by Tim Akers
“Gheists?” Elsa asked. “I see no gheists.”
“The forest itself.” Gwen helped Lucas to his feet, then got between the two of them and started toward the magically shrouded river. “We’re deep into the everealm here, my friends. Right at the source. The gheists are not forest spirits. The forest itself is the spirit. All gheist. Keep moving.”
Elsa looked around nervously. The trees lurked closer.
“Right,” she said. “Moving.”
Together they made it to the river. Gwen called a halt, guiding Lucas to the ground and dusting off her hands against her pants.
“The people who protect this place… I don’t really know what they’re going to say about this. My bond to them is tricky. I kill more gheists than they like, but not enough to bring us to blows. It’s a balance, but this I promise you.” She stole a glance at the ailing frair. “They’ve never met an inquisitor that they like.”
“Doesn’t put us far off. I’ve only met one I can stand,” Elsa said. “Know that if it comes to violence, I will defend the frair.”
“As will I,” Gwen said after a moment’s consideration. “I owe you that much.”
“You understand that when this is over, you’ll probably still be facing a heretic’s sentence.”
“Of course, and I expect you to be at my side, pleading my case,” Gwen said. “So I need to do everything I can to earn your trust.”
Elsa grimaced. She thought seriously about leaving the huntress there and striking back toward civilization with the frair in tow. The trees behind her didn’t look that threatening from here, as long as the sun was shining and the moon was bright. The river, on the other hand, was far too blue, far too luminous to be natural.
If she left, Elsa might never know what lay beyond those waters. And Lucas had risked too much to abandon this search now. She sighed.
“How do we get across?”
“We ask,” Gwen said. Then she helped Lucas to his feet. “Are you well enough to go on, Frair?”
“Probably not, but I’m much too ill to stay here. So on we go.” He made a grand gesture, lost in his frailty and their strange surroundings. “Lead on, Huntress.”
Gwen stood the two of them shoulder to shoulder, facing the river. Then she placed herself in front of them. The tips of her boots touched the water, and a shiver went through her bones. She raised her hands.
“Glimmerglen, river of spirit, river of life. Guardian of the true hallow, the final god. Spirit of the river, the warden, the wife. Reveal yourself to us.”
“Three of three,” Lucas muttered to himself. “Interesting.”
Gwen hushed him, then turned back to the river and repeated her invocation. And then again.
The river rose to meet her.
It was only a glimmer at first, beginning in a calm pool, a ripple in water that was still. Then the banks of the river swelled and freezing water surged over Gwen’s feet. It lapped at the others, tasting them, dashing around the stones at their feet before drawing back. Something rose from the river’s surface. A woman made of glass, but hardly a woman at all, no more a woman than a cloud was a storm or a stone an avalanche. Something remarkable drew itself out of the water and hovered in front of them, its skin clear as water and bright as lightning.
“You bring corruption,” it said in a voice that crashed and soothed. “I will cleanse it.”
“No,” Gwen said too quickly, and the spirit tilted its head at her. “No…” she said again, holding her hands in front of her companions. “They’re not… not what you think. A corruption follows us, maybe. We’re here to hide from it. This one is dying. We seek healing from the wardens.”
“Strife is fire, and Cinder is ash,” the spirit of the river said. “They must be cleansed. Of their life, if not their souls.”
“I don’t like how this is going,” Elsa murmured.
“Just be quiet for a minute,” Gwen snapped over her shoulder. “Glimmerglen, I need their help. Something is happening among the Celestials. Something terrible. I have worked with these two, protected them, fought with them. I owe them my life. I can not offer you theirs.”
“Do they know the ground they are walking? Do they understand the hallow?”
“Does any child of flesh understand the hallow?” Gwen asked.
The spirit waited for a breath. The air stretched thin around them, the sun pinwheeled overhead in the long minutes that passed with each heartbeat. Then the spirit bent toward Gwen.
It swallowed all three of them.
