The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus

by D. B. Reynolds

  “Where are his rooms?”

  “He stayed in the white-washed brick cottage behind us. You might have noticed when you came up our road. It has a blue door and shutters.”

  “I saw it. When did he leave? I’d hoped to catch up with him here.”

  “He did leave in something of a hurry. You know about the message, of course, but you should know also that he gave me that message on the day he left, and instructed that it not be sent to Paris until five days had passed.” Léandre gave one of those expressive French shrugs and said, “I sent it early. A carriage was returning to Paris, after making a delivery here, and the driver was happy to have the return fee. I couldn’t see that it mattered if the message reached you earlier, as he’d already left.”

  “How long after he left did you send it to Paris?”

  “Two days, rather than the five he requested.”

  So Sotiris had been gone a week or more by now, Nico figured. But it wasn’t the specific number of days that intrigued him. It was Sotiris’s request to delay his receipt of the message. Why would he have done that, unless he needed time to prepare for Nico’s pursuit. What if he’d expected Nico to follow, but there was something—or someone—that he wanted to move before Nico could catch up to him?

  “Did you happen to see which way he rode when he left?”

  “North, my friend, but that covers a great deal.”

  “Yes,” Nico agreed, frustrated as hell by the entire situation. “Have you been in his rooms?” he asked abruptly.

  Léandre winced. “I have not, which is unforgiveable, but the girl who cleans this house and the cottage, which is our only guest room, rode into Paris to go shopping with my wife. That is why my own hospitality is so lacking.”

  “Not at all. The wine is delicious. I’ve never had it before.”

  “Ah. I’m pleased to have introduced it to you.”

  “Could I see Sotiris’s rooms? He may have left some clue as to his destination.”

  “Of course. I should at least allow some air and sunshine into them before my wife returns anyway. Come, the key is in the kitchen.”

  They walked out together, but when Léandre would have unlocked the cottage door, Nico stopped him. Whatever Sotiris had left for him was in that room. “It would be better if I enter alone. As you said, Sotiris is very powerful, and if there’s something he doesn’t want seen, he may have . . . taken precautions. Especially since he knows I am trailing him.”

  Léandre appeared surprised. “He would risk harm to you or to others?”

  Nico gave his best impression of the French shrug. “It is apparent that he doesn’t want me to find him. I’m curious as to why, but have no doubt that he would harm me if it suited him.”

  He handed Nico the key with an unhappy grunt. “When you find your cousin, please tell him he is not welcome to return to my home.”

  “I will tell him.” He held up the key. “It would be better if I entered the cottage alone,” he repeated, but added a regretful note. This was, after all, the man’s own property.

  “Of course. I will withdraw to the house. Please be careful, Nicholas.”

  He nodded. “I will check with you before leaving.”

  Nico waited until he was sure Léandre was inside and not lingering near a door or window for a better vantage on his possible bloody demise, then turned the key and opened the door. He paused on the threshold of the dark room, scanning the entire building for signs of a protective spell that might destroy him along with the cottage. Finding none, he entered, leaving the door open behind him. The room was very dark and dusty, but rather than search for candles or a lantern, he crossed to the two windows and opened the shutters and windows, admitting the fresh air, along with the warm sunlight.

  Turning to survey the small cottage, he saw an unmade bed revealed by an open door to another room, a small hearth with firewood stacked next to it, and what passed for a kitchen. There was a table and chair near one window, which he took to be the workspace Léandre had, on occasion, observed when passing outside.

  And sitting in the center of that table was a well-wrapped parcel with his name on it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  NICO STARED AT what he assumed was Sotiris’s gift. What else could it be? Sotiris had not only known he was in France, but had assumed he would work out the transition spell, and had wanted him to follow. And now this, which wouldn’t be anything good. He knew his enemy far too well to believe that. But he also knew it wouldn’t kill him. Why would Sotiris go to such lengths to ensure he not only could follow, but would, only to kill him? The bastard gained too much pleasure from toying with him, letting him believe that he could locate Antonia and his brothers, if only he followed Sotiris, step for step.

  The only question was, how bad it would be? His mind was already conjuring images of everything from the severed head of one or all four of his warriors, or gods forbid, some equally gruesome evidence of Antonia’s death.

  Walking over, he grabbed the package and slid it closer, intending to rip it open and end the parade of horrific images. But a much-delayed splash of cold reason had him slowing down and rethinking such foolish haste. Taking his hands off the box, he considered what he knew of his enemy. Sotiris loved only himself, but would he kill Antonia so early in the chase? After all, she’d betrayed him by helping Nico, thus choosing Sotiris’s enemy over him. He’d want her to suffer a more lingering punishment than a quick, if brutal, death. The certainty he was right about that much gave Nico hope that she was alive, which meant, he could still find her and free her from whatever living death Sotiris had conjured for her.

  His warriors were another matter, however. Their curses were solely the result of their loyalty to Nico. Their punishment was intended to punish him, as well as them. Their pain was meant to be his pain.

