by Scott Hale
“Vrana,” Deimos said as he approached. He helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, wiping the blood from her hands onto the leaves of a nearby bush. “Did he escape?”
The “he” to which Vrana referred appeared to have been the leader of the group of Penance missionaries, and as Serra traded one body for another in the woods, she noticed that “he” had not made it very far at all. It was Lucan who could be thanked for that, having launched a well-aimed rock that shattered the leader’s knee. As with the Cruel Mother and Greedy Father, and even the elders, this leader didn’t appear worthy of his station. He had attacked Vrana and her companions carelessly, without any strategic considerations.
There was one part of him that Vrana found commendable, however: he didn’t scream, not even as Serra dragged him by his bleeding, broken leg across the clearing.
“You could have passed unnoticed,” Lucan said as he joined Vrana and Deimos, wiping blood from his pincers.
Serra released the man at their feet, and the man let out a stifled groan.
“On what god’s behalf do you murder today?” Lucan added.
The missionary spat at Lucan. “There is only one, as there has always been. Kill me, so that I may sit at his side. I do not fear death as you do, godless beasts of the South.”
Deimos grunted and sheathed his sword. “What are you doing in the South?”
The missionary’s face contorted. He tightened his throat so as to not vomit from the agony. “Spreading word of his return.”
“God’s?” Vrana asked, afraid that if she didn’t, she may never know.
Again, the man spat. He reached for his leg with his Corrupted arm and then retracted, tears forming in his eyes. “You will not find him. He will not be killed by you, like so many others that have fallen to your hate. I do not fear death!”
Serra stepped away, only to return shortly thereafter with a large rock that Vrana estimated to weigh at least forty pounds. He stood above the missionaries’ leader, looked at Deimos for approval, and then released the rock, dropping it onto the man’s other leg. The leader shrieked as his bones snapped and broke through his flesh.
Deimos stepped back. “You may not fear Death, but you will fear what comes before It. Call it what you like, but suicide and martyrdom are one and the same.” He touched Vrana on the arm. “Come.”
They returned to their site in the woods. Vrana smothered the last embers crawling along the charred logs, trying to no avail to ignore the missionary’s pathetic pleas from the field. Serra nodded at her as he moved about the area, covering their tracks. Lucan tore chunks out of the sides of their conjured horses to stow their blankets and earthenware and then went about his business as root and soil moved across the beasts’ bodies to patch the wounds.
Vrana picked up her ax, which had been forgotten in the confusion, and turned around to find Deimos before her, one hand behind his back. “You should have killed him,” she blurted out, surprised by her audacity.
“Lucan heard them this morning, before we woke. They were laughing, boasting how they’d kill us, take you—take you with them, a prisoner, to pleasure them as they spread the word of god. Our masks are worth money to some, but the young, like you, are worth even more. While you slept, we pretended to, and when they thought they had the advantage, they moved in. If you believe that man to deserve mercy, I assure you he is still waiting for it.”
Vrana shook her head. “I’ve none to give.”
At that moment, Deimos revealed what was hidden in his hand behind his back. “Your mother said you may need to be reminded.” It was a bundle of blue flowers with green markings that spiraled outward on the petals. “A snap of Delirium; she said you may need to be reminded of the names, too.”
Vrana took the flowers from him, simultaneously moved by his thoughtfulness and revolted by the intentions of the Corrupted. She mounted her horse rigidly, still adjusting to the armor Bjørn had given her. Deimos took the lead, followed by Lucan, with Serra holding up the end of their formation. Her body chilled by the strain of battle and biting wind, she pulled the faerie silk cloak close.
They were following the Spine, the highway which she had only seen at a distance during her third trial. They called it the Spine because it had once been part of a network that connected the northern lands to the southern, as well as all of the human settlements along the way. Vrana’s people, however, made a habit of destroying it to prevent expansion and flirtations with war. The highway would take them to Nora, a small town by the sea. Afterward, it would eventually fall into disrepair.
Soon, they would reach the place where she had found the corpse and its silver necklace. She’d asked about the necklace the night prior, but her companions only shook their heads, said that it looked familiar, but that they could not place it.
“They do what they can with the Spine, fixing it when they can,” Lucan told her, “but for no reason other than to show us that they can.”
When Vrana asked how they had managed to dismantle a highway with so few, Lucan responded, “Our numbers were greater then. Now we must supplement our ranks with misinformation to keep them none-the-wiser.”
This made Serra laugh, though Vrana was unsure as to why.
