The Geomancer

by Clay Griffith

  Caterina kept her head high and started out. She stepped over the bodies of the dead rebels and walked down the tunnel of skeletons toward the uncertain mercy of her son.

  King Lothaire sat in a large chair that might have been a throne if he had any pretentions at all. He balanced the baby on his knee and watched the proceedings with an air of incredulity. He glanced at the empty chair beside him. Honore and Hallow huddled with Isolde in one corner, quietly conversing. Fanon and several of the mercenaries waited at the door, silent and ready.

  Dust-moted shafts of sunlight stabbed onto the figure of the queen standing in the center of the vast musty chamber. Caterina was careful to maintain a superior indifference to this insulting and undignified spectacle. She reminded her husband with every gesture and inflection that she was the queen and should have been in the empty chair beside him rather than standing alone in the dreadful sun.

  “Well,” Lothaire intoned in a voice that reverberated in the immensity of the garish red and gold room, “it seems to me no harm was done.”

  Hallow looked at the king in shock. Honore scowled with fury, and even Caterina couldn’t suppress a laugh at her husband’s typical attempt at ­dismissal.

  “Are you insane as well as weak?” Honore snarled. “I am the war chief and Hallow is my future bride. Queen Caterina is a criminal.”

  “Criminal?” Lothaire wagged his head back and forth with uncertainty. “That’s not clear.”

  “She lured Lady Hallow under false pretenses, and then set on her with some private militia.” Honore raised both hands with an air of indignation. “She is endangering the clan at our most critical time.”

  Lothaire again glanced at Caterina, hoping his wife would speak up, defend herself. She had to help him. Instead, she stayed quiet.

  Hallow filled the silence. “If I may, Majesty. I do not believe these thugs belonging to the queen were merely her private army. I have information that there are cadres of rebels.”

  Lothaire looked genuinely confused. “Rebels? Rebels against what?”

  Hallow said, “They seek to destroy the clans entirely.”

  The king rubbed his chin as if Lady Hallow were telling him that their kind didn’t drink blood. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. The clans are what we are. How can you rebel against that?”

  “Exactly, sire,” she said. “They’re completely mad. Which is not surprising since they apparently have some connection to Prince Gareth.”

  “Prince Gareth?” Lothaire sat forward with disturbed interest. “What do you mean?”

  “Gareth has influenced some of our people. It’s dangerous and must be crushed. Particularly if some of our own leaders are involved in spreading his murderous lunacy.”

  The king grew stern even as he returned to jostling the cooing baby. From the frost that gathered over the king’s demeanor, it was clear he would brook no discussion of Gareth’s lunacy.

  Hallow realized she had overstepped, a rare miscalculation on her part. She regrouped. “Fanon, you fought the queen’s thugs. What did you notice?”

  Fanon hardly stirred, clearly uncomfortable to be a part of this quarrel. “They were skilled. Some of them more than others.”

  Lothaire looked at the old soldier with disappointment, sad that Fanon was on the wrong side. “Did these ruffians threaten Lady Hallow?”

  “They did, sire. It was their clear intention to kill her.”

  “Did the queen threaten Lady Hallow?”

  Fanon paused. He took a deep breath. “I did not hear it.”

  Hallow spun on the soldier, but she didn’t openly accuse him of lying. Fanon was too long with the family for her to make another error treading on the king’s affections.

  Honore was not so shy. “We know mother tried to kill Lady Hallow! We’re not stupid. Everyone in Paris knows mother wants to kill her.”

  “Honore, shut up!” Lothaire screamed, then restrained himself as the baby jerked in fear. “Sorry. Sorry. Shhh.” He returned his now-­suppressed aggression to his son. “Forgive me if I require more evidence than the word of Lady Hallow before I believe the queen is a murderer or that our entire culture is collapsing. I’ve heard enough.”

  Honore said coldly, “I want something done about the queen!”

  Lothaire stood with menace, set into oddly frightening relief by the child he clutched to his chest. His brow furrowed in anger. “Here’s what I’ll do for you, son. Her Majesty the Queen is confined to the palace.”

