by Greg James
“You mock me and my pain,” Murtagh said.
Khale shook his maned head. “No, I understand it more than you know. I have lived it longer than you know, and I will tell you this: they lie, those who will try to give you comfort and tell you time heals all wounds. It does not. Time heals nothing. Even when the faces are gone and the names are forgotten, the pain remains. The loss lives on. The constant, scarified ache, how it burns like the darkness in dreams. It becomes the soil of life, and we cannot live without it.”
“Your words are no balm to me.”
“They are not meant to be a balm. I tell you true. If my words were a balm, they would be lies. I leave lies to the mouths of others. The feast is over and the lamps are expired. All that remains for us is Death and her darkest pyre. We are the unhappy, the unhomed, lost in the night.”
“You try my patience with your words, Khale.”
The Wanderer went on, smiling crookedly, eyes insane. “Life’s long night is a masque where the dead walk soft in the halls believing themselves alive and yet, as the hours grow old, certain costumes fall away, and some masks worn, worn so thin, show us some little truth beneath their smiles, the lightlessness behind their lies.”
“I have had enough of this,” Murtagh snarled. He drew his sword and slashed at Khale.
The Wanderer brought his arm up, and did not flinch as Murtagh buried steel in his flesh. Hot blood ran from the wound. Khale put his weight against Murtagh, heaved, and sent the former Captain back on his heels to stagger across the chamber.
The Wanderer retreated to the shadows, the light of his eyes casting a ghoulish glow.
“You think you can save yourself from me?”
“I think I could save myself from you with my bare hands.”
“Then why not use them?” Murtagh growled.
“I will. I’ll wrap my fingers around your throat and wring the life from you.”
“I don’t think so.” Murtagh feinted and lunged forwards.
Khale circled to his right, away from another strike that clashed against the stone floor where he had been standing.
“Slow and predictable,” Khale mocked. “You fight with too much honour.”
“So say you,” Murtagh spat as he slashed at Khale’s legs.
The Wanderer nimbly danced away.
His two-handed sword was out of reach. A single blow from that would end this. But Murtagh was not an idiot; he had placed his body between Khale and his favoured blade.
The former Captain was right, after all: an honourable man would allow his foe to fight equally armed. This time, Murtagh was not going to let that happen. He meant to slay Khale, by whatever means he could.
And so, their dance of death went on as the weaponless Khale dodged and wove.
The chamber rang with the song of steel on stone as Murtagh’s strokes were evaded.
But Khale was cut across the chest and a calf, and forced to favour the arm in which Murtagh had earlier buried his sword. The wounds would close in time, but not enough time. Khale knew spells that could end this in a moment, but his thoughts were still slow from the wine he’d imbibed at the feast. Fragments of magic came to him, scattered words, but nothing complete.
His pulse quickened as he moved around the bed, dodging a vicious thrust and slash from his enemy’s sword, which cut deep into the bedpost. Unarmed, unarmoured, and without an incantation on his lips—this was as near to death as he had been in an age. But was it fear he was feeling? Or uncertainty? Or relief? Relief that the centuries of darkness and blood might be over soon.
No, not at this man’s hands. Not today.
Murtagh’s eyes narrowed, and he roared as he charged at the Wanderer. He thrust and slashed but was beaten back by Khale who managed to snare him in an arm-lock.
“Leste was a daughter to me.”
“She was a pain in the backside to me.”
“Bastard.”
“You already said that, I think, old man. You should read some more. Poor banter makes for a poor fight.”
“I will have your head for what you’ve done.”
Khale brought a knee up, heavy and hard, slamming it into his foe’s abdomen.
Murtagh crumpled to his knees from the blow. He dropped his sword.
“I’m going to do this slow, Murtagh.” Khale pressed his Murtagh’s own blade into the former Captain’s throat, breaking the skin.
“You will not hear me cry out, and I shall not weep, Khale. Do as you will,” Murtagh spat.
“Khale ... master-puppet ...” The words were hissed from the open door.
