Worlds Unseen

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “The guards chased a woman out,” he said. “You?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “That was very foolish,” he said, his voice low and choked.

  “Libuse escaped,” Maggie defended herself. She hung her head and looked away from him. His hand touched her chin and brought her eyes back to him.

  “You are the bravest person I have ever known,” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I am a coward, just like you.”

  Maggie’s resolve crumbled, and she put her head on his chest and cried. He held her again and buried his face in her hair.

  Through her sobs, Maggie asked, “What happened to you?”

  “I lost nine good men,” Jerome said. “Good friends.”

  They fell silent. Jerome said, “It is cold and late. The house is warm and waiting for us.”

  He took a key from his cloak and opened the gates. As they stepped into the courtyard, Maggie lifted her head at a strange smell.

  “Do you smell something?” she asked.

  Jerome looked around him, his dark eyes full of fear.

  “Smoke,” he said.

  Glass shattered. Flames were everywhere, licking out the windows of the house and consuming the ivy trellises that ran up its sides. Fear gripped Maggie and tightened around her heart. From a corner of the courtyard she saw a figure step forward, dragging a black robe on the ground with a sound like chains rustling through dry leaves.

  “Run, Maggie!” Jerome shouted. She obeyed. She ran out of the courtyard and into the street, and turned just in time to see a soldier in black and green bring a heavy club down on Jerome’s head. He crumpled to the ground as soldiers poured into the courtyard from every shadow and corner.

  Maggie sank back into the shadows and watched the High Police drag him away.

  * * *

  Lord Robert buried his face in his hands as the train hurtled uncaringly down the tracks. The compartment door opened and shut. His head snapped up. It was Pat.

  “The conductor is as worthless as the rest of them. He knows nothing,” she said. The train swayed and Pat sat down unsteadily beside Mrs. Cook. The elderly woman was staring out the window, her face still red and streaked with tears. The sunlit world outside was golden and beautiful, even through the faint serpentine images on the glass, but it offered no comfort. The sun had risen on a nightmare.

  As soon as they realized that Virginia was gone, Lord Robert, Mrs. Cook, and Pat had swept the train from one end to the other. They questioned passengers and workers and searched for any sign of the young woman. It was as though she had vanished through the Veil into the Otherworld. The thought occurred to both Lord Robert and Mrs. Cook, though neither voiced it.

  They had searched for hours and returned, defeated, to the compartment. Now they sat in grim silence, and the question beat relentlessly on Lord Robert’s mind.

  What now?

  They couldn’t continue on without Virginia. To go back seemed insane. The engine driver said that during the night they had passed through towns and a great expanse of forest. They had no idea what time Virginia had left the train.

  Lord Robert stood abruptly. Mrs. Cook moved her vacant stare from the window to the laird’s face. She and Pat waited in silence.

  “I am going after her,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will take. But I’m not going to stop until I find her, or until I know for sure that… that she can’t be found.”

  He stopped and met the eyes of his listeners deliberately. “She was under my care. I pledged to protect her long ago, and I will not fail her now. But you need not stay. Go home. By now the High Police won’t be so hard on our trail. You will be safe.”

  Mrs. Cook answered first, and she sounded weary. “No, Lord Robert,” she said. “I knew when Dan Seaton came stumbling into my house that my life wasn’t going to be the same again. I can’t go home any more than you can. I have my Maggie to find now, besides.”

  She turned to Pat and rested a matronly hand on the young woman’s knee. “You make your own choice, dear. You have a future in the Isle to pursue.”

  Pat cleared her throat. “Actually,” she said slowly, “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a future in Bryllan now.” Her voice grew very quiet. “I’ve never been very honest about my work in Cryneth. And I can’t tell you about it now, but… well, I have my own reasons for avoiding the police. Besides, I’m not going to let you go off on your own. Of course I’ll help you find Maggie.”

