by Jeff Wheeler
Danai’s tears flowed freely. “Your lies and deceit are like the leaves on a head of lettuce. I fear that if I accept anything you say, I will end up peeling all the leaves away and find nothing beneath.” The trap now sprung seemed inescapable. “But what choice do I have?”
Merdrid nodded solemnly. “There is but one choice—you know what you must do. Let us make the switch, I will deliver the last secret of the cure to you, and I will leave. You can tell the soldiers how I beguiled you, took the bloodstone mortar and the pendant, and fled the valley. They may keep a presence here for a while, but they will have to conclude that it was Danai who was most wicked and the true target they seek. You will be in the clear, with your father and others in the valley restored to health, and you can live the rest of your days working as the valley apothecant, who saved everyone from the blue moth plague.”
Danai had already decided she would give her life to save the eight people in the valley. She knew her decision. “I will do it.”
“It will take but a moment to prepare.” Merdrid reached down into her pack and pulled out a long vial made of dark green glass. It had flakes of some kind within, but Danai could not tell their color through the dark glass. Merdrid continued. “First, you must remove the pendant.”
Danai reluctantly pulled the cord over her head and felt the weight of vosang lay on her shoulders. The fog returned to her mind, though it was less dense than before. She saw Merdrid as the older woman she knew again, feeling nothing but loathing for her. Danai’s fingers shook again as she set the pendant on the table.
Merdrid pulled the stopper out of the vial and shook a few flakes into the bowl of the mortar. The light caught them as they fell, glittering a brilliant gold. Next, Merdrid took up the stout-bladed knife. “Don’t worry, Sis; it will only take a little blood.” The older woman reached out and grabbed Danai’s wrist, pulling her hand over the mortar. Danai did not resist. The blade of the knife flicked against the side of her wrist, stinging like a wasp, and blood started dribbling into the mortar. True to her word, after a few dribbles, Merdrid placed a cloth against the wound and released her grip. Merdrid then added her own blood.
Merdrid then spoke several words in a tongue Danai did not recognize, and she wondered if they were names or a whole different language. Instantly, the room felt colder, despite the fire burning in the stove. Danai was left with the distinct impression that they were not alone. She looked around, but saw no one there.
The air grew thin and chilly; Danai gasped to find breath that satisfied her lungs. Merdrid’s words became recognizable and little puffs of fog left her mouth with each syllable. “I make this oath of my own free will, and commit my blood to seal it. By the power of the vivos sanguine, my body shall be hers and her body shall be mine. By my oath, I shall make this transfer to continue my work and dedication to your cause throughout all the days that blood may flow in my new body.”
Pressure swelled in Danai’s head; it ached and throbbed. She nearly fell to the ground, but held onto the tabletop with both hands to stay upright. The pressure within her mind seemed to gather into a single entity, and became Merdrid’s consciousness. It was a strong, dark presence, ugly and brutal. She felt violated, like Merdrid was pilfering through her secret thoughts and memories. “Stop that!” she thought.
“You need to say your oath out loud, and leave this body. Once you are gone, your memories will be with you.” Merdrid’s words bit like a venomous snake.
Danai realized something, “You knew this would work because this is not the first time you have stolen another’s body.”
Merdrid’s mind dwelled on a memory of this same oath with another girl. Even though she had not thought the words, Danai could see the image for a fleeting moment. That realization led to another. If Merdrid’s life were extended for all of Danai’s days, she would use those days not to heal, but to take lives and manipulate people to suit her own desires, or the desires of whatever being reached out to them through the bloodstone.
“Say the oath, or I will kill you and your father right now.” Merdrid’s words stabbed, and her head ached with each syllable.
