The Geomancer

by Clay Griffith

  A silent, black nest of snakes coiled about Adele. Her nausea flared again, but she focused elsewhere. Like dark flesh, the polluted rifts slid near her. She felt their wet touch as they probed her resistance.

  She sensed Goronwy in the distance, visible through the cascading sickness. He stared at her with a horrible grin on his face. He raised his hands, as if conducting the motions of the black rifts. The putrid things struck her again, slapping her hard to one side. Adele tried to shove them away, frantic to maintain freedom of movement. The oily surface was sharp. It cut her hands like razors.

  Adele sent a burst of energy into a dying rift stretching back to Goronwy. But before it could strike him, a black eel-like arm slammed down, smothering it.

  Goronwy laughed and pointed at her. For a moment nothing happened and the Witchfinder looked confused. Adele tried once more to waken a rift from its drowning mire, jolt it into life to attack the Witchfinder. Sluggishly, it obeyed and heat flared bright and yellow in the swathe of darkness. Goronwy gestured again, desperate now. A wall of black lifted and protected him, snuffing out the light once more. More unctuous coils roared past him toward Adele, wrapping around her body.

  Her legs were pressed together and squeezed. She felt her flesh being sliced. A scream was silenced by a rubbery knife edge covering her mouth. Every nerve shrieked. Tendrils of darkness crushed the breath from her and sliced through her like razors. She knew the dark expanse was going to take her.

  From inside the roiling black, traces of light reached Adele. Goronwy had directed his pollution to follow a specific direction along certain rifts to destroy her army. That left a few clean rifts glimmering nearby, untouched yet by the Tear of Death’s spreading mire. Adele felt that faint warmth. The hints of healthy scents wafted among the death, even as the sick rifts grew thicker, splitting open with the life essence they were siphoning away as they crawled southward.

  With a surge of excitement, Adele reached out, stretching for the cleanliness beyond. The heat responded to her. She felt it rising in her body, filling her mind with fire. The sweet smell of hyacinth crowded out the stench of Goronwy’s pollution. Fire collected inside her. She drew in more, building the flames, holding them, and feeding them until they flowed inside her like magma. The Witchfinder had no idea what power was, but he soon would. Adele prepared to unleash the full force of the rifts. She would pour power into the sodden diseased veins to the south and cauterize them. She would sear them from the land. The sharp rifts shuddered as if sensing the terrible power building within her.

  In an instant, Adele remembered Gareth. And Kasteel’s rebels. And Caterina and Lothaire. They were all within range of her wrath. The explosion of power would be so catastrophic it could melt even the protective talismans.

  And what of the rifts themselves? She recalled the terrible cracked and scabbed veins of Britain. She had done that. She had crippled the Earth, just as Goronwy was doing.

  Adele couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t be the Death Bringer any longer. She didn’t have the right. There had to be a way that didn’t require utter destruction.

  Through the swirling morass, she saw Goronwy’s face. He was close. They were only a few feet apart; they always had been. The distance was an illusion of the unreal setting because Adele saw now that they still both gripped the Tear of Death.

  Adele knew that if she released her hold on the ancient weapon she would be cast adrift, lost in the blackness, cut off forever from a chance to recover the warmth above. From Gareth and everything she loved. And more, the dark would continue to spread with its slow, inexorable progress. It would kill everything.

  Her dark eyes became silver orbs as her gaze locked onto Goronwy. Adele’s voice echoed across the narrow expanse. “You wanted to see true power. This is it. Is it what you imagined? We’ve got to stop it before we can’t. You must help me!”

  “It’s mine. I created it. It’s mine.” Goronwy twisted his head as stygian worms curled around his throat. He leaned into the caress of the black tendrils, mistaking it for affection or worship, lost in his own rapture. He had no experience to prepare him for this. He assumed that the powers he summoned would obey him. He grinned at her, at the Earth, as if he knew something. “The Tear listens only to me. I know what you did to the rifts from Edinburgh. Now I have that knowledge!”