  “Then this is good-bye,” Lord Robert said. He raised a hand to silence Mrs. Cook’s protests. “I will go alone. I told you, I don’t know how long it will take to find Virginia. And I think it will be easier for me to find her on my own. You’ll stay on this train until it takes you to Pravik. I am getting off here.”

  His grey eyes went to the window that framed a deeply forested, tangled world. Mrs. Cook’s voice seemed to come from far away.

  “How close is the nearest town?” she asked.

  “I am getting off here,” he said.

  “There is nothing out there!” Mrs. Cook protested.

  “Virginia is out there,” Lord Robert answered.

  He left the compartment then, saying something about questioning the conductor. When Pat went to look for him twenty minutes later, he was gone.

  * * *

  The whole horrible truth broke over Maggie slowly, carried on waves of gossip and whispers. At a loss for what to do, she had left the street where Huss lived and wandered through Pravik until the sun began to dilute the blackness of the night. When morning had fully arrived, she haunted the marketplace and fed on penny loaves and rumours.

  News of the arrest had spread quickly. On its heels came speculations, which hardened into full-blown facts before the sun had risen to the middle of the sky. Jarin Huss, Pravik’s oldest and most respected scholar and professor, had been charged with subversive activities against the Empire. His apprentice, ostensibly acting on his master’s orders, had been charged with the murder of Princess Libuse.

  Maggie’s blood ran hot, then cold, as the lie settled in. She could publicly refute it, of course—and be arrested and charged along with Huss and Jerome. Unconfirmed rumours were already saying that a woman had been involved. There were no physical descriptions abroad yet, but Maggie knew it wouldn’t be long. Her choices were despairingly clear: stay and wait for the police to find her, or get out of Pravik. A part of her wanted to stay, to be near them—near Huss, near Jerome. They had become a part of her—the new her—and she a part of them, and it comforted her to know that they were physically close. But another truth beat in her heart and kept her from giving up: that if Huss and Jerome had a living hope, she just might be it.

  As she wandered through the city, a plan of sorts formed itself in her mind. Huss and Jerome needed Libuse. If she was to reappear in Pravik, very much alive, then the professor and his apprentice could hardly be charged with her murder. Maggie would have to find her. Libuse had gone to the tall man in a cloak, the one they called the Ploughman; Maggie would follow.

  Maggie closed her eyes as a cold premonition took her. This was a very serious thing she would do. There would be consequences she could not even imagine. She could feel it. Jerome’s words came back to her mind.

  Peace is a dreadful thing to break, Maggie.

  It seemed to Maggie that she was balanced precariously on a heap of dead branches, holding a flame in her hands that would ignite the whole thing if she just let it go. She didn’t want to be responsible for that, not really.

  It didn’t matter. Something had to be done.

  Only one thing stopped her from leaving the city immediately. The scroll could not be given back to the Order.

  A weapon more powerful than any sword, Huss had said. The truth…

  She would leave the city of Pravik and try to find the Ploughman. But not until she had the scroll tucked safely inside her coat again.

  * * *

  It was an overcast, foggy day. Mag
gie was glad for the greyness that closed around her like a blanket. She made her way cautiously through the streets of the plateau, where Pravik Castle stood watch over the slopes. Somewhere in the depths of the castle’s cold stone, Huss and Jerome awaited death. Maggie thought of them as she passed the towering walls and whispered a prayer to the stars to remember them.

  Not far from the castle lay the smoldering ruins of Jarin Huss’s house. The gates were open, swinging slightly in the cold wind. The walls were black and crumbling, and silence shrouded the yard.

  The scroll might well have burned in the fire, Maggie thought. Perhaps this whole thing was a waste of time. Even so, her feet carried her into the courtyard and through the front door of the house.

  Maggie drew her coat up around her face, blinking painfully as the acrid air assaulted her eyes. The house was dark, darker even than it had been in better days. Everything was black. She touched the remains of a coat rack and its ashes crumbled away beneath her fingers.

  The scars on her hands were throbbing.

