by Joey W. Hill
He could see the shadow of the serpent’s head shooting through the water at him. A snake’s primary weapon was its speed, and a sea serpent was no faster than a regular snake. A vampire could exceed that, making this a straightforward hand-to-hand combat, if one ignored the beast’s enormous mass. He shoved off the ground and met the serpent’s charge with a blow to the nose. As he came back to the sand, he had his sword ready. He shoved his blade into thick muscle, yanked it free and spun to face the retaliation that would come. The serpent’s head hit him mid-body, and he jammed his long dagger tip into one of its eyes, rupturing it.
The fangs scraped against his mail as it tried to clamp its jaws on him, which provided him the time he needed to thrust the long dagger into the roof of the thing’s mouth. The point emerged at the top of the head. The body thrashed, pummeling him. He fought to get clear of it, but this time he wasn’t quick enough. The contact was as brutal and direct as a baseball bat hitting a ball, shooting him through the water. He couldn’t see Nexus and still no Keldwyn, no telltale flashes of magical light. He couldn’t hear the snarling expletives in his mind which would have told him Kel was still fighting, but he also saw no other serpents. He wasn’t sure he’d delivered a killing blow, but his foe had not pursued him. If not mortally wounded, it had been discouraged from an immediate follow up.
A cadre of frogs swam past him as his forward momentum slowed. Their expressions were flat and disinterested, his altercation a minor annoyance.
He fought his lack of buoyancy and the weight of his mail to surface, to get his bearings. There was still fog, so he let himself sink to save his energy, and once again tried to tune into the demon’s blood link. It made sense that the head would be on dry land.
Kel, can you follow me? I am trying to guide us to land, I think. Do you see Nexus?
His heart stopped beating in the silence, then began to thump again when he got an answer.
I am with your steed. We will follow you.
He was relieved that Kel had found Nexus, no matter the absurdity, since the horse was a figment of this world. It didn’t matter though, did it? Reality was what you felt in your heart, and the way he’d responded to seeing the horse again, how the stallion had responded to him, was all that mattered. He was learning that from the Ennui. He wondered how many vampires denied the pleasurable things the hallucinations could bring them, until all that was left was the nightmarish ones.
He gave a prayer of thanks when the ocean floor beneath him began to go uphill, and he encountered more rocky surfaces, which he believed meant a shoreline. Once he was picking his way through a solid rock field, he changed his mind. The familiarity of it suggested where it was leading him, which he confirmed when he surfaced. The fog was no longer a thick curtain. It hovered high enough above the ground to allow brief glimpses of what was ahead. The ruins of a castle, perched on a pile of rock. A zigzagging path worked its way up a steep hill toward it.
Uthe dropped to a knee onshore to regain his strength and get his bearings. He kept scanning the water, though fog still coated it fifty feet from shore. He tuned in with other senses. When he heard the lapping of water, the rhythmic churn of Nexus’s legs, he whistled, in case they needed further bearings. The horse responded with a whinny. A few moments later, he saw the horse’s nose break through the smoky mist. Another few blinks and he could see Keldwyn on his back, holding a handful of mane. He’d lost the jerkin, so he was only in the leggings wetly plastered to him. It wasn’t an unfortunate occurrence.
“We are nearly eaten by snakes, and you are leering at my manly attributes,” Keldwyn commented as they came to shore. “Good to know your priorities, my lord.” Slipping off Nexus’s back, he flopped down next to Uthe, panting.
Uthe didn’t deny enjoying a leisurely perusal of the muscular terrain, the light layer of dark hair over the firm pectorals and sectioned stomach. The wet leggings, cut right below the hip bones and hugging the Fae Lord’s groin, afforded him an equally stimulating view. Yet his scrutiny was primarily to be sure Kel had not sustained any serious injury. Like Uthe, he appeared to have suffered scratches and bruising alone.
Uthe nodded to the castle. “I think we just crossed a rather wide moat, my lord.”
“Next time, let’s look for a drawbridge. Vampires must do everything the hard way.”