  Sighing in resignation, he lit the fireplace and then the lantern, wanting as much light as possible in the room, before closing both windows and door. If he was wrong, and this gift was meant to destroy him, he would do his best to contain the damage. Léandre seemed a decent man, who’d done nothing to deserve being touched by Sotiris’s evil.

  Pulling the parcel closer once more, he scanned it for evidence of sorcerous meddling, though he didn’t expect to find any at this stage. Sotiris might have anticipated the box being handled before it reached him. He couldn’t have known that Léandre’s wife and cleaning girl had gone to Paris, after all, or that the cottage would remain closed and locked all this time.

  He unwrapped the outer sheet of rough paper next. It had a thin coating of wax, which served no purpose that Nico could divine, other than to protect or preserve whatever was inside. And that wasn’t the least bit reassuring.

  Several layers of wrapping later, including a final swathing of cheesecloth—which seemed an odd choice—Nico lifted the lid, and found even more cheesecloth crushed into balls that filled every empty space in the package, as if to guard against breakage. He frowned, no longer able to guess at what the box might contain.

  Removing the four smaller packages, which were more or less identical in size and shape, he split the string on one of them, carefully unwrapped it . . . and had to grip the table lest he fall to the floor, devastated by what he found. Tears blinded him when he hurried to open the other three, until finally he shoved the endless piles of wrapping to the floor, and stood the four statues on top of the table.

  “Damian,” he whispered, touching the first. “Kato. Gabriel. And oh gods, Dragan.” Tears rolled unheeded down his face while he stared at the near perfect images of his warriors as they’d been in the final moments before they vanished. His first thought was that this was the only thing left of his warriors, but he discounted that idea almost at once. Again, Sotiris was far too cruel to end his game so soon.

  But for the same reason, they had to be more tha
n they seemed.

  A quick magical assessment revealed them to be constructed of some sandy material, not sturdy enough to survive rough handling, but malleable enough to be the product of human carving, or sorcerous creation. None of the four held any spark of life or living matter, for which he was grateful—and so relieved that he had to pause for a time to recover his equanimity.

  The few minutes permitted him to regain the cold logic that was necessary to judge the statues for what they were, or might yet become. A taunt from his enemy, certainly. A way to reveal the form of their prisons, but not the locations. It made him wonder if Sotiris himself knew specifically where they were.

  Nico had learned enough of Sotiris’s spell to reach this world and time, but he been traveling blind, with no idea of where or when he was going. Even now, with all he’d learned since, he doubted he could direct the spell to discharge him in a specific location, or a particular date. Perhaps that was true of Sotiris, as well. He knew where the warriors had gone, but maybe he didn’t know when. And that meant he and Nico would be in a race to find them.

  The possibility of that, which he believed was all too close to reality, brought a fresh wave of fear and desperation for his warriors. What would Sotiris do to them if he found them first? Would he destroy them? Or more likely, would he drop them into the deep ocean, where they would never be found?

  A small ivory-colored card in the bottom of the larger box caught his attention, and he picked it up, recognizing Sotiris’s script.

  I caution you once again to take care with my gift. Each of these likenesses is ensorcelled to reflect the welfare of its original. If a warrior’s prison is destroyed before he can be freed, he will die. If he dies, the likeness will fall to dust, just as the warrior will do. If, however, a warrior’s specific curse is lifted, and he is freed, the likeness will crumble to sand. You will have no knowledge of how or where his freedom was won, but then, since each warrior will, more likely than not, have gone mad by then, neither will he.

  My gift to you, Nicodemus, is the knowledge of each man’s freedom, whether by death or madness.

  Nico could all but hear Sotiris’s laughter as he read the card. The evil bastard had succeeded in tormenting him with every word. Tossing the card aside, he sank to the floor, resting his back against the wall, while he stared up at the four small statues that were all he had left of his brothers, of warriors so courageous that they had come at his call—a sorcerer they knew nothing about—to stand with him against the greatest evil their world had known. And this was their reward.

  Overcome by a despair that not even his rage could pierce, he sat for a long time, his face buried in arms crossed over updrawn knees, until the cold of the stone floor finally penetrated enough to send a shiver rolling through his body. The discomfort—he was ashamed to think of it as such, knowing what his warriors were suffering—drove him to his feet, and rage finally burned through anguish.

  Afraid to leave the effigies out of his sight, for fear that they would somehow disappear, he re-wrapped each with precise care, placed them back in the box, then carried them out of the cottage and into the house where Léandre was waiting.

  Chapter Fifteen

  1824, Outside London, United Kingdom

  ANTONIA WOKE TO a single beam of sunshine forcing its way through the clouds and into her bedroom. The sight made her smile in the instant before she realized she didn’t know where she was. Why had she known it would be gray and cloudy outside, and so appreciated the lone bit of sunshine? She reached out with her magic, looking for traces of a spell or other mischief that someone might be using to tease her.

