Bloodstone

by Johannes, Helen C.

  There were only two paths available—flesh and soul—and both, he thought bitterly, were all but closed to him. Syryk’s curse had sealed off the first. And the second? His interlaced fingers compressed each other. He’d slammed that door himself.

  “I—uh—I have your dinner,” Ulerroth said through the heavy wood. “You didn’t come down, so I brought it up.” The innkeeper coughed. A floorboard creaked. “Uh—are you feeling well?”

  And if I wasn’t? Would you do anything for me? Could you? Or would you thank everything that’s holy for delivering you from such as I? Sitting up, he lowered his legs to the floor and stood. “Your consideration is touching, Ulerroth, but I’m quite well. Bring in your tray.”

  The door opened. The unsteady light of one candle spilled into the room. “I—uh—hope you don’t mind the candle,” the innkeeper said, wiping his forehead. “I wasn’t sure...”

  Sure of what? Me? After at least a dozen years, you’re still not sure of me? His lips compressed into a thin line. “If it makes you more comfortable, why should I mind?”

  Be civil, the Voice in his head said. The poor bastard doesn’t know any more about you than you’ve told him. And you know how little that’s been.

  Bending slightly at the waist, he gestured to the table. “Are you joining me tonight?”

  The innkeeper set the tray on the table and emptied it of bowl, platter and tankard. “No, I—” He rocked on his heels, then mopped his face with his apron.

  What’s troubling you, friend? You’re more uncomfortable around me than usual. All because I didn’t come down to dinner? “Is there something else?”

  “Last night—” Ulerroth’s beefy hands kneaded the apron gripped in them. “I’m sorry. I—I thought…you seemed as though you wanted…some company…”

  The man’s fingers clenched the chair’s back. Perspiration sheened his body, bonding his tunic to it. So it’s you, flesh. You’re the demon in Ulerroth’s nightmare.

  “It was my fault, I know,” the innkeeper rushed on. “You’ve made it plain you weren’t interested before, but the woman insisted, and I sent her up because you might’ve changed your mind, and—”

  “I haven’t—” the man said, forcing the words through gritted teeth, “—changed my mind.” Refusing yet again took every bit of his willpower, but now he’d done so, he wanted nothing more than to sink into a chair and close his eyes to the consequences before his body realized what it was being denied. But there was no time. Already his loins had begun throbbing, and sweat glued the inner cloth of his hood to his face.

  Go ahead, flesh! Remember how you once enjoyed yourself here! One night—one careless, insignificant night—spent within these walls, before he entered that tunnel he saw in his nightmare. Before the world collapsed, crushing under the weight of it everything he knew and everyone he loved and everything he once was, except for this damned, mindless flesh!

  “I don’t want a woman,” he enunciated to the open-mouthed innkeeper. “I don’t want any woman.”

  Ulerroth stared. His hand fumbled from moustache to ear to forehead and, finally, outward. “Then wh—what do you want?”

  Everything! Nothing! Something! The words careened through his mind, clamoring at every wall, every closed door, every lock. Nothing a whore could ever give me! Nothing at all...like...that. But something...something...

  He leaned forward heavily, hands spread on the table. He knew the only possible answer. He’d known it ever since he’d entered Ar-Deneth and stood in a dark stable yard, watching and listening. It merely required strength, and acceptance of the risks, to form the words.

  Sweat drenched every patch of cloth contacting the man’s body. Under the table, in the concealing shadow, he could feel his thigh muscle twitching. Soon, the dreams would come, and if Ulerroth so much as hinted at procuring a woman, he’d be lost again, this time maybe forever.

  “There is something,” he said hoarsely. “I want the boy.”

  For the space of heartbeats, the words hung in the air between them. Then Ulerroth’s face flushed crimson. “I’ll not—I’ll not—Gareth’s just a lad! You’ll not use him to—to—!” He strode to the door and swung round again, fists clenched. “By all the hosts in the Wehrland, I’ll not let you use that boy!”

  The man closed his eyes. His gloved fingers gripped the edge of the table and squeezed until he felt each separate grain of wood imprint itself on his flesh. “Bite your tongue, you seven-times fool,” he said in a voice whose softness threatened more than a bellow. “I wouldn’t harm him any more than you would.”

