenna said, opening her cloak to reveal an earthenware jar where she had scooped up salt from the circle. “And there’s salt recently used in the summoning of the dead. My Gran used to say that as salt corrodes iron, so dead salt corrodes the numbing power of cold iron.”
“Your Gran was a witch?”
“Gran talked to the dead, just like me. To my knowledge, that was her only talent. Do we have agreement about setting things right without vengeance?”
“If you knew half the—”
“I do know,” Jenna insisted. “I live above these dungeons with every dead witch who was ever tortured to death whispering the bitter details in my ears. Vengeance leads nowhere good, either in life or in death. So I ask again, do we have agreement? And I ask all who have suffered in this cell to bear unseen witness to our words.”
The witch’s eyes narrowed. “You’re very savvy for one so young.”
“I negotiate with the vengeful dead as an occupation. One learns to be very careful with words and agreements.”
“Hah. Well said. You just might be the one to set this mess aright after all. No vengeance—you have my word.”
Jenna stepped closer, set the lamp on the ground, and began flinging handfuls of salt at the iron box. “Let the salt of the earth ease the bite of cold iron,” she intoned ritually. It wasn’t a ritual she knew, but she had gotten very good at improvising. When the jar was empty, she asked, “Better?”
The witch gave a long sigh. “Much. I don’t suppose you have the key to these manacles?”
Jenna shook her head. “The guard must have the key. What can you tell me about your capture? Why you? I can think of half a dozen witches within easy range of this Commandery. But only you were captured.”
“True.” The woman thought a moment. “My family is well known locally. The power has passed mother to daughter for many generations. My grandmother was a victim of the old persecutions. Died right in this very cell.”
Jenna gave a start. “Is she the one who whispered to you about dragging the soul of your persecutor into damnation with you? Yes, it must be. Blood speaks to blood, even without any special talent to speak to the dead.”
“Is that important?”
“I think so. I’m guessing your ancestor cursed the Commandant’s ancestor, and now both those ghosts are fighting on through their descendants. But this is more than simple possession, and that’s where I need your help—”
“Someone’s outside the door,” the witch hissed suddenly. “If you’ve betrayed me—”
“No, no,” Jenna assured her. “It’s just my Knight-Protector who is my ally in trying to set this right. Trayn,” she called in a soft voice. “Come inside.”
He entered warily, eyeing the witch as suspiciously as she was eyeing him. Jenna was exceedingly glad she’d obtained a binding oath of non-vengeance. “Breaking the curse,” she prompted. “Dead salt and Holy Water are my usual tools.”
“Blood,” the witch said. “A curse like this would have been written in blood and only blood can break it.”
“Whose blood?” Trayn demanded. “Not Jenna’s.”
“No...mine. A little blood, freely given, should offset the generational curse when combined with words of release a
nd the name. And quickly now.” The clang of a metal door far down the corridor underscored her last words.
Trayn unsheathed a dagger from his belt and pricked the witch’s forearm. Jenna caught the trickle of blood in her empty salt jar before it slowed and thickened. Then she scooped up the lamp. “Be brave,” she urged at the door.
“You—young Knight—tarry a moment,” the witch urged and whispered something at Trayn when he stepped closer.
“We need to hurry,” Jenna reminded them.
“Yes, we’re done—let’s go,” Trayn said, setting a quick pace. They hurried up the twisted corridor to the steep, spiral steps and climbed as fast as prudence allowed.
“Damn, you play a dangerous game, Jenna,” Trayn muttered as they reached the floor above.
“The danger is this blood curse driving the re-opening of the dungeons. Here, you take the blood and meet me at the door of the Commandant’s sleeping chamber. I need to stop at my chamber for more salt and a quick summoning.”
“A summoning?” Trayn looked uncertain. “Why? We have everything.”
“Except a name.” He seemed to accept that, and as their paths diverged, she asked quickly, “ What was your little heart-to-heart with the witch? Did she hex all your toes to fall off?”
“No, she said you were a rare gem and my body should be your bulwark in the darkness.”
Jenna stopped, startled. “What? No, later. I’ll see you upstairs in a few moments.”
“Where we’ll be breaking into the bedchamber of my commander. It’s indefensible if I’m caught, you know.”
“So don’t get caught,” she advised. “And I don’t know why you’re raising a stink when you’ve already decided that helping me is the only way to fix the Commandery.”
“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed with a shrug. “You just need reminding from time to time how insane your plans are.”
Jenna rolled her eyes.
~o0o~
The brass Vogelclock over the front door struck midnight. How appropriate, Jenna thought as she crossed the Commandery’s Great Hall. The witching hour for undoing some old, wicked witching. Herrin was waiting in the shadows near the door, dressed for traveling in cloak and boots.