The water was cold until it numbed, and then it burned. Elsa struggled against the bondage of flood, but there was nothing to push against, no current to fight. Nevertheless, she thrashed in the spirit’s grip, her mind screaming out to Strife for guidance, for strength, but the sky didn’t answer.
Then they were on the other shore. The world fell into place around them. The air cleared, and Strife settled into her usual position. Whatever strangeness had been in the world disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind.
“What happened?” Elsa asked, startled and unnerved.
“We’ve passed the wards,” Gwen answered. She breathed deeply, then motioned toward the stony hill just visible over the trees. “All that’s left is to meet the wardens.”
“And the god?” Lucas asked.
“Pray that it doesn’t come to that. Though where your prayers will go from here, I’m honestly not sure.” She laughed and started into the woods. “Maybe best to just hope, and keep your mouth closed… for now.”
* * *
The forest moved like a normal forest, its trees crisscrossed with paths that could have been cut by deer, the underbrush choked with fallen leaves. Strife’s filtered light dappled the forest floor. They could have been among any trees in all of Tenumbra.
Gwen led the trio, with Frair Lucas shuffling frail and tired behind her, and Elsa at the rear. There was birdsong everywhere, and the air was cool and fresh, punctuated here and there by the smell of rotten branches and moss.
“Who are they, these wardens?” Elsa called ahead.
“Pagans,” Gwen answered cheerfully. “They are precisely what you fear—a circle of witching wives and their attendant shamans, tending ancient places, keeping forgotten rituals. Keeping the old gods close.”
“Or the old god,” Lucas muttered. “That’s where we are, isn’t it?”
“Celestials,” Gwen said dismissively. “Celestials and their discreet gods. What is a river without water, what is the breeze without air? We can name the river, call it Greenglove or Tallow, but in the end it’s just water. Always different water, and the same.”
“You should have been a priest,” Elsa said. “You’re just as unsatisfying to listen to, and twice as smug.”
“I am,” Gwen answered. “All of those things.”
“If they are pagans, and if this is the source of their gods, what in hell makes you think they’ll tolerate a Celestial priest and his vow knight in their presence?” Elsa asked. “For that matter, what in hell makes you think we’ll tolerate being here? Do you understand our duty, child? Do you know what we must do with this place, given the power and the chance?”
“Do you understand?” Gwen countered. “Do you really understand what this place is? What destroying it would do? Not just to the north, but to all of Tenumbra.” She pulled up, turning so quickly that Lucas stumbled into her. Gwen steadied him, then nailed Elsa in place with an angry stare. “I brought you here because of things the frair has said. Things I think he understands, or at least hopes to understand, and given the chance, I would answer his questions. But you, vow knight… you I have no reason to trust. So watch your way. This is an easy place to disappear.”
“Listen, you brat—”
“Peace, Sir LaFey,” Lucas said. He stood at Gwen’s side, raising a hand to still Elsa’s protest. “Peace. There is much we don’t know, and I would truly like to understand some of it before I die. Which will happen soon enough if I don’t find a plac
e to rest. So, enough bickering. Let the huntress lead.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment, until Elsa relented and nodded them forward. Gwen gestured Lucas down the road. She stopped Elsa before she could follow.
“I admire your zeal, Sir LaFey. I really do, and you should know that I share it. We serve different gods, but the same godhood. The sooner you get that through your scarred head, the better we’ll all be.”
Elsa frowned and didn’t answer.
Gwen shrugged, then went to find the frair.
“The wardens will find us soon enough,” Gwen called out. “The river will have informed them of our presence, if Elsa’s shouting didn’t give notice enough. We’ll be able to negotiate some kind of peace.”
“No, I don’t think we will,” Lucas said. He had stopped at the edge of a clearing. The hill they had seen earlier, tall and bald, rose beyond the clearing. Elsa came to stand next to him.
The bodies of the wardens, woman and man and child, lay peacefully around a henge at the center of a bowl-shaped clearing. They were holding hands, their faces smeared in the ritual ink and daubed with blood, arcane tools at their feet. At the center of the henge was the circle’s shaman. A copper blade had been plunged into his chest, his limp hand still on the handle.