  When he opened his eyes again, he saw the innkeeper standing a few feet away, face white despite the color blotching his cheeks. His mouth worked like that of a beached fish, but no sound emerged.

  “How much do you really know about darkness, Ulerroth? You trade with me and fancy you’re flirting with the realm of the damned. You hold me up to your friends and customers and make coin of the connection, but how much can you really know of Beggeth if you think I’d be capable of something as evil and twisted as coupling with a boy?”

  He straightened, rising to his full height as fury filled him. Lifting his hands to his hood, he gripped the edges of it. “I could show you the handiwork of evil, and then, fool, you’d know the truth!”

  “No! Don’t!”

  The plea penetrated his consciousness slowly, as something akin to a distant but jarring sound, like the cry of a dying kitten. For a moment, he blinked, disoriented. Then his gaze focused on two protectively raised, hairy arms and a cowering, apron-clad body.

  Backed against the door like a cornered rabbit, Ulerroth whimpered, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—you can have what you want, just don’t—!”

  What? Plunge you into hell? Are you afraid to join me there? But the moment, the mood, the fury was gone. The man forced his fingers to relax, to unwind from his hood, to release it. His limbs felt oddly drained, heavy as lead. Seeing the chair close at hand, he pulled it out and sank into it.

  “I want the boy as my manservant,” he said, finding the words as weighted as his extremities. “After all, Ulerroth, what better match could there be than a blind boy and a shadow?”

  The innkeeper slowly unbent his bulk. The corners of his mouth twitched as if trying to form a grin and failing. “When—when you put it that way...”

  The man heard the door open and snap closed. Go, yes, and leave me be. You think you know what I’ve done, and so do I, but neither of us really knows anything. And I’m too tired to care. He licked his gloved finger and thumb tips and snuffed out the candle. When the acrid smoke dissipated, he leaned forward on the table, rested his head in the crook of his folded arms, and slept.

  ****

  Mirianna awakened slowly. Her head felt heavy, as if she hadn’t slept, yet here she was, still rolled in her blankets and the sky already light. I must get up and put the water on to boil. Peeling off bedding with stiff fingers, she struggled to a sitting position.

  “She’s awake,” a man’s voice said.

  She frowned. What was a stranger doing in the cottage at this hour? Did her father already have a customer? She rubbed sleep from her eyes and saw the cottage’s loft now ringed with birch bark. Disoriented, she turned to look for her father and found him puttering by a fire.

  “Ah,” Tolbert said, smiling, “just in time for tea and porridge.”

  Tea and porridge. Mirianna closed her eyes as the mundane image brought her firmly into the present. “Why did you let me sleep?” She pushed free of the remaining bedding.

  “Rees thought it was a good idea.” Her father ladled out a bowlful of gray mush.

  He would, she thought, then wondered why she thought so. Like bits of a dream, the events of the night shuttled through her mind. The memory of his hand on her breast brought her fingers rushing to her bodice, but, to her relief, the lacing was still intact. Even so, blood pounded in her throat. He’d gotten too close, and she’d been lucky—this time. She vowed to st
ay beside her father and make sure Rees had no further opportunity.

  She combed fingers through her hair while Tolbert brought her a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge. The brightness of his eyes and a faint flush coloring his cheekbones made her gaze linger on his face as she sipped the herbal brew. Years of watching her father’s animation over some new stone’s color or a hummingbird’s vibrant hues or the unexpected presence of a flower amid a swath of green told her he was bursting now with the same childlike enthusiasm. Whatever fear there was last night, it’s clear you never felt it, Papa. And I’m glad.

  “You won’t believe what Pumble found this morning.” He gestured across the fire pit toward the short man shouldering a sack. “It’s the biggest lion track I’ve ever seen.”

  Pumble’s fleshy cheeks colored, but he grinned. “Bigger than your hand, Miss,” he said, spreading his fingers.

  “It’s right over here.” Tolbert plucked the porridge dish from her hands before she could eat a spoonful and set it on the ground. “Come on.” He pulled her to her feet. “You have to see this. It’s simply incredible for size, and the print is so clear, you’d think it was cast.” He paused. Wrinkles congregated on his forehead. “I wonder if the Master of Nolar would like a jeweled lion’s paw. I could make a cast of this and show him.”