“The castle sits up too high for a drawbridge. I expect at one time it might have had a bridge, but the occupants have long ago left, and the Shattered World borrowed it for its purposes.”
“You think this world takes things from other worlds?”
“Something does not come from nothing. I sense no cohesive idea here. It’s as we both surmised. Residual magic, collective nightmares, anxieties and random dreams, the absurd ones no one can explain, have all been thrown into one place by something that had no use for them.”
“So the sorceress figured out the safest place for the head was a trash dump.”
“It makes sense. Who would put something of value in a trash dump?” Uthe looked back toward the water. “Though those serpents felt fueled by the demon’s power.”
“It is probably too much to hope that’s the worst he can do.”
Uthe shook his head. “If allowed freedom, he can do far, far worse, but he shows his malice even while bound. This is his environment, the chaotic energy. He can do things here he could never do in your world or mine. I was glad for my mail. I’d been thinking of shedding it, but it kept those things’ teeth from sinking into me.”
“Indeed.” Keldwyn’s gaze moved to Uthe’s shoulder where the links had fouled the serpent’s teeth, which had broken and twisted the metal. The Fae grunted and sat up, surveying his bare upper body. “I would conjure another shirt, but it seems pointless. I should have tried to get a set of Fae-crafted mail through the door, though I doubt it would have passed. I cannot wear your mail without impeding my magic,” he added, putting a hand on Uthe as he started to shift. “So don’t even think it. I would not take it from you regardless.”
He gave Uthe a hard look, but there was a set to his jaw that said it had moved him, Uthe’s automatic reaction to offer it. “Your steed is a tremendous warrior,” the Fae added. “One of the serpents had wrapped itself around him. I went after it with my sword and magic, but Nexus put his teeth to the creature’s side and ripped out a good bit of what he found there, weakening it for me. He practically gnawed the beast into two pieces.”
“He’s fearless,” Uthe said fondly, rising and putting a hand on the horse’s nose, the only soft place Nexus had. Then he turned and offered Keldwyn a hand. “Ready to continue, my lord?”
“I have nothing better to do.” Kel clasped his hand, and Uthe pulled him to his feet. They both surveyed the ruins looming above them.
“Is that our ultimate destination?” the Fae asked.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s proceed.”
Because of the uneven terrain, they chose to walk, Nexus picking his way behind him. Uthe suspected whatever castle this had been in another plane of existence was just as desolate when it wasn’t in ruins. The air of despair and desolation upon it was heavy as the fog that had concealed it.
Many of the stones that had fallen from the walls had broken, showing dark brown innards the color of old blood. As they wound their way up the incline to the open gate, the grate rusted and off its track, he saw a trio of vultures sitting on it.
“They have a cleaning crew in place for our remains,” Kel commented.
Uthe grunted in response. He stopped at the portcullis, looking around carefully. “Do you feel any magic, my lord?”
“No, but magic is a very malleable idea here. My glamor is one of my easier magics, but it didn’t work. Whereas time shifting, one of the most complex, did. The Shattered World likes playing games.”
Though the castle sat in the center of a body of water, there was a green field on one side, visible now that they’d reached a higher elevation. The field had perhaps once been u
sed for tourneys and sword practice. Meadow grass rippled over it like a grimace.
“I wonder if the grass would feed him, since he’s conjured out of this world?”
Keldwyn gave him a curious look and Uthe gestured to the meadow. “Nexus. I know he’s an echo, but I like to think he’ll come to no harm here once our cause is served.”
“He’ll likely return to his soul, like a beam of light back to the sun.” Kel shifted a step closer to Uthe. “Like his master, he doesn’t look like he knows what ‘at ease’ is.”
Uthe smiled absently. “We didn’t have the term ‘at ease’ back then. Most commands I gave him in French, but I used ‘compline’ for off duty. He’d roll in the sand as if it was grass.”
They were within the ruins of the castle now, and fell into the habit of fighting men, maintaining a three-dimensional alertness around them to protect one another’s flank. Uthe kept a firm grip on his unsheathed sword. Though it had been years since he held such a weapon for actual battle, the constant practice with it had served its purpose. He felt like he’d never put it down.