“What is the last ingredient to the cure?” Danai expected the wave of pain that followed her question. She was not disappointed. Merdrid’s mind slammed her consciousness like an anvil falling from the sky. Danai thought she might die that very moment, but she did not. As Merdrid’s mind pressed against her own, Danai sought images or thoughts that would betray the answer to the question she had asked. For a split second, she saw the closer of the two black bottles with neat labels in Merdrid’s consciousness. As Danai recognized the bottle, Merdrid’s thoughts howled and ravaged against her own.
Mentally, Danai curled up into a ball and cried out in thought, “I will not give up my life to save eight if it means you will spend a lifetime using my body to commit the atrocities I know that you have done and would do again.”
That thought brought up more images, but Danai refused to see them. Whether they came because Merdrid wanted her to see what she had done, was capable of doing, or as an involuntary response to what Danai had said, Danai did not care. She was done letting this beast of a woman control her life. She realized her eyes had been closed. She forced them open and saw Merdrid’s face contorted into a mask of rage, mouth in a snarl, teeth bared and gnashing. Her eyes were the most terrifying part about her, they seemed rolled back into her head, showing nothing but the whites.
Danai forced her hands to move, defying the pain ripping through her mind. She grabbed the pendant and tried to raise it.
“No!” howled the older woman. Merdrid lunged over the table with unbelievable speed and force, arcing into the air with her rotund body behind her and bearing down with the stout-bladed knife in her right hand.
Danai was frozen with fear, worrying that her mind would not move her limbs fast enough. All she could do was hold her hands up to ward off the attack, still holding the pendant cord. As Merdrid landed on her, the cord slipped around the old woman’s head and the blade of her knife sunk into Danai’s left shoulder.
Pain seared into the shoulder and her arm went limp.
Merdrid was up in an instant. Her ancient, hideous form was back and the rage on her face was feral and evil. “You want me to see the truth of anything? I know the truth. You think I need protection from your vosang? You have none!” She mocked, spittle spraying with each sentence. Then she stopped, cocking her head to one side.
The coldness in the room receded. The sense of dread and hopelessness lifted a little.
The creature that was Merdrid clawed at the pendant, trying to rip it off her head. Danai still held the cord with her right hand. She held fast and pulled down as Merdrid tried pulling up. The old woman howled and ravaged at Danai, but the younger woman took the blows and scratches. Soon, the attack weakened and waned. The older woman aged before her eyes. Her skin cracked and her eyes seemed to sink into her skull.
Danai coughed and said, “This bloodstone not only shows the truth, but also protects the wearer from the vosang. Apparently, it protects you even from your own.”
Before Danai had finished the words, Merdrid’s shell of a body crumpled to the ground beside her, all the vosang extending her days beyond what nature would allow sundered.
Danai’s body ached and stung where she had been scratched and battered. Her shoulder pulsed with sharp pain. The knife was still buried in the flesh. Even though she hurt all over like she had never hurt before, her mind was clear and her own. It was free of fog, and Merdrid was gone from there too. She gripped the handle of the knife and pulled it quickly out. The pain dropped her to the ground, and she stanched the flow of blood with the cloth that had been wrapped around her wrist.
Danai looked down at the dress and laughed. It felt odd to laugh, but that was the sound coming out of her. She would never do the tavaranga in that dress. The fabric was scratched, torn, and soiled with blood and other things she could not immediately identify. Danai wadded
the stanching cloth into a ball and placed it under the fabric of the dress covering her shoulder, to hold it in place.
Panic gripped her for a moment, and she checked the worktable for the cure and the black bottle she needed. With relief, she saw them still on the tabletop. Merdrid must have leaped completely over the table, without touching anything on it. Small, tender mercy, she thought.