  Mirianna smiled, accustomed to the sudden turns of her father’s thoughts. “Perhaps later, Papa—after you make the wedding jewels.” She disengaged her fingers and patted his hand.

  Her porridge stood wafting steam beside her bedding. By all rights, her stomach should be craving it despite the unappealing color, but no overriding desire to eat compelled her hand toward it. Instead, her head obeyed an impulse to turn toward the clearing’s edge. “Where did you say the lion’s print was?”

  Tolbert had knelt and was busily drawing shapes in the sand for his new creation. “Hmm? Oh. Right behind that tree with the double trunk.”

  Mirianna crossed the clearing in the direction he indicated. When she reached the border of birches, she picked out two trunks, each the size of a man’s arm, leaning away from a joined base. A whisper of air glided over her face as she approached. Warm.

  “—Like a breath—” a voice murmured.

  Whose breath? her mind responded to the voice as if she had known it would be there.

  “—His—”

  Ahh... Her eyelids closed and her lover materialized. Tall, strong-shouldered, the sun bursting from behind him, his touch seared with the heat of it. She reached out. Her hands found his arms and wrapped around them. Let me see your face. Let me know who you are.

  Even as she pleaded, the image faded and she found herself clinging to the papery bark of the twin birches.

  She flashed a guilty look toward the campsite, saw Pumble was gone, presumably loading the pack animals, and her father still knelt in the sand, hunched over his drawing. Rees was nowhere in sight. She exhaled, blowing air over her flushed face.

  Early in the journey, she’d given the dream image Rees’s face just to see what would happen. How stupid, to think it could be him! His visage had promptly melted, just as all the others she’d tried to envision there, all the others who’d presented themselves as possible lovers and husbands. The right man would impose his face upon those dreams and even—Mirianna flushed hotter at the thought—fulfill them.

  But now wasn’t the time to think about such fantasies. They belonged, quite properly, to the night. Now was the time to break her fast and begin the day’s work. Pushing away from the birches, she glanced at their base and glimpsed something that made her stand stock still and stare.

  Imprinted in a patch of dirty yellow sand was the large, irregular shape of a paw pad and four toe pads. A strange sensation rattled through the pit of her stomach. Mesmerized, she sank to her knees and spread her fingers, as Pumble had demonstrated, over the print. The heel of her hand sank neatly into the depression at the rear of the paw pad. As if possessed of a will of their own, her fingers contracted until, positioned like claws, they settled into the toe pads.

  Almost at once, something bonded her hand to the ground. Mirianna’s heartbeat skipped, but her panic fled as quickly as it had arisen. This was not a grip, not a phantom hand, but a force that gently held her palm and fingers pressed to the earth. She was certain if she pulled hard enough, she could free herself, but at the moment she had no desire to do so.

  In the filtered morning light, the sensations rising from what should be cool sandy earth were strangely warm, and dappled sunlight played over her arm. She raised her head as if impelled, and her gaze traveled between the two columns of gray-etched white bark. It crossed trampled grass and scuffed sand where a saddle had sat, touched the edge of a fire pit, and came to rest on a pile of rumpled bedding.

  There was a woman there...on her hands and knees...a young woman with tousled hair and a frantic look...trying to protect something...someone...

  Thousands of prickling sparks rushed over Mirianna’s face, across her chest, and through her extremities. Her fingers dug into the sand like five unsheathed claws. By the Dragon, I am seeing me as the lion saw me! With a little cry, she jerked backwards.

  “What’s the matter?” Tolbert demanded, raising his head from his sand drawing.

  “I—” She stared at her hand. Sand dribbled from the palm, but the fingers flexed at her command. “N-nothing, Papa.” What can I tell him, that I’ve had a vision? She brushed her hand over her skirt and stood. “Something in the sand pricked me.”

  “What in the name of Beggeth are you two doing?” Rees stood beside the fire pit with hands on hips, blond brows a straight line. “We’ve leagues to make today. We won’t make a single one if you don’t get packed.”