Uthe guessed they were standing in the lower bailey. Nearly a dozen statues were arrayed like scattered trees in a dirt and rock field. As they circled them warily, Uthe saw they were fully armored knights wearing the Templar mantle. They were posed at ready, like before a battle charge, all facing the opposite archway to the upper bailey.
Keldwyn’s gaze went there and his senses sharpened. “My lord, there is something of great power through that opening. Several somethings. Would that be what you seek?”
“We shall go and see. Do you feel anything here?” Uthe was still staring at the statues.
“No.” As Keldwyn laid his hand on one, his brow creased. “Though it feels like there should be. The magic and its intent may be cloaked. Is it wise to put them at our backs?”
Uthe swept his gaze over them. Though the alabaster features were non-specific, he felt as if he knew each of them. “Yes.”
He questioned his gut about that, however. What purpose did it serve, having these still figures of his past standing here? To plant the false, childish hope that they’d come to life and his aid?
“You yourself said the Shattered World seems to act like a capricious, cruel child,” Keldwyn reminded him.
The stone archway appeared to be moving, but it was the vines upon it. The barbed tendrils pushed out of the cracks and crevices, creeping over the rock. As they moved toward the opening, the signature Keldwyn was detecting became powerful enough for Uthe to feel it. Identifying it was no trouble. It was one with which he was very familiar, though it had been a while since he’d come in direct contact with it outside his mind.
Uthe clasped the seal on his neck, thumb sweeping over the raised imprint of the two knights. The metal was humming, the sorceress’s magic responding to what it had been created to destroy.
They passed under the archway with eyes trained on those animated vines. Once clear of the threshold, the dry rasp of their movement against rock stopped.
Keeping a peripheral watch on the sinister vegetation, they took in what lay before them. The vast courtyard had once been cobbled, though grass now grew up between the stones and piles of rock fallen from the surrounding walls littered them. The smell was of dry death, the life long ago sucked away and leaving only a skeleton. But pulsing, raw power sat on top of it, conjuring heat like a bonfire.
Sitting at the opposite end of the upper bailey was an altar, a T-shaped structure of wood planted over a narrow rectangular table. The table was a union of rotten timbers, and leafless, thick wooden vines tangled over the T, nearly obscuring its shape. Though these were signs of decay and neglect, Uthe could see and feel the magic pulsing from the altar. Red flame danced in the cracks between the timbers and flickered in the spaces of the woven vines. Sparks arced off the altar. Though there were no charred spots around it, a burning smell permeated the air.
On the altar was the head, mounted on a flat bottomed spike. An old cup and a rusted spear sat next to it, like they’d left there by a warrior who’d sat down for an ale. Yet while the red flame surrounded and permeated the altar in continuous flow, the cup, spear and T were anchored, connected with silver-blue lines of energy that formed a spherical net around the head. That net was visible evidence of Shahnaz’s binding that had kept the demon locked inside the head. The Grail, the Spear of Longinus and the True Cross had seen wear these many years, but that wear was an illusion. Their power remained just as true.
Uthe had inflicted decapitations, so he knew what a head looked like deprived of blood circulation, left to decompose in the sun and at the mercy of those whose business it was to clean up the dead, like the vultures outside. This head had never looked like that. But it didn’t look alive either.
The thick brown hair was wild as a thicket. Dark, deep set eyes punched holes in a face weathered and taut. The eyes stared, empty and yet not. The flat bottomed spike kept the head upright, the mouth open and slack. The whole thing looked unnatural, eaten up by evil, and Uthe’s first reaction to it, then and now, was to seek a way to destroy it. Fortunately, they’d come with one.
Uthe executed a deep bow, dropping to one knee. “I know you reject my devotion, John the Baptist, Madman, Prophet of the Wilderness, for you were ever a humble man, but I honor your courage and sacrifice these many years. If it is God’s will, we will soon release you to the heavens you so richly deserve.”