  “You have nothing.” Adele tightened her fingers around the Tear. “This thing isn’t obeying you. It was only defending itself. Don’t you see? It’s a cancer. Neither of us can control it. This power is a terrible delusion. You told Selkirk that I was being trained to destroy the natural order. And you were right! What you’ve done here is the same thing. We are changing the tapestry of life with dire consequences. Neither of us have that right. We can’t remake the Earth as we will. I understand it now. Why don’t you?”

  “I do know.” Goronwy’s fervent smirk was ice cold. “And I can’t wait to study the aftermath.”

  “But this thing won’t stop. It will spread across the world and kill everything. Then it will finish with you.”

  “You’re jealous. You’re not half the geomancer that I am.”

  Adele saw that there was no reasoning with the Witchfinder. He was surrounded by chaos but thought it was order. He believed he had authority only because he hadn’t tried to exert it.

  “I’ve tired of you,” he said. “I thought you could teach me something, but I’m far above you.”

  Goronwy shook the Tear of Death as if to awaken it to the danger she presented, to cajole it to finish her. The rifts continued their frenzied work, forming their seething pattern around him as well as her. His confidence clouded and he looked suddenly sick. Concerned eyes shifted side to side at the blackness crawling over him as if finally seeing evidence of his own twisted geomancy. The rifts curled around, cutting deep into his flesh, smearing him with unnatural pitch.

  “No!” he roared in pain. “Obey me!”

  Fear burrowed out of Goronwy. The rifts knew nothing about him. He shouted in growing panic. His mouth gaped in stunned awareness of his own frailty, of his powerlessness. The corrupted dark slipped into his open mouth and streamed from his eyes. He locked on Adele, obviously seeing her calm as some sort of mooring in the cyclone.

  “I don’t understand,” he slurred in disbelief. “I studied.”

  Adele knew well the terror in Goronwy’s eyes. It echoed the first time she had waded out into the rifts alone. She had found herself lost, fearful she would never find her way home.

  “Help me!” The Witchfinder seized her with both of his hands. His grip was frantic but weak.

  Adele looked at the Tear of Death. Only her hand held it now. In seconds, the blackness tore into Goronwy’s body. It sliced into him like saw blades. Adele tightened her hand on his clothes and on the Tear, as if that would create a connection of some sort, but the foul power would not be denied. It pulled the Witchfinder away and cast him into a tumultuous current. His face appeared briefly in the morass with a distinct look of terror and incredulity before he disappeared screaming into a surging sea of black pitch.

  Adele held the Tear of Death. She was alone in the huge expanse of nothingness. Oddly enough, she missed the mere presence of another, even if it was the vile Goronwy.

  The horrific skin of death spread. The warm rifts in the distance grew cold. The bright nodes where rifts crossed blinked out. The dark stain spread ever so slowly, but without any resistance. The inky tendrils curled around Adele, not violent or sharp, but now sickly seductive. She could feel the chill seeping from the Tear of Death into her and then back out.

  The blackness wasn’t trying to penetrate her. Rather, it was flowing through her eagerly. The Tear was using her as a conduit. It needed someone. It needed an anchor to the real world to continue its work, but it only needed one. A more powerful one. Now it had her.

  Adele suddenly realized that, as the dark rifts passed through her, they were leaving hints of the lives lost. She felt melting glimpses of fear and
hope like snowflakes of souls. She hardly felt each individual, but a growing storm of awareness gave Adele a taste of all the people falling.

  She wondered if this was what Gareth experienced when he drank the blood of humans. He often said how he absorbed tantalizing hints of their love and hate. The wonderful and horrible touch of strangers suddenly made intimate. But Adele couldn’t allow it. It had to stop, no matter what the cost to her.

  She thought of her brother, Simon, unaware in Alexandria, waiting for a chance to enjoy a life that might end soon. General Anhalt no doubt stood beside him, who had struggled for so long and would accept death with resignation and dignity. Sanah who lived life as a poem and would understand a bitter ending, if given the chance. There were thousands, the thousands upon thousands living in Equatoria. Beyond that, millions throughout the world who were going about the day, whether grand or wretched, whether frightened or comfortable, completely unaware of the coming hammer blow. Adele was their only source of salvation. No one else would help them. They were in a nightmare but didn’t know it.