  Lothaire’s eyes begged Caterina not to argue. She relented and stayed quiet.

  The king continued, “And Lady Hallow, you and your mercenary packs are banned from the palace. We’ll have Equatorian troops in our laps in a few months, so we can’t let the clan lords see this petty conflict continue.” When Honore opened his mouth again, the king raised his free hand. “No, Honore! That’s all. If you want to test yourself by trying to raise the packs against me, do it now! Otherwise, we are concluded.”

  Father and son stared at each other across the bright length of the gallery. Hallow took Honore’s arm, willing him to be quiet. The Dauphin strained at the leash, but couldn’t overwhelm her firm stare. Honore clamped his angry jaw shut.

  Lady Hallow bowed to King Lothaire, and then again to Caterina with a strange smile before gliding to the door. Honore followed her, fuming like a humiliated child, and then Isolde. Hallow paused to give Fanon a quick, unnerving glance and left the room. After a moment, Fanon made an embarrassed bow to the royal couple and led his men out.

  Lothaire’s exhalation echoed in the empty room. He hefted the squirming baby and trudged down the sun-speckled floor. Caterina stood waiting. When he passed, he stopped and stared into her eyes. The belligerence melted away. She could smell the blended scents of her husband and baby. He leaned close and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Caterina, my love,” he said in a cracked, fatigued whisper, “if you ever try to kill her again, please succeed. This sort of thing is exhausting.” With that, he cradled the baby and departed.

  Caterina laughed with slumped shoulders. She shuffled to the empty chairs at the far end of the room. She lowered herself into her usual seat. With a deep chord of sadness, she looked at Lothaire’s chair, and she realized just how unbalanced it felt to sit here alone.

  CHAPTER 31

  Gareth was muffled in white. He strained to hear and smell the world around him. Clouds had risen out of the valley and rolled over the monastery. He couldn’t see beyond a few yards and the wind was so calm scents weren’t carrying. The mist swirling before him offered nothing to see but folds and crevices shifting from white to grey. Suddenly dark shapes pierced the clouds. Gareth flexed his hands and realized he still wore gloves. He removed them quickly and shoved them in his belt.

  Hundreds of black-clad vampires settled noiselessly to the misty courtyard. Their feet had hardly touched when the monks rushed out from around Gareth. He quickly sprang from the overhang of a small building. Claws out, he tore at the invaders. His sweeping feet shattered knees and legs. He seized and wrenched, nearly tearing arms from sockets.

  Gareth wore his rapier and pistols, but it was more efficient to lay hands on the enemy. He always prided himself on his combat skills, but he was a lumbering brute in comparison to the monks. Yidak’s forces were works of art in motion. Their claws raked multiple targets even as they dodged and ducked without effort, riposting at the exact moment needed. In turn, the fighters from Chengdu hardly landed a blow and often stood staring as their abdomens were torn apart or their throats ripped open. The monks were soon drenched from the spraying blood that filled the air.

  Gareth used his advantage of strength, which was great even among vampires. He bulled his way through the fight, absorbing many blows and feeling the pulls of flesh tearing. His stamina preserved and powered him so he could thrash through the enemy like a cyclone.

  Amidst all the butchery, silence reigned. The only sounds were feet scraping over dirt, poun
ding impacts of hands against muscle, grunts of injury, and the flapping of the monks’ wet robes. The fighters on both sides were male and female, which was common among vampires, where females were just as vicious as their male counterparts. Gareth had never quite gotten used to the fact that women were banned from the battlefield in human culture.

  Eventually, as the struggle pressed on, the telltale sound of rasping breath rose. Gareth had no idea how long he had been fighting—five minutes, five hours, five days—but the Chengdu packs still flooded into the monastery. Dark shapes dropped through the clouds in an endless deluge. The monks fought on, but they were a second slower to turn and took an instant longer to deflect an attack. Robed monks staggered and dropped along with their enemies.