The eyes flickered. It was as if there were two or three interior lids, and they alternated between a serpent’s gaze, feverish-looking brown eyes or wholly white orbs. In Keldwyn’s mind, Uthe saw him realize why Uthe had been so discomfited by the Fae Lord’s illusion of snake eyes.
“There is no God’s will. There never was.” The sibilant voice crawled like spiders into the ears, up the spine, across the palms of the hands, making them itch. “You will release him to dust, to nothingness. That is all. And I will be released, period.”
“No, you won’t,” Another voice came from the head, this one rough like tree bark. “I would prefer God consign me to dust than endure another moment of your foul company, demon.”
“It comes out of its shell to speak, thinking that somehow it is about to be saved.” A harsh laugh. “I will destroy all your illusions and dreams. That will be my parting gift to you, Madman.”
“I never asked to be saved. Only for your banishment. And I come out of my shell to feel your intent more clearly. Vampire, call for aid with the Fae Queen’s power. It is time. He summons your enemies in force—”
A garbled scream, and the head vibrated with energy, as if two minds were doing battle within it. “Now,” the voice barked.
The transition was abrupt, but Uthe didn’t question the Baptist’s command. He yanked Rhoswen’s amulet from the pouch at his waist even as Keldwyn turned toward him, the same order on his lips. Nexus trilled a challenge.
Pulling the amulet around his neck, Uthe clasped the shard of ice in his hand and chanted the words Keldwyn had taught him. Keldwyn’s mind-voice echoed in his head so they spoke the words together, in both languages. “Should all about to be lost, may those true of heart and of like mind come to aid my purpose, be it of the highest intent.”
A rumbling began beneath their feet. Keldwyn yanked Uthe away from the archway, Nexus circling behind them. The stone crumbled, punctuated by a billowing wall of dust and flailing vines. Nexus skidded to a halt with a clatter of hooves and let out a piercing call Uthe remembered all too well. The horse’s battle call had his heart thudding up into his throat.
Damn horse wants to give the call to charge, Sir Leonard had grumbled good-naturedly.
The ground was vibrating. Uthe could hear distant yells. Something was coming up the rocky slopes around the castle. But those cries weren’t close enough to be what was coming through the archway, climbing over the crumbled rock and materializing out of the billowing cloud of dust.
Uthe took a more secure hold on the sword, and Keldw
yn unsheathed both long daggers at his belt, both of them prepared to face whatever came out of that churning dust. The Fae was fully in his mind, knowing this was the right time to move in sync with one another.
“Blessed Virgin…”
The first thing he saw was a black tunic with a bold red cross emblazoned across the front, and then the man inhabiting it came into focus. Manfred, his sergeant. Though he was as fierce a fighter as any knight, he’d come into the Order after the Rule had been written, and it required those wanting to take the white mantle to be knights before joining the Order. Jacques, Uthe’s squire, was just behind him. He wore a studded jerkin and leggings, his dark hair just as messy and uncombed as it ever was. Uthe had doused him in a trough once to remind him to keep himself clean in the eyes of the Lord. Despite his stench, the boy had the courage of Nexus and a heart as innocent as a virgin’s.
“Kel…”
“I see it, Varick. I see all of them. It is real.”
Uthe’s throat was too thick to say anything else. A wall of white mantles formed behind his sergeant and squire. Leonard, Carlos, Olivier, Jean-Claude, Barabbas… When the dust settled there was a line of thirteen of them, his closest brethren at the time of Hattin. They’d all died there, but today they’d come back from the dead to fight this fight with him. Not for the kings of Jerusalem, France or Constantinople. Not for the Pope. Today they fought for the cause of the Lord, not the men who claimed to act in His Name. And they were not Uthe’s only reinforcements.
The residual power of the amulet was swirling around and through him. As it spiraled through his blood, he heard another message. The voice was indefinable, not Rhoswen nor any of the known voices in his head, but as soon as it spoke, Uthe knew its truth came straight from the magic itself.