Dead Souls

by Campbell, Ramsey; Warren, Kaaron; Finch, Paul; McMahon, Gary; Hood, Robert; Stone, Michael; Mark S. Deniz

  Dayit reached for me. I do not know if he meant good or ill by it.

  My mother snatched me away from him. She ran to the door and yanked it open. Then she hurled me out into the snow. Something broke in me. It broke before ever I hit the hard cobbles of the street. Perhaps it was my heart. Perhaps it was only part of the spell.

  I have not been able to sing since. What good would it do? I lost all that I ever cared about — my beloved Dayit, my family, my family’s honour, even the well-meaning if improper Sarang.

  Some merchant took me from the street. When he plucked my strings, I whispered to him in my broken voice. I spoke of my pain. He put me in his wagon. Quickly he threw a bolt of silk on top of me. I do not think he wanted to hear me any more than I wanted to be heard.

  Not long after that, I heard screams. The wagon smashed apart. I found myself lying in blood again. This time I did not even know whose. The dragon picked over the goods quite delicately. She purred when she discovered me. Then she carried me to her lair.

  All of that happened a hundred years ago.

  So you see, young hero, I do not need to be rescued. I am lost, and it is better this way. I have my carpet to sit upon. I have the quiet. I wish no harm to the dragon you came to slay. Leave her in peace — she will only rouse if you try to take something. Go back the way you came. There is nothing for you here.

  What can you do for me, you ask? Lift your hand from my strings. Walk away and leave me here. Let me sleep.

  Just let me sleep, and let me never wake.

  ****

  when the cloak falls

  Catherine J. Gardner

  Ghosts of ancient trees lingered. As if the feet of fallen giants, gnarled roots poked out of the earth waiting to trip the unwary. Sunniva knew, with a simple breath from the west wind, that the charcoal branches would disintegrate to dust. Tristan lay among them, fragile. He wore a coat torn from the back of a sheep’s corpse, had washed his face in its blood.

  She snapped off a strip of burnt wood and crushed it between her fingers. More than one man caused this, and those men were trying to destroy something other than forest. Whatever the lords muttered among themselves, whichever way the wind blew their swords, she knew. There was more to this. The farmers of Bedburg whispered the same as they removed the ravaged corpses of sheep and goats from their land. Some whispered of her grandfather and crossed themselves. And they were wrong.

  “Brother.” Her voice was soft. “Come out, brother, and do not be afraid.”

  Tristan dug his fingernails into the earth and attempted to stare out of bloodshot eyes glazed by lunacy.

  “I know you did not do this.” She looked across the path trodden, through the weave of trees. They were coming. “And some of them know as well, but they remember grandfather. That is why we must go.”

  The magistrate and townsfolk had pinned their grandfather to the wheel and tortured him. Of course, he was a bad man.

  Sunniva wrapped her grey cloak about her thin bones — knew she faded in this landscape, merged, as if waiting for the wind to blow her out of life.

  A growl bubbled in her brother’s throat and he rocked forward. Branches shattered beneath her step, and their dust lifted and settled on her slippers. Sunniva curved her palm over her mouth, stifling her cough. Tristan shook his head and brayed backwards, kicking his heels and trying to grip onto the dusty earth.

  Crack!

  The sound reverberated through the forest and tore bark from the trees, thinning out the landscape.

  “They are coming,” she urged, and knew his madness did not understand. “We must leave. We must go.”

  Her voice served only to force him further back, deeper into the forest. If he turned, they were lost.

  Light blurred against the fog of dead trees. Blood pumped fast and hard through her veins, and she felt her heart swell as it swallowed and refused to release. She pulled the hood of her cloak tight around her flame-red hair, afraid it would prove a beacon.

  “Tristan.” She urged his name, yet guessed he did not recognize it. “Oh where has your mind fled?”

  “Children of Stubbe!” a gruff voice called out from the mist. “Plague of Bedburg…”

  The lights shimmered closer. There was no place to hide in this dead world. She turned. She fled. Faded into the forest; a grey phantom with the whole of Germania chasing her. Tears ran down her cheeks, her hand too wary to wipe them away. The further she weaved through the trees, the more distant the world became. As if she were never a part of it. This was something fashioned from nightmare. A sequence of images that would end when she broke through the fever.