They were all dead, their lives given in some final ritual, one last binding of the shields that protected the hallow. The wardens were gone, and only their wards remained.
41
THE SOUNDS OF screams and rending stone drifted through the courtyard like fine music. From the doma, the evensong stumbled to a halt. Voices raised, the guards along the walls all rushed to their stations, looking for forces along the castle’s verge. An attack in the courtyard could mean only one thing.
Treachery.
Yet there was no attack. There was no plan among the Suhdrin lords to distract the castle’s defenders in preparation of an assault. No one knew of the gheist that even now ravaged the throne room. No Suhdrin, no pagan of Tener. No one.
Except High Inquisitor Tomas Sacombre, who knelt among the shadows of the castle keep, watching as his scion crashed through the wooden door of the throne room, drawn by the cursed sword held by the duke of Greenhall. Such an arrogant man, that one, Sacombre thought. Such an excellent martyr.
The alarm horn rolled out of the huntress’s watchtower. They would be searching for him soon. Looking for him to save them. Sacombre stood and crept away.
The summoning had taken so much from him. The blood of his heart had been necessary, drawn with naetherblade, the wound stitched closed with shadow. He was weakened. If any should challenge him now, mortal or godling, Sacombre could hardly resist—but he was not looking to fight. He sought knowledge. The secrets of the Fen Gate sang to him through the shadows, drew him deeper and down, so that all he had to do was follow their call.
The ink that scrolled across his chest and arms itched with vibrant power. The corrupted god that dwelt beneath his skin could taste the faith of the old ways seeping through the very stones of the pagan castle. How could Adair think that he could hide his loyalty? Had no one seen this corruption before?
They had not, and Sacombre knew why. It was because no one had taken the ink—the true ink, the pagan’s ink. Not the nostalgic scrollwork of the fallen tribes, the barbaric and powerless runework passed from father to son, their meaning lost in ritual and tradition. A deeper knowledge was needed to bind the true ink to the skin and soul. Knowledge that Sacombre had paid dearly to acquire.
The high inquisitor had only discovered the practice by accident, the secrets buried in the inquisition’s oldest tomes, dusty with neglect at the shrine at Cinderfell. The rites had taken time to master, and the process was imperfect. Even so, Sacombre was finally beginning to understand the power that tempted those who stayed true to the old ways. Only his determination to reforge those powers, to serve the true god of Tenumbra, kept Sacombre faithful.
With a step and a lurch, he nearly tumbled down a stair. He shook his head and looked around. He was standing at the top of a long stairwell, innocuous enough, hidden in the twisting pathways of the crypts beneath the castle. The air smelled of must and wet stone. Sacombre wondered how he had come to be down here, what guards and servants he must have passed to reach this place. He looked back the way he had come. There were bodies. Someone would notice that, and come looking.
Best that he be about winter’s work, then.
* * *
Maeve felt the pull from her place in the stables. She and the rest of her family had sought shelter in the castle when the armies of Suhdra had crested the hill that overlooked the Fen Gate. She was kneeling by her daughter’s bed, singing counterpoint to the eerie evensong, weaving a foundation of ancient faith in the child’s mind, when the first dissonant note struck her heart.
Her voice caught in her throat. Little Ennie, her fat pink fingers plucking at the air, turned wide, wet eyes to her mother.
“Aye, child, the young are always closer to the everealm, h’ain’t they?” she whispered, running a hand through the soft down of the babe’s head. “There’s something in the stones, yes? There’s someone in the shrine.”
“What’s that?” Darrus asked. Her husband was standing at the door of the stable, hayfork in hand. The dear man had been standing guard ever since the Suhdrin party entered the castle. It was his place among the baron’s stablemen that had won them this berth, and he was earnest to protect it.
“Nothing, love. Nothing is wrong at all,” Maeve said, standing.
“Thought I heard you talking.”
