by Karen Chance
For a second, I thought seriously about passing out. But I couldn’t afford to do that. Not when it looked like he’d beaten me to it.
Which made no sense. Master vampires didn’t pass out. Master vampires kept coming until you chopped them into little pieces, and sometimes even then. But people didn’t go running around in other people’s memories, either, so tonight was obviously about new experiences.
I looked up again.
There were people circling the bonfire. I could see their bodies if I squinted, silhouetted against the light. Could hear their laughter when the wind was just right, feel the reverberations of their feet if I concentrated. They were pounding out a rhythm to the accompaniment of drums, a flute and what might have been a lyre. It was almost hypnotic: dark figures whirling around a tower of flame, sparks flying high into the sky, a riot of color and light and movement on an otherwise dark hillside.
It didn’t look like something that should be in Louis-Cesare’s memories. Or even in the consul’s. It looked like a pagan kaleidoscope, something that predated history: violent, primitive, dangerous, raw.
It didn’t make me want to go up and say hi.
And I didn’t know what they could do for him if I did. Vampires healed themselves, for the most part. There were potions that could counteract the effects of curses, and low-level necromancers that could speed up healing in the case of particularly nasty wounds. But neither of those was likely to be available here, and anyway, they didn’t apply. Louis-Cesare hadn’t been cursed or wounded. Louis-Cesare was just out cold.
Which left me in a mess.
I couldn’t transition us out of here, because I didn’t know how. And with my guide unconscious, I had no way to contact Mircea and find out. Besides, I’d been a good girl and avoided snooping, so I didn’t know Louis-Cesare’s memories any better than my other half did. Even assuming I figured things out on my own, the only place I could take us was back into my memories.
Where she’d be onto us in about a second.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and just breathed.
I’d had a plan, at the beginning of this crazy ride. It wasn’t much of one, admittedly, but it was the best I’d been able to come up with under the circumstances. And it still was.
Get him out. All the rest of the hundred or so things clamoring for attention could wait. Just get him out.
Get him out before she found him.
Get him out before she killed him.
Just fucking Get. Him. Out.
I opened my eyes.
We needed to get moving, to put some space between us and where we’d come in. It didn’t matter where—just so the bitch would have to look for us, instead of stumbling over us. Somewhere I might get a few seconds’ warning when she showed up. And somewhere under cover, so I could stash Louis-Cesare out of sight.
I knew where he was; if she came, I’d leave him here and run, because it was me she wanted. If I got away, I could tell Mircea where to go to retrieve him. And if I didn’t…
Well, I’d have a really good incentive to make sure that I did, wouldn’t I? Or to hope that Mircea could find him anyway. Or that he’d wake up on his own and figure a way out.
None of which was going to happen if she found him first.
I got my hands under his arms and started dragging him backward, toward the shack.
It wasn’t far off, and it was downhill, thank God, over a path made of trampled grass that was slick enough to minimize the friction. It should have been a pretty easy trip, despite the six feet four inches of pure muscle I was dragging. But it wasn’t.
Either this mental stuff was exhausting or the week I’d had was finally catching up with me, but I was panting like a steam train and sweating like a pig. And that was before we’d made it halfway there. I stopped for a rest, crouching in the dirt, wishing to God I had something to use as a—
I stopped, cursing myself for being an idiot. The damned place looked so real, it was easy to forget that it was in my head. I could dream up a stretcher—hell, I could dream up a freaking wheelchair, if I wanted—and save my back and legs and thighs, all of which had started seriously to protest.
Only I couldn’t.
I tried again, and again got nothing. I couldn’t remember what I’d done before, but staring at the ground and hoping really hard obviously wasn’t it. Of course not, I snarled, and grabbed Louis-Cesare again, preparing to continue with my old buddy the Hard Way.
So much for dreaming up a bazooka if anybody threatened us.
Like the monster in the tall grass, for instance.
I froze, hoping it was a trick of the light. Because I was pretty close to crazed right now, and didn’t need yet another problem. Especially not one with two huge, narrowed eyes peering at me from the side of the path. But there they were anyway—evil, dark and soulless—reflecting the bonfire light like the flames of hell.
And then slowly crossing.
Okaaaay.
I carefully lowered Louis-Cesare to the ground again. No reaction. I edged around him and slowly moved to the side of the path. No reaction. I gradually put out a hand. No reaction.
I jumped forward and parted the grasses—
And had no freaking idea what I was looking at.
It was lying on its side, big and brown and lumpish, and vaguely donkey-like, if donkeys were the size of Clydesdales. And covered in dreads. And simpleminded, because it was not only crossing its eyes but grinning, the massive lips pulling back from equally massive teeth and a lolling tongue.
And then it noticed me looking and it farted.
I just stared for a moment, bewildered.
“Baudet de Poitou,” Louis-Cesare said hoarsely from behind me.
I whirled around. “What?”
“An ancient breed of donkey. We called him Jehan after his bellow—and the local drunk.”
I licked my lips, swallowing my heart back down. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Rien. He did this every year.” Louis-Cesare got an arm underneath himself. “Someone would clean out the vat and dump the residue under the tree.”