  Adele knew what to do. She had to deprive the monster of its connection to the rifts. She must release her hold on the Tear of Death. To do so would cast her small lonely frame out on the same storm into which the frightened Goronwy had been abandoned. The sightless, silent void would become her only home.

  The blackness engulfed her hand on the Tear, pressing her fingers tight against the frozen stone. It fought to hold her. It was frantic to keep her. Adele suddenly felt that the Tear of Death was trying to remind her that if she willingly cast herself out into the blindness she would die. She would float forever lost. Her fear came from it.

  Adele pried her fingers away from the phurba. The throbbing dark couldn’t hold her. She felt the cold stone rip away, along with a layer of skin, and she was free. Her hand burned in agony. Immediately the tides caught her and dragged her to the infinite horizon. Exhaustion numbed her body. Out of instinct, she reached out, grasping for something solid.

  The Tear of Death appeared before Adele. It was the safe, calm shore her mind craved. She could easily swim for it and pull herself out of the riptides. She didn’t have to drown alone in the dark. Adele stared at the black stone.

  Then she pulled her hand back. She smiled. She understood now. She had all the time she needed to find her way. It was the Tear that was lost and alone in the fading tendrils of black. Adele swam, easily and forcefully, with no specific direction in mind. All directions were proper. The power surrounded her, called to her, but she knew she didn’t have to answer. She had the power to resist. It was her choice. Adele’s breath escaped her in a sobbing exhalation.

  The energy surrounding her warmed, and a slight scent reached her. It was sweet. The eye of the Earth opened to stare at Adele, greeting her warmly. It was over. The rifts ceased their agitation and instead wrapped about her, draping her body with warmth and healing light. It held her close, gentle and soothing. The conduits of life swirled around her hand. It glowed bright white. She couldn’t feel her hand at all now.

  She searched into the distance. The remnants of blackness dripped from the rifts south across Paris, where the killing stain had spread. Also gone were Nanterre and Montreuil. But then she heard and smelled life in Rouen, Nantes, and Dijon. She sought farther still to the warmth of Lyon and Marseilles, and traveled all the way to Alexandria. Tears fell over her cheeks. Tears of relief. Simon was alive. As horrible as the cost had been, the potential was so much worse. The rest of humanity was safe.

  Adele opened her eyes. Strong arms held her. She was on her knees hunched over the stone floor of Notre Dame. Gareth knelt next to her, holding her up, his face a mask of worry.

  “Adele!”

  She could only nod at him. The warmth of the rifts vanished, leaving her cold. She leaned against Gareth, trading one source of warmth for another. Her eyes found her hand. The raw skin was covered in a sheen of ice crystals and her fingers were blue. Gareth took her frigid hand. Her fingers bent slowly and painfully.

  Nearby, the Tear of Death lay on the stones. It had been pulled from the Earth and it sat near Goronwy’s body. He was contorted, with terror in his open eyes.

  “He’s dead,” Gareth told her.

  “I’m sorry.” Adele’s voice sounded strange, hoarse and far deeper than normal. Everything about her ached.

  He took her against his chest. “The both of you were just lying there, holding that thing. Goronwy collapsed and then you pulled the Tear from the floor and flung it aside. But then there was nothing. I was afraid—”

  “I wasn’t. Finally.” Adele gave a soft laugh. Then she focused on his face, so torn and blood-caked. She tried instinctively to rise with a croaking exclamation, “Flay!”

  “Gone.” Gareth soothed her. “For now.”

  Adele almost asked why he hadn’t given chase, but she knew the reason.

  A shuffle of footfalls made her start, but he continued to hold her. “Don’t worry. It’s only friends.”

  Kasteel, Nadzia, Caterina, and Lothaire, along with the surviving rebels, stared at the twisted body of the Witchfinder. Their gazes tracked fearfully to Adele.

  She regarded the line of bloody faces. Then she turned wearily back to Gareth, his sapphirine eyes studying her anxiously. She didn’t even have the strength to touch his torn cheek. “We did it. We stopped him. All of us together.”