Cement pipes had burst through the embankment to their left, drooling fetid water down the hillside. The Spine had all but vanished as they passed valleys and crags. Vrana was glad for the midday sun, for in it no shadows could harass her as they had in the ravine during the third trial. She wanted to stop when she thought she saw Ødegaard’s Hospital through the windswept forest, but Deimos didn’t give her the impression that he was a man who would allow delays. And when she heard Serra relieving himself while on horseback, she knew she’d no find support from the others.
Vrana looked down at her horse’s stone hooves as they clapped against the uneven ground; mud sloughed from the beast’s legs, while sticks and branches twisted free. Like most things, the conjured horses’ time was limited.
“Deimos,” she called out, “will these…?”
Her words became lodged in her throat as something collided against the back of her mask. She turned herself around, ripping free from the restraining roots, expecting to find Serra with a rock in hand and a smug grin somewhere inside the maw of his mask.
But he was empty-handed, pointing at something above her head. When she looked up, that something slammed into her once more. Heat rose to her face as she spun around, daggers out, trying to find what was hitting her. She could hear Lucan laughing, now privy to the situation, and when she turned after another collision, she found the culprit hovering before her.
Blix.
Fucking Blix.
She sheathed her daggers and snatched the crow from the air, ignoring his beak as it pecked at her hands. She searched him for a message, and when she couldn’t find one, she held the bird at arm’s length and began speaking to it as a parent would to a troublesome child.
“What are you doing? What’s happened? How did you find us?” she said, unable to decide if she should be happy or sad by his sudden arrival.
She realized she was speaking to a crow, and while some could expect an answer back—and she most certainly did—the fact of the matter was Vrana did not possess such an ability. “I’m sorry,” she said, smoothing Blix’s feathers. “You followed me this entire way?”
The bird cawed and perched itself atop her head. Deimos, without stopping his horse, yelled from the front that Blix could stay so long as he was willing to let the group make use of his wings and eyes. Vrana doubted the bird’s likelihood of coming through on such an expectation, for his greatest achievement in life was not shitting on her belongings every day, but only every other day.
“At the very least, Blix, you’ll make a decent snack.” She reached up and tapped the bird. “You’d do the same to me.”
At nightfall, they came to a halt and dismounted from their horses, abandoning the Spine as it bent eastward into t
he Dires, where the land was arid and cruel. The ground beneath their feet was a hard bed of shale that covered their armor in dust when broken. They made camp in the sparse patch of woods a mile from the highway, moving without words as they each completed their assigned duties. Beyond the woods, numerous torches sputtered in the dark, revealing brief glimpses of the buildings and figures upon the midnight horizon.
Through the withering trees, where the land fell away, Vrana saw, for the first time, the sea and watched breathlessly as its black waves crashed against the shore. She wanted nothing more than to stand among them, to feel their force against her body, to hear their secret words from faraway places. She found herself vexed by the shifting surface and how it seemed to stretch on forever, so much so that Serra had to nudge her back to reality on more than one occasion.
“Should we be this close to Nora?” Vrana asked as she took a heat rock from Deimos, who had decided against another fire.
“Well, any farther and it will be quite a walk,” Lucan said, tearing off a piece of dried meat and handing it to Vrana.
“What do you mean?” she asked, lifting her mask to eat the meat, while Serra slurped something down beside her. “Are we going into Nora?”
Lucan and Serra finished their meals and stood up, brushing the crumbs off their hands. “We are,” Lucan said, patting Serra on the back. “You’re welcome, too, if you can keep your voice down and head low.”
Deimos fashioned a robe from a brown blanket and threw it over himself. “You may stay at the camp with me if you like, but Nora has a library that sees little use from all but its mayor. You may find something on the Witch if you look hard enough.” He cleared his throat. “And don’t forget about your mother’s request. I’ll see to Blix if you should go.”
“I could do without seeing her again, that Witch,” Lucan grumbled as he fastened two knives to each leg.
Serra grunted in agreement.
“I hope you’ll fill us in about that sometime,” Lucan said.
Vrana braced herself against the stinging wind as she followed her companions through the woods, pushing back the branches that clawed at her armor as she passed. Heavy, gray clouds limped across the black firmament, a warning of the rains to come. Twice, Lucan stopped Vrana, listening for things she had not heard, looking for things she had not seen. They ignored her when she asked quietly what was happening—information which she felt entitled to, given the circumstances.
She gripped her ax tightly as strange shapes flailed on the beach, telling herself Deimos would not have entrusted her to these men if they were not more than capable of defending her. I don’t need their help, she thought. I wouldn’t be here if I did.