Interrupted, Khale turned towards a pallid figure standing there.
It resembled Hruth Farness, but that its eyes were black pools and the flesh of its face was discoloured where stilled blood was settling. It opened its mouth, revealing sharp teeth jutting from bloodied gums. Its fingers scratched fitfully at its hair and flesh.
“Lord Farness?” Murtagh said, disbelievingly.
“No, it’s something that should not be here, wearing his skin,” said Khale.
It was not skinned, and it was still clothed, Khale thought, this was no true mirror-beast. This was a daemon wild and unbound.
He dragged Murtagh to his feet.
“Fight it, or die,” Khale said, returning his sword.
The creature came at them.
Murtagh swept his sword around in an arc to keep it at bay. It staggered backwards, though not fast enough. Tempered steel sliced through cloth and flesh as if it were cloth. Blood spilled onto the ground.
The creature laughed, and lurched forwards again.
Khale retrieved his own blade and thrust at it, trying to spear the thing. He did, but still it kept on coming. Though the edges of the blade cut through dead meat, it grasped at the knife, drawing it deeper into its torso until the metal was lost in harried flesh. Heavy blood sluiced from the wounds.
Khale tried to haul the sword free, but it was too deep in the creature’s chest and the thing had too strong a hold on the blade. He let it go with a push, sending the creature off balance to crash into the far wall. A wolf-skin hanging fell over it as it collapsed to the floor. Khale knitted his brows and rubbed at his forehead with fingers and thumb, trying to cast a spell, but his mind was not yet clear enough.
Bastard wine, he cursed.
Murtagh strode past him, putting himself between the Wanderer and the struggling creature. The Captain wielded a torch taken from one of the hall sconces, and drove the flaming head into the creature’s chest. The thing that had once been Hruth Farness, and the wolf-skin over it, caught alight. The thing’s flesh began to burn. Its laughter became a shriek. Murtagh stepped away, not enjoying the pungent odours of burning flesh and roasting hair. Soon enough, the flames died and the broken thing lay there, keening in its throat as it tried to stir.
Khale knelt over it. “What do you do here? Answer me.”
The charred lips twisted into a leer. “We come … to feast … as ever ... we have.”
“Who brought you here?”
“You know a name … Khale … the one who called ... us here before ...”
Timoth—the mage who raised the others.
“... raised us with this one ...”
Khale looked at Murtagh. “You set things such as this on my trail afore now?”
Murtagh nodded, dumbly.
“Then you should know that Milanda and Leste would likely still be here were it not for you. All was lost from the moment these beasts came upon us.”
Murtagh’s face paled at the Wanderer’s words.
Khale ignored the old man’s distress and turned back to the half-dead creature. “This night was no gathering of kinship, was it? It was a gathering of foes. Those Barneth meant to do away with.”
The thing cackled wetly in its broken throat. “And the way is open now … to the Thoughtless Dark ... to the black and howling winds ... it cannot be shut … you will be dead by dawn … Khale … dead by dawn ...”
&n
bsp; “I am a fool,” Khale whispered. “Guilt and musing on the dead have brought me here, closer to my own death.”
The creature at his feet continued to writhe and laugh, its raving black eyes sick with delight. Khale’s hands closed around its throat. He locked his thumbs together and interlaced his fingers. He put all of his strength into it and watched as colour flushed the raw, burnt face, making it seem to brighten, almost glow, before becoming suddenly dark. It struggled and writhed desperately under Khale’s hands, trying to break free.
It could not.
Its eyes widened. It gave a hoarse croak, and the weight of its body slumped.
Then, it was gone.
“So dies Hruth, son of Yluth.”
“What does this horror all mean?” Murtagh asked.
“That this night is lost,” Khale replied. “Lost indeed.”
Chapter Ten
Cacea stared at the Red Wheel of Barneth.