  Though her flight should have found an abrupt end at the river, Sunniva walked on. Her cloak billowed and swelled. The swirl tugged at her legs as waterweeds threatened to entwine and pull her under. Her feet slipped as a tortured cry crept through the forest and shattered branches. A sudden slosh and splatter of the lake startled her. She was not alone. Sunniva turned and, at the sight of the black beast, stumbled back.

  The world morphed and became a muted grey with indistinguishable swirls of black as she sank. Water bubbled as it rushed between her lips, proved her enemy as her hands and legs batted against its pull. The black beast, a terrible, terrifying steed, pushed its nose through the water and pressed hard against her stomach.

  Sunniva gave up her fight.

  If a horse can manage such a thing, then this horse smiled. Though washed away by the current, tears flowed from Sunniva’s dying eyes. She wondered where her mind would flee to when death claimed her.

  Relief as the water-horse ceased its press. Water poured down her face as she shot up, back into the ash-thick air. She lurched forward, spewed water and clutched her stomach. Hooves broke her left ankle as the creature turned and kicked out against something as big and nasty as itself and red mist rose from her foot. Sunniva attempted to pull herself away from the fight of sleek black skin and grey fur. She struggled out of her cloak, and cared not that her red hair stood bright against the washed-out world.

  The horse-beast fell with a splash that washed onto the bank. The grey thing that had won looked down at her with curiosity. With its left paw, it picked her up. Its muzzle rubbed against her sodden skin. It stood as a man, and yet was every bit the animal it appeared.

  “What are you?” she coughed.

  It answered with a bite.

  ****

  Tristan lay as if dead. Sheep’s blood mingled with his own, his mind already severed from reality. She thought of pressing the wound on her arm to his mouth, but she knew he already carried the disease. Her fiery hair fell across her brother’s pale skin as she pressed her ear to his chest and listened to the steady thump, thump, thump.

  “We are to wait for the bright Moon.” She ran her hand through his hair as the glaze of madness persisted. “And then we can walk amongst them. Then we can frighten them from our world, as they did you from theirs.”

  ****

  the price of peace

  Anna M. Lowther

  Ernst moaned and rubbed his head, noting the blood that came away with his hand. A bright ray of sunlight pierced the dark interior of the Panzer, streaming down through the hatch, which should have been shut. Ernst looked around and shook his head in disbelief.

  Gone! All gone. He strained for a memory, and at last it swam into his consciousness. The ice storm had been heavy, worse than predicted, and they had somehow been separated from the rest of the 4th Division. Visibility had been zero, but the tank should have been able to roll over anything in its path.

  He shielded his eyes and looked up at the hatch. The door was open, but the edge was misshapen and he could see a massive ice-rimmed tree lying across the front of the tank. A blast of wind sent clots of snow down the open hatch, and he winced as it struck his face.

  Ernst pulled himself to his feet, fell backward and vomited a mix of blood and bile on the cold steel floor. He looked down and groaned; his left leg ballooned over his boot and the shoc
kwave of pain told him it was broken.

  Where are my men? I’ll send them to the camps for this! He pulled a rifle off the wall rack and using it as a crutch, stood again. He leaned against the ladder, summoning the strength to pull himself up when he heard movement outside the tank.

  Ah, so they were just securing the area. He sighed and looked up the hatch ready to be pulled free of the wreckage when he heard voices speaking, not German, but instead Russian.

  Before he could react, two arms grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him upward and cast him on the ground. His arms were pinned, denying him access to his Luger and the knife hidden in his boot. He turned his head and saw three shallow depressions in the snow, laced with blood. He pictured his little sister lying in the snow, flapping her arms and legs to make snow angels. Whoever made these angels had bleeding wings.

  He strained to see the soldiers holding him down, but the sunlight reflecting off the snow rendered him blind. He heard the rustle of a long coat and a stooped man stepped to Ernst’s shoulder, blocking the light.