  A high-pitched screech cut across the muffled tumult of battle. Gareth recoiled at the sharp sound. Yidak called on his men all over the monastery to drop back. The monks had been divided into smaller operational packs and stationed across the grounds. Each pack had specific buildings or temples as their base. The buildings were intended to cover their backs and heads, to limit the space that the enemy had to attack. Now it was time to pull the Chengdu packs deeper into the narrows and winnow them.

  Gareth pulled his rapier to use the combination of claws and blade for clearing space for the monks around him. With the sword in hand, he found his Greyfriar fighting style returning. He drew on grace and motion, rather than pure strength the way Gareth would fight. His movements became a liquid series of feints, lures, and strikes. As the robed monks battled their way back toward sanctuary, they stole glances at the remarkable skill of the foreigner.

  Gareth backed toward the building where he and Adele had their room, which was the base for his small pack. He stabbed out at a fighter who lunged for him, then kicked the dying thing away. He slipped inside the room already crowded with monks. It seemed strange to see their homey little space full of blood-drenched vampires.

  Soon the windows and door were choked with figures battering, clawing, and biting at one another like animals. Monks blocked the two windows and single doorway, struggling to keep the surging invaders from pouring inside. The monks cut down the Chengdu fighters, who were dragged out of the way and replaced by new attackers who were likewise savaged. Other monks took advantage of the thin respite to gather their breath or kneel bleeding on the floor.

  Gareth was shocked to see Takeda among the crowd. The samurai was a statue of blood. His katana was a length of dripping liquid. Hiro crouched near him, also covered in red. The boy wasn’t nearly as terrified as before. The set of his eyes showed that Hiro was growing hardened to the task of his kind.

  “What are you doing here, Takeda?” Gareth asked immediately. “This isn’t your refuge. What’s happened in your quadrant?”

  “We were cut off from the main temple, so my forces retreated here.”

  Gareth froze. “Damn it! That’s where Adele is. I knew I should have been with her.”

  “This was her plan.” Takeda weaved through the wounded as some rose to replace more injured brothers defending the entrances. “She’s inside the hidden chamber. Can’t she defend herself?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to get her.”

  “No! Wait for Yidak’s next call. We can’t protect you out there.”

  Gareth started for the door without a response.

  “Are you insane?” Takeda cried. “Do you think you can fight your way alone?”

  Gareth turned back and snarled with building rage. “Yes.” He pulled both pistols and shoved the monks aside. He raised the heavy revolvers and opened a murderous barrage on the vampires who crowded into the door. Some fell to the ground; others reared back for a stunned second. Gareth slammed into them, muscling through the mob. Within seconds, he had disappeared from view through the roiling mass of vampires.

  Adele sat cross-legged in the pitch dark. Her eyes had adjusted well enough that she could make out the sinewy hints of carved figures around her crying, struggling, and killing. In the thick silence, she imagined the faint creaking of stone arms shifting and jaws widening in terror. The Tear of Death lay before her on the floor, a blot of black in the darkness. She was close enough to touch it, but she would not.

  Adele strained for sounds from above. The only thing she heard was the soft breathing of General Anhalt, who was positioned in the far rear corner. He was partially hidden among the tortured statues, cradling the Fahrenheit shotgun. Adele tried to filter out his sound and focus outside.

  Buried deep in the mountain, Adele had no way of knowing if the Chengdu packs had attacked, as she had believed they would. She felt the enveloping clouds would provide Goronwy the cover he needed to unleash his forces on the monastery with some hope of surprising the monks. Takeda had been suspicious of Adele’s idea, preferring to believe the enemy would starve them out instead of risking a fight. He hadn’t understood, as Adele did, that Goronwy wanted the Tear of Death very badly and needed to return to France before the spring offensive could dislodge his new patrons from Paris. Takeda also refused to credit the idea that his old army of vampires would take orders from a human. However, he had given Adele’s theory enough benefit to distribute the warrior-monks around the temple buildings in the fog to await a possible assault. She had come here to guard the Tear.

  A scratching sound came from above, followed by a faint click. Adele strained to listen, her tilted head wondering what she had truly heard. There was nothing now.