  She walked up the stairs gingerly. The air was even worse on the second floor of the house. One of the stairs gave way beneath her foot, and she nearly screamed. She jumped up a step and struggled to calm herself before going on.

  Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, she thought she heard laughter.

  No! No, they’re not dead! No! Why does no one help me find them? They are here still, alive, waiting for me to find them…

  Maggie shook her head, as though she could physically dislodge the memories. She remembered it all now, all of the things she had never been able to recall: the ashes and burning embers that were all that remained of the cottage; the barking of the sheepdog as she ran to the place where all of her hopes had burned to the ground. She remembered standing in the ashes, digging, digging, while her hands and feet burned and the villagers called to her to come away.

  She remembered laughter. Then she jumped, and looked around her wildly. For only a moment, the laughter had seemed to come from somewhere close by. Surely it was not just a memory. Surely she had just heard the same laugh echoing down the black hallways of the house she now walked in…

  Her heart stopped as something moved in the hall. She breathed out a sigh of relief as the cat rubbed around her legs and mewed plaintively. She bent down and lifted the animal in her arms, cradling its warmth against her body.

  “How did you get here, eh?” she murmured, as the cat rubbed its head against her face. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  The cat climbed up on Maggie’s shoulders, and she was content to let it stay there. Its presence comforted her; its big grey eyes searched the way for danger. She moved down the hallway and gently pushed against what was left of the door to Huss’s study.

  She stopped short at the sight that greeted her eyes.

  The fire had destroyed everything. All of the old professor’s books, all of his papers, everything he had worked for forty years to collect. His notes had burned; his bed and desk were gone. There were gaping holes in the floor. From the looks of things, the fire had been lit in this room.

  But the scroll was untouched.

  It lay on the table where Huss had been studying. Maggie reached out tentatively and touched it. Even the layer of soot and ash that covered everything else had left the scroll alone. It was as whole as when Maggie had first laid eyes on it, the day that Old Dan had entrusted it to her keeping.

  She shivered at the presence of great evil in the room. A desire rose up inside of her to destroy it herself; to light it on fire or tear it to pieces, and to make sure that not a shred of it could be read or used by anyone ever again. She forced the desire back, reached forward, and picked up the scroll. She rolled it up quickly and tucked it inside her coat, fighting against the abhorrence toward the thing that still swept over her.

  She heard the laughter again.

  The cat’s claws dug into her shoulder and its whole body stiffened as Maggie slowly turned around.

  The black-robed figure stood in the doorway, one hand stretched out toward Maggie. She recoiled as the stranger stepped forward, seeming to glide over the floor. She could not see a face below the hood, but she could feel the malevolence of the stare that was fixed on her. The cat screamed and leapt from Maggie’s shoulder at the intruder. Maggie’s eyes opened wide as the cat’s body passed through the black robes and landed, crying piteously, on the floor beyond.

  And then Maggie heard music.

  It was harp music, and a voice was singing with it. She knew that voice as well as she knew the shape of the scars on her own hands. It was Mary.

  The music swelled and filled Maggie’s heart and ears. With it came strength. The black-robed figure began to move back, its whole shape bowed in cowardly posture, even as Maggie opened her mouth and started to sing the song that she heard so clearly.

  Maggie stepped forward as the sound of her voice swept through the room. As she moved, the floorboards around her became solid and clean, the soot melting away. The ashes of books and paper slowly began to transform, coming together and becoming smooth and formed and coloured; becoming books and paper once more. The song became a mighty river, filling the room and rising above the little house; rising and flowing out to the farthest reaches of the world.

  And the black-robed figure was gone. It disappeared without a trace. The second it disappeared, the song stopped. Maggie was not conscious of stopping it; it was simply not there anymore. The cat was laying on the floor, and Maggie picked it up just in time to feel the little animal’s last breath leave its body. She buried her face in its fur and whispered her thanks to the valiant creature, and then she laid it down and ran from the house.