  Ernst expected a Russian officer, yet this was merely an elderly peasant. He struggled against the restraining arms.

  “Was is los? Du bist? Wo sind meine Manner?” Ernst barked in a voice that demanded the respect due an officer.

  The old man chuckled. His German was rough around the edges, but sufficient for Ernst to understand. “All in due time, Kommandant. You will join your men soon enough. As for us, we are Protectors of Witterstadt. Perhaps you will indulge an old man and listen to his tale, da?”

  Ernst thrust upward, felt something in his chest grate and threw up again. Collapsing back into the snow, he glared at the peasant.

  “It seems I need to rest a bit and am in no position to stop your chatter.”

  The old man clapped his hands. “Very good, then. We have a chair ready for you where you may rest.”

  Ernst was lifted to his feet and carried through a copse of trees. In the centre of a small clearing stood a high-backed chair built from snow and coated in a thick layer of ice. It rose about a foot above the ground, as if it sat on a hillock.

  No longer facing directly into the sun, Ernst was able to clearly see his captors as they bound him to the chair. The three men were stoop-shouldered and their faces were wizened and ruddy. Their hair and beards were long and white as the snow; their eyebrows were bushy white mice crawling across their foreheads. Arthritis twisted their hands into grotesque mockeries of youth.

  Panic tickled the edges of Ernst’s mind. How could such old men restrain me? He struggled against the thick rope that held him. The cold of the ice seeped through his uniform, numbing his legs and buttocks. Blood dripped from his forehead and fell to the snow at his feet, spreading like rose petals scattered at a wedding.

  The first old man pulled a flask from his coat and held it to Ernst’s lips. The vodka was bitter and Ernst choked then sighed as the alcohol spread fire through his veins.

  The old man nodded to his companions and they slipped back into the trees. He took a seat on a stump across from Ernst and took a long swallow from the flask.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gregor, Chief Protector of Witterstadt. Since you are a, shall we say, captive audience, I will tell you a tale most old and beautiful. It is the story of the Snow Maiden.”

  Ernst coughed and spit a clot of blood toward the old man. “The Snow Maiden? You want to waste my time with children’s fairy tales? Don’t bother, for I already know it. The old man and woman, so desperate for a child build a girl of snow. She falls in love and when the young man returns her ardour her heart grows warm and she becomes real. Oh so sweet and touching.”

  Ernst coughed again and nodded at the flask. Gregor tilted it so that Ernst could take another swallow. Ernst shook his head and drops of blood flew across the snow.

  “Look, old man! Do you not see my blood? Why speak of warmth and love today? This is war. Kill me and be done with it. I am not afraid to die.” Ernst gritted his teeth and glared.

  “But, young man, you are mistaken. My tale is not the one you know, though it is the one most often spread beyond our village. Had you not become separated from the other tanks, you would never have heard the true story. That should be some comfort to you, da?” Gregor’s lip turned up at one corner.

  Ernst barked a hoarse laugh. “Some comfort, indeed. Tell your tale if you must. I grow tired.”

  Gregor pulled out a pipe and lit it, puffing as he began. “The beginning of the tale is correct. Once in times long forgotten, here in the hidden village of Witterstadt lived a couple that longed for a child but were never blessed with one. One long, bitter winter they built a snow maiden and dressed it in the things the woman had made for the child that never came.”

  Gregor paused to sip from the flask. “The story goes that they prayed to God for a real child, but the truth goes far deeper. They prayed to God, for years and years but their home remained empty. By the time they built the snow maiden they prayed to anyone that might hear, and at last someone heard and answered.”

  A cloud passed over the sun, darkening the sky. Ernst shivered from more than just the cold seeping through his damp wool. “So who was it that heard their prayers, then?”

  “An ancient power, with a name you could not speak with human lips. The maiden came to life the very night she was created, and her beauty was cold and terrible. She was a cruel young woman, but so intoxicating to behold that every man fell under her spell.”