  Then she heard a sliding whisper, perhaps someone descending the steps. Maybe Gareth was coming to collect her. The cloud cover had lifted. The assault hadn’t happened. She had been wrong, but she was content to face Takeda’s smug silence.

  Adele tried to focus on the dim outline of the doorway and the faint horizontal lines beyond it that indicated the steps. She fought to control her breathing and to stay as quiet and motionless as the statues around her. Even without a nearby rift, she managed to slip into the shadows. After several minutes with no more sounds, she let her shoulders droop and relax.

  Something obscured the lines of the stairs and Adele froze. The blurry space of the doorway filled with moving darkness. Thin black contours like fingers slid along the sides of the door and objects protruded into the room.

  Vampires. Three of them. They were not clad in the typical black garb that the Chengdu fighters had worn, nor were they Yidak’s monks. These three wore European clothes. They hugged the doorway and cautiously peered into the chamber. Their vile faces bobbed from side to side. They crouched low, studying the sculpted walls and ceiling with no interest other than the fear that the figures might be real.

  Only now did Adele worry about how these three had found their way down. Not so much how they discovered the hidden passage; vampires were so sensitive to smells and air flow, it was likely simple for them to find the seam in the wall. Rather she was filled with the fear that the monks had been overwhelmed, and Gareth along with them.

  One of the creatures jerked his gaze in Adele’s direction as if he noticed her. She regained her calm and deepened the shadows around her. The vampire twisted his head in confusion, but then his attention went to the floor. He pointed at the Tear of Death, and hissed at his companions. They came forward in a spidery crawl, scenting with their mouths open, all of them staring at the phurba.

  One of the vampires jerked his head up, glaring into the back corner where Anhalt stood in the darkness. The other two followed suit and mouths full of sharp teeth opened wide in brutal smiles at the sight of a lone human.

  “No,” Adele said calmly and appeared before them.

  The vampires barely had time to register shock at her appearance. The roar of a shotgun sent one careening across the floor. Adele’s khukri swept up and sliced through a second, leaving a sizzling gash along his torso. The claws of the third grabbed her arm. Adele gutted him, then seized the vampire by the hair and drew her dagger across his throat. She kicked the body away and dropped to the floor as Anhalt leveled the shotgun o
ver her and fired again. The first creature had been trying to rise with a chest full of Fahrenheit shot, but now it was smashed into the wall with half its head missing. The general dutifully reloaded and dispatched the other two.

  “Thank you, General,” Adele said, and they dragged the bodies into a far corner.

  Anhalt saluted and returned to his spot to resume his watch. Adele took a long, calming breath and settled back to the floor near the phurba. She sheathed the khukri and darkness returned. She pulled her gaze away from the dim outline of the cadavers and returned it to the phurba. What was happening in the cold far above? Adele wanted to run up the steps and find Gareth, be sure he was alive. However, she knew she could do little in such a swarm. She had to protect the Tear of Death, even with her life. Sadly, even with Gareth’s life.

  There was a faint breeze against Adele’s cheek, no doubt from the open door above. If only Gareth would appear to tell her the fight was won, that these three vampires had slipped through, but no others. It was over. He would reach down to help her stand from the frozen floor. He would say—

  “I can see you, Princess.”

  Adele leapt to her feet. She spun around, seizing her khukri and pulling it with a hiss of steel. Wavering green light filled the chamber and cast garish shadows throughout the jungle of limbs and faces around her.

  Against the far wall, an arm moved, dappled with shadows. A leg uncurled into the light. Sinewy arms stretched from inside the tangle of screaming stone faces and grasped the extended stone claws of demons. A female shape detached from the entangling statues and slipped soundlessly to the floor some twenty feet from Adele. She wore dark breeches and a robe of navy silk. Long black hair draped her shoulders. Her pale face lifted to reveal searing blue eyes. The demon who had come to life smiled.

  Adele stared at the shape before her. Shadows quivered because her hand on the glowing khukri was shaking. She recognized the face. It was altered, but she knew it as clearly as she would know her own gravestone.