  * * *

  Lord Robert Sinclair stepped into the glen and felt his heart leap to his throat. Virginia lay on ground lately scorched by fire. Her clothing was singed and black with soot. She lay so still that the laird could not move for a moment for fear of what he would find. His only link—she could not be dead.

  He forced himself to take a step closer, his foot falling without his notice into the track of a large wolf. Before he moved another agonized inch, Virginia stirred. He ran to her, falling to his knees in the scorched earth.

  “Is it you, laird?” Virginia asked.

  “Yes, yes, it’s me,” Lord Robert said, taking the girl in his arms and resting her head on his shoulder. “It’s me. You’re safe now.”

  Virginia stiffened and pushed back from the laird. She sat on her knees and looked in his direction, listening to the sound of his breathing. His breath quickened as he looked at her. She was the same Virginia as ever. One wrist was still bandaged, though the bandages were torn and shabby; her face was scratched and her clothes were blackened from heat and smoke. Yet something was different. A fire seemed to blaze in her green eyes, the red in her dark hair seemed more pronounced—yet it wasn’t physical change that made his heart beat faster.

  He could not begin to point to the change in a tangible way, but she had changed. She had always been a girl before, a pretty blind girl from the Highlands. And now a woman sat before him: a woman shining with the glory of another world.

  “By the stars, Virginia,” Lord Robert whispered. “What happened to you?”

  “Much,” she said at last. “So much has happened. I don’t know…” She broke off and looked up, as if she was seeking guidance from the sky.

  “Why did you leave the train?” Lord Robert asked. His words seemed to wrench her back, to force her into conversation she did not want to have.

  “Someone was after me,” Virginia said. “She would have killed you all if she’d found me with you.”

  “Someone?” Lord Robert asked.

  “I don’t know who she was,” Virginia said.

  “Did she find you here?” the laird pressed. “The earth is burned black all around you.”

  “Yes, she found me,” Virginia said. “But I—I defeated her… and they came.”

  “They?” Lord R
obert’s voice was shaking with excitement. Only now was he noticing the tracks that scuffed the dirt all around the clearing: wolf and bear and fox and badger, deer and squirrel and mouse.

  “The spirits of the forest,” Virginia said in a low voice.

  “Tell me,” he said, urgently. “Who were they—these spirits?”

  “The spirits of animals, and trees, and wind,” Virginia said. “They have been bound since the exile of the King. Laird, I… please, don’t ask me any more.”

  “The King?” Lord Robert said. His voice was taut. “What are you talking about?”

  Virginia began to cry silent tears. “I have seen the King myself,” she said. “He came to me in Angslie. He is—he is spring, and light, and goodness—I can’t describe him. He is peace. He is beautiful.”

  Lord Robert fell silent at last. He had long known that Virginia held much back from him, that she did not trust him, but he felt it now more keenly than ever. She was a stranger to him, this woman-girl with the fire of another world in her unseeing eyes. She had finished speaking, he knew, and yet if he could have wrested more from her with his hands, he would have done it. He looked at her, and something in him twisted until he felt as though it would break. He needed understanding. Needed it desperately. For the first time Virginia, with her closely-held secrets, seemed to him like an enemy.

  “We are far from any shelter,” Lord Robert said, and stood abruptly. He reached down and helped Virginia to her feet. “Let’s go. I don’t want you spend a night out here. Your attacker could come back.”

  “She would not dare,” Virginia said, almost to herself. But the laird heard, and frowned.

  His thoughts waged war with each other until he and Virginia reached the railroad tracks, and on until they had followed the rails to a small town with an inn. He did not speak to Virginia again until he bade her goodnight and retired to a room of his own.

  * * *

  Maggie did not stop running until Pravik was behind her and she was standing on the side of a great slope that swept away to farmland and miles of country roads. The slope was wooded with small, friendly trees, and Maggie threw herself into the damp warmth of dead leaves beneath the branches and cried.