The most frightening thing about the construction was that it did not look as terrible as she had imagined. In her mind, it had been a blood-caked iron thing that spun as a black-hooded man cranked a handle and the shrieks of the victim bound to its spokes harmonised with the creaks of tortured mechanisms. But the Red Wheel was no larger than a cart’s wheel and it was made of wood. The spokes were fastened in place with brackets that appeared rusted—though she knew what else could make them seem so—and she could see its name came from the colour of the spokes. The wood had been soaked to a dark, wine-red hue, but she could not tell if this was truly from the blood of victims, or just a trick with some dye.
Either way, it worked in disturbing her.
The Sister had brought her to the dungeon. She had fought, struggled, and even begged but nothing had moved the creature as it dragged her down into the stone-walled depths and shackled her in rusted irons. Then, it left her.
Cacea waited, not knowing how long she hung there, alone in the dark. She wished that she had never come to Castle Barneth. But she had been without food for many a day at the time and too sore to continue across the border into the kinder lands of Colm. If she had known then what she knew now – how this night would turn against her – then she would have crawled into the neighbouring kingdom with her last ounce of strength.
A torch’s flame approached, growing and becoming clearer, illuminating a face. Cacea felt her stomach turn at the sight of it. For a peculiar moment, it appeared as the face of her brother; smiling and warm, but then it resolved into a less welcome visage.
Milius Barneth strode up to her, pushing the torch close to her face until her fringe smouldered a little and she flinched.
“You should not have been out wandering tonight,” he said. “You have seen things not meant for your eyes.”
Cacea said nothing. She swallowed hard and tensed against whatever was to follow. Her eyes strayed past him to the Wheel and then back to his face.
“You wish for a ride, girl?”
She shook her head.
“I think not. You will not deny me my pleasure. Bring her to the Wheel.”
Pale hands unfastened her shackles and led her to the Wheel. They lifted her and forced her down upon it.
Cacea did not go easily. She kicked. She shouted. She cursed the black-eyed creatures and tried to bite their fingers. But she was small, unarmed, and could do nothing against their unnatural strength.
“There is no sense in fighting them,” Barneth whispered, “they are born of the Thoughtless Dark and draw their power from it. The soft flesh of our world is nothing against the strength of their shadows.”
Cacea hawked and spat at him.
“An amusing gesture,” he went on, “I’ll enjoy making you pay for it. Perhaps you will lose a finger, or a toe. Then again, a bud from one of your breasts might be better.”
She tried to swallow a sob, but it betrayed her and escaped.
“Oh, please, no tears. You have not suffered enough yet.”
Her wrists and ankles were fastened to the Wheel with lengths of tarred rope that abraded her skin. She bit the inside of her mouth, making it bleed, at the sound of the last knot being tightened. Despite the rough appearance of the Wheel, she knew she was well bound to it; there would be no escape by struggling.
Lord Barneth peered down at her, the light of the lamps catching his eyes. They seemed to flicker with a strange, inner shadow.
Before she could stop him, Barneth’s fingers fastened on her jaw and forced her mouth open. Her tongue writhed uselessly behind her teeth as the black-clad lord shook a few drops from a minute phial into her mouth. The taste was sour and she tried to spit out, but he closed her mouth with a fierce grip.
“I can see your eyes asking what that might be. I will tell you. It is a tincture called the Tears of Iznae. You have not heard of it? I thought not. The effect is most peculiar and entertaining on these occasions. It acts upon the nerves and the mind, making the body react to each sensation as if it were the opposite. Simply put, the greater the pain you feel, the greater your pleasure becomes, you understand? By the time I am done with you, you will be wet through and through. Now, let us begin.”
He set the Red Wheel to spinning and Cacea heard something.
It was the sound of small, dulcet-toned bells – they were chiming in time with the turning of the Red Wheel.
*
The fiery tongues of sconces flickered on by. Cacea counted each pass in the beginning, but she had lost count some time ago. She knew the number must be in the thousands by now. The movement of light and dark around her mirrored the endless motion of the Wheel. The walls had lost their solidity and the shadows cast upon them were more real to her. She imagined them as the ghosts of the flayed, dwelling near to the thing that made them as they were. Her brother was not among them and she was glad. She hoped his soul rested somewhere better than this. In a part of her mind, she wondered if the ghosts would be kind like her brother and take her pain away, if she asked them to.