  Fear, cold and terrible, drenched her in sweat even as her heart began to race and she strained to find some shred of the magic that had been part of her life as long as could remember. “Think, Antonia,” she muttered. “Think. What do you remember? What’s your last memory?”

  She worked to control her breathing, lest she pass out and wake up in an even worse nightmare, and fought to answer her own question. Only she couldn’t make her brain work, couldn’t make it remember anything . . . except a big window, and forest of trees. What the hell was that?

  Throwing back the covers, she jumped out of bed and started searching for something other than the thin linen shift which was all she wore, but didn’t recognize. Seeing nothing lying about, she was reaching for the wardrobe, when the door to the room burst open and a man stood there.

  No, she thought immediately, not a man, but the man.

  In the same moment she was grabbing the blanket from the bed to cover herself, she couldn’t help wondering where that thought had come from. “Who are you, and what have you done to me?” she demanded.

  The man smiled, and though he was handsome enough, it wasn’t a nice smile.

  “I’m pleased to see you on your feet and aware enough to ask questions,” he said, sounding as if the pleasure he was feeling came from disdain, rather than sincerity. “There are clothes in the wardrobe. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until—”

  He slapped her so hard that she fell back on the bed and slid to the floor, where she sat staring at him in disbelief. No one had ever struck her like that. Despite her failing memory, she somehow knew that much.

  “What do you want with me?” she whispered.

  “Get dressed,” he snarled, “or I’ll drag you out of here as you are.” He strode out through the open door, and was gone.

  Antonia listened to the soft thud of his footsteps on the carpeted floor, not moving until they became the click of leather soles on marble, which faded as he descended stairs. She was upstairs, she realized. Though it seemed a pointless observation, she thought, as she sat there holding her throbbing cheek and wondering who he was, and what he wanted with her. It couldn’t be anything good, if he felt free to slap her as he would a thief after his purse.

  Deciding that putting on some clothes was a good idea, no matter what else she did, Antonia got to her feet and opened the wardrobe door. A dress hung there, though it wasn’t a style she recognized. It was long with a much fuller skirt than she was accustomed to wearing, though the blouse appeared usual enough—white linen with full sleeves and a gathered neckline, which tied in the front. And despite the excessive bulk of the skirt, it appeared to tie the way most of her clothes did, even if this one was dressy enough for a ball rather than a trip to . . . who knew where? At least she wouldn’t be expected to ride a horse. She knew that much, and she clung to every thought she had, trying to fill the hole where her memory used to be.

  And her magic. But the possibility that her magic was gone was too devastating to contemplate just now. She had to get dressed, get downstairs, and out of this house . . . and then she’d see.

  THE MAN WAS waiting for her outside, standing next to an enclosed carriage that was drawn by a matched pair of gorgeous chestnut horses, who tossed their heads eager to get started.

  “Get in. You’ve delayed us long enough.”

  “I don’t have any shoes,” she said faintly. “There weren’t—”

  “You don’t need shoes. Get in.”

  “But what is all this? Where are we going? And why can’t I—?”

  “Get in, or I’ll throw you in.”

  Seeing from his hard expression that he’d do it, and with her entire face still throbbing from his earlier outburst, she gathered the heavy skirt above her bare feet, and climbed the two steps into the carriage. She hesitated then, staring at the leather benches to either side.

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  Deciding it would be better to ride facing than with her back to whatever direction they were going, she sat, gathered her cold feet beneath her, and tucked the voluminous skirt under and around them for warmth. When the man climbed into the carriage, he gave her gathered feet and legs a scathing look
where they took up the entire seat, but she was too surprised to move. She’d thought the man would be driving the carriage, since she’d seen no one else.

  But he’d no sooner seated himself on the opposite bench than the carriage rocked as someone climbed onto the driver’s seat, and with a snap of the reins and soft call of encouragement, the horses took off and the carriage went with them.

  “Where are we—?”

  The man raised his hand, flicked his fingers in irritation, and then . . . nothing.

  1824, Reims, France

  NICODEMUS RELUCTANTLY left the statues in the cottage, before walking over to knock on the back door of Léandre’s home. He would have preferred to keep them not only in his sight, but within his grasp, but knew his host would be curious, and was reluctant to share the contents of his cousin’s gift. The statues were too precious to him, too private a grief to share. After rewrapping as carefully as he’d found them, he cast his strongest protection spell over the box, then added an equally strong spell over the small building, then walked the short distance to the house.

  “Come in, come in,” Léandre called, hurrying to the door. “What did you find? You’re alive, so that’s good.”

  Nico smiled and took the seat at the big, wooden kitchen table that his host offered.

  “Sit, my friend. You may be alive, but I can see that things did not go completely well. Sorcery uses a body hard. I don’t need to be a great sorcerer like yourself to understand that. Let me make you a light meal, at least. And some wine.”

  He poured a glass and placed it in front of Nico. It was a different wine, he noticed. Darker and not cold. He took an experimental sip, and then another. “Do you have no wine that is not delicious, Léandre?”