Danai was less pleased to see the mortar still in place, holding flecks of gold suspended in a mixture of blood. She considered throwing the whole thing in the fire of the stove, but she really did not want to touch it at all. Using her right hand, Danai lifted the black bottle to her mouth and bit into the cork. With a turn of her head, she pulled the cork free and poured some of the liquid into the earthen bowl holding the pasty concoction. The liquid smelled of oil and spices. She did not know the exact amount to add, but relied on instinct to decide when she should stop pouring. It took several tries and a lot of wrangling using her knee and body to pin the bowl, but eventually Danai was able to stir the mixture thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
After digging through Merdrid’s pack, Danai found the dosing spoons, and chose the one equivalent to a thimble. Merdrid always had unusual standards of measurements, Danai thought absently. Danai scooped out a spoonful and took it to her father. She was unable to rouse him to wake, but did prop his head in an upright position and slipped the cure into his mouth. She carefully poured a little water in, and hoped he would not choke.
Hard knocks at the entryway nearly made her drop the water bottle. She looked and saw cracks of light slipping through the door, which would buckle under any more strain.
“Open for the Kingsworn!” A deep voice beyond the door demanded.
Pangs of fear froze her. Was it Kleed? Did she hope it was him or not? She could not think clearly, but it had nothing to do with the vosang this time. “Give me a couple seconds. I am coming.” With care, she negotiated the room, now cluttered with things Merdrid had brought, and Merdrid’s dead body. She said a silent prayer before reaching the door.
Kleed was about to pound on the door again when Danai pulled it open. His face, still handsome, but now fixed with stern purpose, took her in from head to toe. She then recalled how she looked in the low-cut dress, tattered in places, with a wadded cloth soaked in blood bundled at the shoulder, and wounds covering her front. Kleed’s voice was frosty. “What is going on in there?”
Danai’s nerves hindered her mouth from forming words, but slowly they came. “You can come in . . . I will explain everything.” She meant it. She wanted to clear everything up, and face whatever consequences followed. Her only fear was what would become of her father.
Once inside, Kleed ushered in several other soldiers. None of them were prepared for the chaos they met—clutter, death, and illness—and the room reeked of smoke from the woodstove, incense, pungent herbs, and roots, combined with the odor Merdrid’s body was exuding. On the whole, it was somewhere between unpleasant and disturbing.
Danai tried to explain about Merdrid giving her a potion that was infused with vosang that made Kleed and her behave most peculiarly the night before, and then rendered her unconscious, allowing Merdrid to control her actions thereafter. She got no further than that when Kleed stopped her.
Kleed shook his head, “I would like nothing more than to believe that story, but I witnessed what you did to me yourself. By your own oath, you swore for Merdrid’s honesty and said you were aligned to her unconditionally. Now you want to pin all of the evil that you did on her. My gullibility was stretched past its limit last night and will not be tested today. We are going to gather everything up from this shack and take you and whatever that is”—he indicated the husk of Merdrid’s body on the floor—“back to Brasin City and sort this out at the Grand Court.” He refused to meet Danai’s eyes, looking away contemptuously.
A weak, whisper of a voice spoke from the corner, “Why don’t you put your pendant back on and see if what she tells you rings true.” It was Danai’s father. She hurried to the bed, tears flowing once again at seeing him speak. He was incredibly frail, but looked better than he had in five years.
The idea was sound. Moments later, Danai helped Kleed pull the bloodstone from the head of Merdrid’s corpse. Kleed insisted the leather and stone be washed in boiling water, but while they waited, Danai’s father related the story of what happened once Danai returned at dawn. He told how Merdrid had laid a trap for her. He even told about the scrying the old woman had done in the middle of the night in the silver bowl of water. Everything he said confirmed Danai’s accounting. Once the pendant was adequately cleansed, the story was told again by both Danai and her father. It was late when they finished.
While they talked, the other soldiers put the room to order, cleaning out the mortar and securing the potions and concoctions in Merdrid’s pack. Danai did not object to them taking whatever they wanted, with the exception of the cure. While Danai’s father spoke, Danai was able to change out of the dress and into her last clean outfit. She needed to do laundry, and committed to doing so if she was not arrested. The soldiers even helped dress her wounds after she changed. The first good news she received was that the emissary was alive. His wound was serious, but not life threatening. He waited in the carriage outside of the home, resting in the company of two soldiers.