  Gareth lifted her in his arms and bowed his head against her cold cheek. “Yes,” he whispered.

  EPILOGUE

  Adele walked once more in Greyfriars kirkyard. The air was soft and warm. Daffodils quivered around the moss-scarred tombs. Birds sang in the budding trees. It was a beautiful picture.

  The gravel crunched under her feet and she saw ripples of energy spread with each step, as if she were strolling through a shallow stream. When she reached a spot near the Flodden Wall, fear welled up in her, numbing her legs and arms. Even so, she walked toward the tomb where Mamoru waited. She knew she shouldn’t go. Only shame and death waited there. But she couldn’t stop herself.

  As she made her way between gravestones, she saw her body lying on top of the tomb. She drew close and looked down at her figure, sleeping peacefully, as if unaware that something terrible was about to happen. She wanted to wake herself and warn her, tell her to get out of here. Maybe there was still time to run. At least hide behind a nearby grave so Mamoru wouldn’t see her.

  The body on the tomb opened her eyes and smiled up at herself. “Don’t worry. I understand.”

  Adele blinked and saw Gareth. He sat at a desk, framed in a window. Sun shone red around him and nearly shaded him into a black shape. The familiar roofs of Paris were visible behind him. The timeless patience in his posture gave her comfort. His head drooped. He was asleep.

  Adele smiled. She felt rested and calm, just as she had seemed on the tomb. Mamoru hadn’t appeared at all. She took a long breath and felt a fresh bed sheet ripple over her. Gareth leapt to his feet and the chair clattered to the floor behind him.

  “You’re awake?” He leaned over the bed.

  Adele started to stretch, but aches shot through her legs and shoulder. Still, it was merely pain. She could heal from that. “Where’s the Tear?”

  Gareth pointed toward the windowsill, where a small lump rested wrapped in cloth and tied with twine. She reached out for it, so he handed it to her. She held it for a moment, feeling the hard edges under the rag. She was careful not to touch any part of the stone that might show through. While her fingers tingled, she didn’t feel the terrifying disassociation that the Tear of Death caused when she touched it with bare skin. She would have to find a safe place for this object; a place only she knew. Perhaps there was a chamber in the Great Pyramid where she could hide it, and then seal it in. Until then, Adele would keep it close no matter how frightening it was to her.

  “You’ve been asleep for two days,” Gareth said.

  “Have I?” She sat up into the sunlight. “Have you been here that en
tire time?”

  “Where else should I be?”

  It brought a renewed sense of peace to her. She looked past him toward the window. “What’s happened out there?”

  He knelt in front of her. “The city is back under Lothaire and Caterina’s control, more or less. Hallow has disappeared. Flay is gone, but she took nearly half the packs with her.” He lifted her face and looked deeply into her eyes, searching for something. “The Witchfinder’s attack wasn’t absolute. They’re estimating nearly seventy-five percent casualties in Rotherford’s army and among the humans for many miles south of Paris. Survivors of your army are retreating. Lothaire guaranteed their safety back to Lyon. Not that he could’ve sent more than a few hundred against them in any case.”

  Adele groaned with the memory of climbing into the tower of Notre Dame after Goronwy’s death and surveying the vast field of death to the south.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Adele. You tried to convince the generals.”

  She looked up in alarm. “What about Captain Hariri and his crew?”

  “They’re alive. As are many more. Thanks to you.”

  “Not just me. I couldn’t have accomplished anything without you and Kasteel and the rebels. Millions of humans have you and your disciples to thank for their lives, although they’ll likely never know it.” Adele sank back against the pillow. “That will be no comfort for the families across the empire when they find their sons and husbands and brothers have been killed.” She pressed his hand into her cheek. “We’ll have to return to Alexandria immediately. Simon and General Anhalt can’t be left to deal with this disaster. The sooner I can get a ship back the better.”

  “Yes.” Gareth seemed hesitant and nervous.

  “What’s wrong?” Adele asked, searching his face. She attempted to move to the side of the bed, intent on standing up.

  “Nothing is wrong.” He calmed her with a gentle touch. “You need to rest, to heal.”