Even though her pain did not feel like pain.
The Tears of Iznae worked just as Lord Barneth said it would.
At first, she had only been able to smell her own sweat and the bitter odour of the dungeon. But then, other scents arose, stinging harshly at her nostrils; the lingering traces of despair and faeces that permeated the stone walls, the incense of dried blood and other fluids, the aroma of ashes and old, charred wood.
Everything was heightened, growing more and more intense.
The sweat clothing her skin was a piquant oil and she felt how the light of the torches caught in it. Each time, it was a touch of fire and how it gently burned, making her gasp. On her tongue was the taste of Khale’s blood, wine from the feast, and roasted pig-meat. They flowed into one another and came alive. She was living those moments over again, over and over again. She scraped her tongue along her teeth, and across the soft, wet inside of her mouth, but the feelings and memories would not cease. They were bound together, turning and turning with her as she rode the Red Wheel; coming close to overwhelming her.
Every nerve-ending was a taste-bud gorging itself on sensations near and far.
Her breathing stroked at her lips and throat. The aches and twinges in her secured muscles became the bites of a lover’s hard teeth. The tarred rope chafed at her wrists and ankles. She hauled against it and felt skin break. Blood ran from the wounds.
And a honeyed wetness began quickening between her legs.
Cacea shook her head from side to side.
... no – no – no ...
Words were nothing here, feeling was all.
As the knives came out and they made the first cuts in her skin, she should have screamed for mercy.
... mercy, please ...
Instead, she cried out for more.
Chapter Eleven
“And you saw no sign of her when you entered?” Khale asked Murtagh as they stole out into the passageway.
Murtagh shook his head. “No, you were alone. What do you care for her, though?
”
“I don’t, but I need her alive all the same.”
“Then I come with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I would trust the life of no-one to you alone.”
“You might be right in your judgement there, Murtagh. Come.”
Khale gestured for him to unhook a torch from one of the brackets mounted on the wall. He held the head of flames out, and the nearby shadows danced away fitfully. Khale glanced about, eyes narrowing, ears straining. There were no unusual sounds close by. He could hear rats scurrying and water dripping, but there were no footsteps. No one was abroad in this part of the castle except themselves, so it seemed. No one had been disturbed by their fighting in his chamber.
Most strange.
They descended to the Great Hall. Khale gestured at Murtagh to lower the torch and stay back in the cover of the shadows. He crept forward, eased open a door, and peered into the vast space beyond.
The Wanderer hoped all were abed, or, at least, unconscious beneath the tables. Nothing moved in the Great Hall. The fireplace was home only to cold ashes. The torches burned low. He looked back at Murtagh and saw Milanda’s eyes staring out at him from the dark once more. Judging him. Knowing him. Damning him. The vision passed.
They went on.
Each man moved carefully across the flagstones, stepping over chewed bones, shattered clay plates, and cracked flagons. A film of grease, wine, and filth covered everything, and Khale did not envy the servants cleaning up—if Barneth meant for them to live to do so after tonight. A number of bodies were slumped at the tables or asleep beneath them; those either too high born or too drunk to be persuaded to move.
“Where might she be?” Khale whispered. “I see no sign of her here.”
“The servants’ quarters lie close to the kitchens.”
Khale gestured for Murtagh to lead the way.
They reached the castle kitchens without seeing another soul, but that did not mean they felt alone. The old stone of Castle Barneth breathed, Khale could feel it. Memories resounded at every step. The walls had witnessed much bloodshed, rape, and torture over the centuries. The moving shadows relived the tragic lives of those who had been servants and prisoners of the Barneth clan. He had heard the old saying: ‘If these walls could speak.’ But Khale felt sure that the walls of Castle Barneth would scream instead. And behind his eyes, in the chambers of his skull, the words of the Crone and her sisters echoed over and over again.