  Gregor’s eyes clouded over as he stared into the distance. “Witterstadt was a happy village then, ruled by a kind Boyar. He had a sweet and innocent daughter, Katerinka, who was betrothed to the son of a Romanian Boyar.”

  Ernst grunted. “Let me guess, he dallied with the Snow Maiden?”

  Gregor waggled his finger. “Patience, young one. When the time for the marriage came and the young man arrived in Witterstadt, our Boyar ordered the old ones to lock their daughter away. By this time the village was quite divided with the women calling the Snow Maiden a demoness and the men protesting her purity and innocence.”

  Gregor looked past Ernst’s head and lifted his hand. Ernst tried to turn to see what was behind, but the back of the ice chair was too high. He cursed beneath his breath and waited for Gregor to continue.

  “Once happy marriages were torn with discord. Wives accused husbands of lusting after the Maiden and in turn the husbands beat their wives for their jealousy. The village priest decided that the maiden should be dealt with beyond the time for Katerinka’s wedding.” Gregor dumped his pipe and refilled the bowl.

  Ernst heard the snow crunch behind his chair. He tilted his head and listened and caught the sound of heavy breathing.

  Gregor smiled and taking a deep breath, resumed his story. “The old couple waited until their miracle daughter went to bed and bolted her door from the outside. The women of the village threw a brace over the window shutter and stood guard so that no man might let the maiden out. The priest stood beneath the window and recited a ritual to seal the demon within the room. She could not come out unless set free by a willing hand.”

  The wind began to blow, carrying whirls of snow about the clearing. Gregor brushed the flakes from his beard, puffed his pipe and continued on.

  “The next day Katerinka was wed, and the Snow Maiden beat upon her door begging her adoptive parents to set her free. The old man and woman wept to hear their beloved daughter so distressed and promised to open the door as soon as Katerinka and her groom were safely away to their new home in Romania.”

  The snow began to fall in a heavy curtain of white. Unable to brush it away, Ernst shivered as it blanketed his thighs.

  Gregor nodded his head and lifted his face to the storm. “The wind hears my tale and answers. That day so long ago, a blizzard settled over Witterstadt and prevented the departure of the newlyweds. For a fortnight they waited for a break in the storm. Meanwhile, the Snow Maiden wailed and beat upon her door pleading for release. She cried out
to her mother that without the snow she would die, and a trickle of water seeped beneath the door.”

  The sky began to colour with the setting of the sun. The blowing snow glinted copper red as it fell. Gregor closed his eyes and spoke. “The old man left, for he could not bear the sound of her cries. The old woman sat outside the bedroom door and wept, her voice in sorrowful harmony with the Maiden’s. At last the morning dawned when no snow fell. Wanting to surprise his bride before they set off, the groom slipped out of bed and wandered into the village seeking some harbinger of spring.”

  Ernst could no longer feel his fingertips nor his toes. Squirming, he asked, “Is there a point to all this?”

  Gregor chuckled. “Indeed, and you will understand all when the tale is done. As the young groom neared the cabin where the Snow Maiden languished, she sensed his approach and began to sing. Her song was low and mournful and he was compelled to follow the sound. As he drew near she pierced her finger and let the blood seep under the windowsill. The drops were icy blue and where they fell in the snow a pale cerulean flower blossomed.”

  Ernst felt dizzy and his chin sagged to his chest. His eyes watered and the fluid froze at the tips of his lashes. He blinked and squinted, then shook his head trying to clear both his thoughts and his eyes. Where did those flowers come from? How can there be flowers atop the snow?

  Gregor waved his hand and the other old men returned to stand beside him. “The Boyar’s son picked the flowers, and the Maiden stopped singing. He begged her to continue the song, but she refused until she could see his face. She pleaded with him to set her free, and he tore at the shutters until the noise awoke the villagers. They ran to the house and tried to stop him, but he had pulled one corner loose.”

  The wind rose again and carried a sad and haunting song around Ernst’s head. He lifted his chin and tried to pinpoint the source of the sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Gregor stood and the three old men moved to stand in front of Ernst.