By the time both Danai and her father had completed telling Kleed everything, he was convinced they told the truth. Merdrid’s long use of a bloodstone was clear, and Danai’s lack of any use of vosang was irrefutable. Danai decided she liked the way he looked at her by the time they were finished talking. He took a break to relate his oral report to the emissary and let him decide what to do with Danai.
She waited a long while, enjoying being by her father’s side. She helped her father drink some water and eat a little bread. Oh, how she had missed him. He was about to fall asleep when he opened his eyes and looked up into hers. “You did well, my beautiful Pugnox.”
She even missed that horrible nickname. “I love you too, Father.” But he was already asleep.
She was fighting off sleep herself when Kleed returned. “We will carry Merdrid’s remains to the edge of town and burn them. Some practitioners of these dark works leave threads that extend beyond death. Burning the body may help sever those. Then we will leave the valley and return the bloodstone to the king. You will have no charges set against you. However, I may have to come back and ask additional questions if the examiners request it.”
“I would welcome you back. Thank you.” Danai realized she meant it.
As the soldiers carried the body through the doorway, led by Kleed, something fell from the clutched hand. The soldiers did not see it. At first, Danai thought it was the knife that had stabbed her shoulder. Then, she remembered pulling the knife out herself. When she walked over, she saw the familiar gold flecks in dark gray stone of the pestle. She considered calling out to the soldiers, but did not. She eventually put the pestle away in a box that was put in a drawer. She would decide what she wanted to do with it later.
Brendon Taylor
Brendon Taylor has been a full-time attorney at the firm, Merrill & Merrill, chartered in Pocatello, Idaho since 1999. When he is not practicing law, he is a devoted husband and father, an active member of his church, a founder/board member of Deep Magic e-zine, a frustrated Miami Dolphins fan every fall and an aspiring author when time permits.
Rain Dance
By Steve R. Yeager | 6,900 words
Tira tossed and turned in her sleep. In her dream, the skies opened up and a great torrent of rain washed over her parched village. Becoming lost in the deluge, she almost drowned.
But, then, suddenly, she was somewhere else.
Dripping wet, she stood on a patch of soft green grass that tickled her bare feet. In front of her was the kindly figure of an old man lounging on a gnarled throne of thick roots that appeared to belong to a single tree—or at least she thought it was a tree. Having never seen a tree before i
n her twelve cycles of life left her slightly uncertain.
Across the old man’s brow was a crown of woven branches with green leaves and the budding sprouts of new growth. Above his head, tiny songbirds flittered and landed on the leaves while singing in their high-pitched voices. She marveled at their songs, which warmed her inside and chased away the tingles coming from the wetness of her exposed skin.
When the ancient figure opened his mouth to speak, the very earth rumbled in deep, sonorous waves, and she felt every word he spoke resonate within her body as if they were somehow a part of her and had been known to her all along. She did not fear the man, nor was she frightened by what he had to say. And when he finished speaking, she awoke from her slumber feeling a glorious sensation that filled her heart with joy, for she knew what would occur this day.
Safely back in her cramped quarters, she blinked away sleep and stared at the ceiling. Dust motes danced above her head in a shaft of light that shone through a window high up on the wall nearest her small cot. She rose and broke the sunbeam with her outstretched arms, yawned, and slipped into a pair of woven sandals she’d left on the packed-dirt floor.
Today would be her day. She knew it. Today there would be a Choosing, and she would be the one they selected to go to the place without thirst, the place where there was plenty to eat, and best of all—trees. Lots and lots of magnificent trees.
With a bounce to her step, she left her tiny bedroom behind and entered the kitchen area of the small wattle-and-daub dwelling she shared with her mother.
“Good morning, child,” her mother said in greeting.
Tira beamed at her. “I had a wonderful dream last night,” she said as she took a seat at the table.