  Mirianna ducked her head. “Yes, of course.” She hurried to her father and helped him to his feet.

  Rees stood, watching her roll her bedding. She felt his gaze bore into her back, but he said nothing and she didn’t turn. Finally, she heard the crunch of his boots crossing the clearing. She looked up as she rose with her bundle and saw Rees halt behind the double birches and stare at the ground.

  A muscle worked in his cheek. Muttering, “Bloody Wehrland!” he lifted a booted foot and rammed it down with the force one would apply to a snake’s head. Teeth bared, he ground the heel into the paw print.

  Mirianna shivered. She turned with her bundle and hurried toward the horses and away from the man at the clearing’s edge.

  ****

  The Imposter of Nolar sat up in bed. His hand went immediately to the pouch dangling under his nightshirt. It was warm, warmer than lying against his skin would warrant. Frowning, he tugged it free of his clothing.

  Something had disturbed his sleep, but he was certain it was nothing in the room or immediately outside it. And the morning light too faintly illuminated his bed curtains for it to be time for a master and gentleman to arise.

  Stifling a yawn, he opened the pouch and withdrew the crystal. It responded to his murmured word with a sparkle of color. Holding the column horizontal on his palm, he watched colors shift and reform along the faceted planes. At another word, an image coalesced just beneath the surface.

  The Imposter of Nolar studied the image. “So, the old man has his daughter with him, eh?” His fingers tugged at his goatee. “A small complication, Rees, but nothing you can’t handle, if you remember that your loyalty is to the gems.” He sighed. “Such a nubile thing, too. Dare I hope you’ll keep your breeches fastened long enough to bring her back to me untouched?”

  His loins tightened at the thought. He smiled and stroked his free hand along the ridge of his arousal. Ah, the pleasures of the flesh. You’re too kind, Brandelmore, to have returned me to such a delightful state. And your bride, mm. Just think, it’ll still be you rutting between her legs, but I—he chuckled—I’ll be the one to feel it.

  He laughed out loud and flopped back onto piled pillows. Raising the crystal to palm its glow, he started at a flare of yellow. It was only the briefest flas
h, like lightning in the summer sky, gone before the mind’s eye releases its image. Even so, he sat straight up and, tightening his grip on the crystal, peered at the image still contained within it.

  Moments later, he raised his head and rubbed a hand over his face. “Brandelmore, these eyes are faulty. They see things that aren’t there.” He palmed the crystal, replaced it in its pouch, and lay down again. Even if something had managed to survive the initial spell-blast, too much time had since passed. They’re all dead. Every last one of them. There’s no one in the way.

  He smiled, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep contemplating that thought and all its possibilities.

  ****

  “You know I promised your mother I’d keep you here and see to your care,” Ulerroth was saying. “And I’ve done a fair job of it, wouldn’t you say?”

  Gareth nodded. His master had clapped a sweaty hand on his shoulder shortly after he’d arisen and now, while he ate, Ulerroth’s fingers returned so often to knead bone and muscle, Gareth’s neck and arm ached. Stuffing the last hunk of bread in his mouth, he slid out from Ulerroth’s grasp and handed Freth his bowl. “Was good,” he managed around bread jammed into his cheeks.

  “Don’t gulp.” Freth grasped his hand and placed a cup in it.

  He dipped a fingertip in the tea, found it warm but not hot, and downed it in one long swallow.

  “I told you not to gulp.” Freth snatched the empty cup from his hand. “You’ve the ears of a stump.”

  Gareth grinned. “But the nose of a hound. I can smell when you’re baking.” Swiping a handful of walnut meats from the table, he dodged most of the spoon applied to his backside.

  “Both of you out of my kitchen!” Wooden bowls thumped together. “Give me peace or you’ll not eat today!”

  Still grinning, Gareth popped a nut meat into his mouth and followed his master’s footsteps into the common room.

  At once, Ulerroth turned and gripped him by both shoulders. “About what I said, boy, I’ve always been good to you.”

  His master’s hands lay heavily on his bones, their touch communicating unease. Gareth swallowed the remains of the walnut meat and stuffed the others into a pouch at the base of his cuffed tunic sleeve. “Yes, sir, I know you have.”