I belatedly noticed that the path diverged, with one branch going to the shack and the other to a large, round wooden tub with suspicious stains around it. Reddish purple ones. Like those ringing the donkey’s mouth like badly applied lipstick.
“It made him useless for days,” Louis-Cesare added, looking disapprovingly at the great creature.
“Because it made him sick?”
Louis-Cesare looked surprised. “Non. Because it would ferment.” His lips pursed. “I suppose you could say he is now…drunk off his ass.”
Jehan bellowed agreement and let out another fart. I squatted down on the path and put my arms over my head. And just stayed there for a minute.
“What happened?” Louis-Cesare finally asked me.
“You passed out.”
“I did not.” It was said with such conviction that I almost believed it.
I turned my head and looked at him through the gap by my elbow. I debated arguing it, but decided I wasn’t up to it right now. “Okay. Then what do you remember?”
“Only that it was becoming…difficult.”
“It?”
“The transitions between memories.”
I raised my head. “But that’s not hard. We do it all the time. Normally, I mean.”
“This is not normal.”
And on that, at least, we could agree.
He’d struggled back to his feet while he spoke. I hadn’t helped because something told me it wouldn’t be appreciated, and because I was feeling a little unsteady myself. But he let me put an arm around his waist as we finished hiking to the shack, supporting me as I supported him. And when we got inside, he quickly made the acquaintance of a blanket-covered pile of straw on the floor.
I looked around, not that there was much to see. A table but no chairs. A dirt floor. Three stone walls, old and rough and more or less supporting a thatched roof. Which was k
ind of irrelevant since it was letting in starlight through no fewer than five different holes.
But at least I could see. Between the stars and the light from the bonfire flickering across the stones, I could pretty much make out everything. And for a tumbledown shack in the middle of nowhere, it was stocked pretty well.
“Did you do that?” I asked Louis-Cesare, eyeing the spread laid out on an old table.
It wasn’t anything fancy—coarse brown bread, wine, cheese, butter. And it looked like a lot of it had already disappeared, judging by the greasy wooden platters littered with crumbs and the empty wine barrel lying on its side. But still.
Louis-Cesare shook his head, and then stopped, wincing. “No. It is too difficult. I do not think I can imagine anything into existence at the moment.”
“You don’t think you can?” I repeated, my heart sinking.
“No, why?”
Because I’d kind of been counting on that bazooka. “Because I can’t, either.”
He frowned. “But this is your mind.”
“But it’s your memory.”
He peeled off his now-filthy shirt, which had gotten the worst of the path outside. It left him in rough brown trousers that laced up the front, a greasy bandanna around his neck and a pair of scuffed boots. “But you are gifted. Like your father.”
“No,” I reminded him sourly. “Dorina is gifted. And thankfully, she’s not here.” I glanced around again. “Wherever here is.”
“France,” he told me, reclining against the hay. “About ten miles from Saumur. Near the village where I grew up.”
“And the bacchanalia going on outside?”
“Vendanges.”
“The grape harvest?”
He nodded. “When I was young, before…” He licked his lips. “Before it was decided to send me away, I lived on a farm in the country. Every year, the local vineyard would hire young people to help pick the grapes, and to stomp them into wine. And once harvest was over, they threw a party.”
“That’s one word for it.” I turned back to the table and started loading up a tray, because it might be only imaginary food, but I was hungry.
“It became customary for young couples to leave early,” Louis-Cesare agreed. “And find one of these. The farmer had four or five scattered about the vineyard to make processing easier. The grapes did not have so far to go.”
“Just as well,” I said, eyeing Jehan through the missing wall. Who stared the stare of the completely blitzed back at me. But at least he didn’t cut wind again.
I guessed that was something.
I joined Louis-Cesare, and put the tray between us. Surprisingly, the blanket didn’t smell. Except of hay, which must not have been harvested too long before this. Because it gave off only the scent of earth and flowers, which blended well with the vinegary reek of the wine.
“How long until Mircea pulls us out?” I asked, slathering some butter on bread.
“He…was not sure.”
“Can’t you just ask him?”
His face answered that for me.
I sighed. “Why can’t you just ask him?”
“As soon as I entered my memories, I lost contact with your father,” he admitted. “Of course, the opposite may not be true, considering his skill. He may be able to take us out from here, once he fixes the problem.”
“Or he may not.”
“If he does not, then when I…in a little while, we can return to the wharf and contact him from there. He should be able to assist us, or at least give us an update.”
Yeah, as long as we manage to avoid evisceration first, I didn’t say, because it wouldn’t have helped. “But until then we’re on our own.”
“Yes.”
Louis-Cesare rested his head against the wall, his eyes closing. And I ate in silence for a while, my thoughts going to all those back-to-back transitions he’d made. Which hadn’t been too healthy, but may have been worth it. My evil twin might have inherited Mircea’s mental gifts, but how much experience could she have had chasing people through somebody else’s memories?
Maybe we were okay.