“I can talk to my daughter, can’t I?” she replied, going to the small pack of instruments hidden in the hay, unpacking and then carefully hiding a few in the sleeves of her robe. “You should try to get some sleep.”
“No, I think…” Darrus paused, straining his ears. “There. What’s that?”
The first screams reached the couple. Darrus tensed.
“I knew’t,” he said. “I knew they were no good, coming in here. Southern bastards.”
Maeve slipped behind her husband, pressing lips into his neck. His muscles relaxed.
“Sleep, I said,” she whispered, catching him as he fell into her arms. With iron’s strength and spirit’s aid, she dragged him into one of the stalls. She would prefer the hayloft, but she hadn’t the time or strength to spare. When Darrus was settled, she tucked young Ennie into his arms, then hushed her. A glamor and a prayer later, and the stable looked empty. Even if it burned, they would be safely nestled into the pocket of the everealm that Maeve had conjured.
With as much done for her family as she could, Maeve ducked under the hood of her robes and hurried toward the keep.
The gheist horn droned through the night.
* * *
There was no light in the shrine. Maeve breathed a sigh of relief as she passed bloodless through the stones. Her hand brushed the altar and found it unbroken. Whatever was happening up above, it had not yet reached the heart of the castle.
She found a candle among the niches and brought it forward, cupping it in her hand as she searched for the flint. Witches of fire had a much easier time with this, but Maeve had her own tricks. She held the flint next to the wick and, with a push of everam, teased the spark from the stone.
In the flickering light she saw two eyes, black and glinting, at the very edge of the candle’s light. The shadows rushed in and, with a smothering hiss, extinguished the candle’s flame. Startled, she dropped the wick and heard it splat dully onto the stones at her feet. The flint followed as she drew the twin blades from her sleeves and backed up against the wall.
“Do you greet all pilgrims thus?” a voice said from the darkness.
“You are no pilgrim,” she hissed.
“A seeker, perhaps. A student.” There was a shuffle of robes, a stir of air suddenly dry. The voice moved through the room like leaves on the wind. “Curious, like you—though you are not the person I was expecting.”
“The
n you’ve no idea where you are,” Maeve said, backing along the wall. Something brushed her feet and scuttled away. The shadows scurried against her eyes. Oh, for the kinship of fire, but stone would have to do.
“I think I do,” the voice said. “Or, at least, I think I have some idea. I’ve been to Houndhallow, you know. I recognize the darker shrines when I see them.”
Without a word, Maeve slid toward the sound of the voice and slashed out with her blades. Air parted, and the shadows pulled at her robes, resistant as heavy curtains. The voice grunted at her side, then laughed sharply from behind her.
“Not for talking? I’d hoped to crack this shell without too much blood, at least at first—but we can do things your way.”
The shadows around her coalesced, like ropes summoned out of smoke, and bound her arms. Her left hand pressed against her thigh, the blade pricking skin and drawing blood. With her right, trapped at the shoulder but free from the elbow down, Maeve tried to cut free of whatever held her. Something snaked around her leg, her neck, pressing into her eyes until she was sure her veins would burst.
She pushed everam into her free knife, drawing on the power of the hidden shrine and the closing equinox, but whatever her blade cut, the threads of shadow would reform in seconds. With a grunt, Maeve fell to the ground, squirming like a beached fish.
“A dangerous knife, that,” the voice muttered. The speaker kicked the blade from Maeve’s free hand, then leaned down and slowly peeled her fingers back to wrench the other weapon out. His touch was chill, as though his hands were made of clay. “Now then. Perhaps we can try this again. Where do I stand, and what words do I speak to unlock its path to the everealm, witch?”
“Fuck off,” Maeve spat, then dropped through the stone floor like it was water.
The ropes of shadow didn’t follow her, bound as they were to naether. Under the surface of the floor, Maeve’s hearing was as muffled as if she were submerged, but her vision cleared. She could just make out the man, wrapped in shadows tinged the color of blood, stooped over the spot where she had just been.