Maybe we’d lost her.
Or maybe she was just taking a while to follow the trail. How long had it taken her to show up on that ship? Ten minutes? Fifteen? I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t think it had been longer than that. And how many transitions had we made on the way here?
I did the math, and didn’t like the answer. I thought it had been six, maybe seven. I couldn’t be sure because the first few had been blurry. But that was close enough.
So say ten minutes apiece, or fifteen, assuming she wasn’t getting better with practice and shaving off time.…
I scowled.
I hoped Louis-Cesare rested up fast.
He was watching me when I looked up.
“So this was like May Day around here,” I said, to take my mind off it.
“Something like that,” he agreed.
Of course, in May, you had a nice pole to dance around, I thought, watching the shadows leap and whirl. A nice phallic symbol to piss off the church, which hadn’t liked the obvious symbolism. Or the fact that a large number of the local teens would be slipping off into the woods to celebrate the return of the earth’s fertility in the time-honored way.
But I guessed a bonfire and a vat of wine worked, too.
Louis-Cesare didn’t deny it. “There were a number of children with birthdays every year, nine months from now.”
I bet.
I took a sip of the wine I’d found in a pitcher that had somehow been overlooked. It was harsh, bright and tart in a way that modern wine never was, but packed with fall fruit that gave it a hint of sweetness. Like a French version of sangria. I liked it.
“And how often did you bring someone back here?” I asked, licking my lips.
“I didn’t.”
I looked at him over the cup, and raised a skeptical brow. Because sure.
“It is true,” he insisted.
“And how old were you?”
“Old enough.”
“Then why…”
He shrugged. “I was considered…different. No one knew the truth of my birth, but they knew that much. Most people guessed that I was some noble bastard who had been quietly removed from sight.”
“I thought most noble bastards were kept around, put to work.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where did you hear that?”
“My own grandfather was born on the wrong side of the blanket,” I reminded him, in between crunching bread. It was good, coarse but crusty, and nutty with barely cracked grain. “And he did okay. Ended up as an errand runner for the Hungarian king, who loaned him an army to conquer the throne he couldn’t win by birth. So it all worked out.” I thought about it. “Well, for a while.”
“Ah, but he was a man’s bastard, yes?”
I nodded.
“It worked a little differently for the women,” he reminded me. “Particularly in France.”
“The good old double standard.”
“Oui. Most of the noblemen had mistresses, the kings even official ones. But their women were expected to be pure as new-fallen snow.”
“And when they weren’t, they pretended.”
“And removed the evidence.”
I looked at the evidence, and wondered how anyone had ever found him a burden. “That sucks.”
He reached past me for the wine, a ripple of fine muscle under finer skin. “Not…entirely. But my birth did make me stand out.”
“How did anybody know?”
He shrugged. “Rumors had spread of a fine lady who came to see me, all muffled up, a few times when I was a child. And then there was the money that was sent, every month, to pay for my schooling. It was thought that I was being educated for a reason, and that someday I would be summoned. And go away.”
“And the girls didn’t want to go away with a handsome sort-of prince?”
“It was not a matter of what they wanted. Their fathers had pu
t the fear of God into them. For the best, as it turned out.”
He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. I knew what that was like, to live with a group but never really be part of it. To have people find you useful but also strange, foreign. To have them automatically exclude you, suspect you, dismiss you. To stop talking when you came near, not because it was anything important, not even because they were afraid you might tell someone.
But because you were different.
What was weird was to think that somebody like Louis-Cesare knew it, too.
I glanced around the unprepossessing little shed again. And wondered about the young man who would remember a place like this so vividly, and for so many years. And about the foolish, foolish girls who had gone off with someone else.
And turned back to find him watching me again.
He was lying in a beam of firelight leaking around the side of the mostly missing wall. It was bathing that part of the room in an eerie ginger twilight. It bathed him, too, haloing his hair, darkening his eyes, warming his skin to damp golden velvet. I licked wine off my lips and watched his eyes follow the movement.
“Is there a reason you brought me here?” I finally asked.
“As living beings we stand out against the background of the memories we visit,” he said softly. “To someone gifted in the arts of the mind, it is as if we were in color and everyone else in black and white. But the more we sink into a memory, the better we blend in. If we sink far enough, Mircea thinks it may allow us to appear as part of the background, and so be overlooked.”
“That was option number three,” I guessed.
He nodded.
I drank wine. “And how do we do this fade thing, exactly?”
“I…did not have time to get complete instructions.” I looked at him. “Or any,” he admitted.
“But you have an idea.”
He finished his own wine in one long swallow. And then he got up and bowed slightly. And damned if he didn’t pull off courtly despite being dirty and half naked and covered with hay.
“If you allow, I would be honored to show you.”
And he held out a hand.
I stared at it.
An hour ago, I wouldn’t even have hesitated. An hour ago, I’d have just said no. Because it was what I always said, what I’d always had to say. So I wouldn’t hurt anybody, so I wouldn’t get hurt myself. No, you can’t have that person; no, you can’t stay in that town; no, you can’t live that life.