They kept to the shadows as they crossed over a small stone wall and into Nora. The torches Vrana saw earlier were now nothing more than smoldering remnants coughing ashes into the night. A lone sentry tower, battered and vacated, stood watch over the empty streets. Vrana felt her heart beat fast as they walked between the stone houses.
Every footfall was deliberate, slowed to the point of near silence. Yet, despite her caution, Vrana could not help but indulge her curiosity: She peered into a nearby window and found an older couple in bed, the wife’s head resting comfortably atop her husband’s chest. She thought of Aeson and then thought of something else.
Lucan grunted to Vrana for her attention. He pointed left to a domed building on the edge of town that overlooked the coast. Serra was already gone when she turned to find him, and when she turned once more to ask Lucan what they were doing, he had gone, too. With no choice but to press on, Vrana did just that, abandoning her view of the shadow-swarmed beach for the shadow-drenched innards of the library.
CHAPTER XII
While Nora’s library could not be compared to the Archive, the amount of effort put into its maintenance was more than enough for one to overlook its lack of scale and volume. The floor was made up of millions of pieces of stone that appeared as though they had never known a speck of dust, dirt, or sand. The walls were spotless and held portraits and paintings of people and places long since dead or destroyed. Every row of every shelf, eight in all, was filled. Even the air was clean, unlike outside, where it stung the eyes and tasted of salt.
Vrana tried to imagine who would have the time in a town such as this to make use of all of the knowledge here, but before she could formulate an answer, the scent of perfume swirled around her, and a woman’s voice, low and gravelly, called out. “Can I help you with something?” the woman said, her words echoing around Vrana. “It’s not that easy to get turned around in these parts.”
Vrana’s eyes searched the dark for signs of life, stopping on the candle in the distance and the open book beside it, the pages of which turned as though by a phantom reader. She listened for sounds of scurrying between the rows, for heavy breaths taken after being held for too long. She cast her gaze to the domed ceiling, following the sparse scaffolding, which suggested the dream of a second floor not yet realized. She thought back to the rocks in the tunnel leading to the Inner Sanctum and wished for their warm glow, wanting nothing more than to throw a handful of them at the shadows and reveal the coy woman lurking within.
“Who’s there?” Vrana called.
“The bird speaks,” the woman responded, her voice followed by what sounded like the loading of a mechanism. “Have you a song to sing, little bird?”
“I’m looking for something,” Vrana said, trying to determine how much information to divulge.
“Aren’t we all?” the woman replied, taking a step forward, her location still unknown. “But I expect your something is someone and that that someone is not one but two, and so I must ask you to leave, as you will not find them here.”
Vrana didn’t understand what she was trying to tell her, but she saw no reason for the woman to know this. “I seek books.”
The woman cleared her throat and deliberated. Finally, she stepped into the light, revealing herself to be of average height, dark of skin and hair, and graced with a worn beauty found only through hard labor. She held a crossbow at her side, and it was loaded.
Vrana shifted her weight, ready to dive behind one of the shelves as soon as the woman brought the weapon to her chest.
“There’s no sense in moving,” the woman said, tapping her fingers against the stave. “I’m a good shot. I don’t miss my mark unless I’ve reason to.”
“You’re arm isn’t… Corrupted.” The words seemed to hang in the air as Vrana searched the woman for any indication of the crimson defect.
“Neither is yours.”
“I’m not human,” Vrana said defensively.
“Maybe I’m not either,” the woman said, a smirk on her face. She lifted the crossbow. “Tell me…” Then, she lowered it as a scream pierced the veil of sleep that had fallen on the coastal town. “My apologies, little bird. You’re looking for books?”
Could that have been Lucan or Serra? Vrana considered how they had slipped through the town with such ease; whereas she had once found it convenient, she now found it disconcerting. The woman leered at her as she weighed her options for escape, none of which seemed to guarantee anything but a slow, painful death from the loaded bolt.
Vrana’s teachers had told her that conflict resolution came in many forms; that words could penetrate that which a sword could not. Sighing, she relaxed her arm and set aside thoughts of dismembering the woman. “Who are you?”
The woman laughed, caught off guard by the question. “Allinora, though none may call me that but my mother. Nora will suffice, and no, I did not name the town after myself,” she said. “I am the mayor,” she added, realizing Vrana had failed to make the connection. Nora cocked her head and continued. “I know better than to ask your name, little bird, but I do know that you’re new to this world. You’re the Caldera kind, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Vrana admitted, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. “I’m looking for books, old stories, about a woman, a Witch.”
She paused, swallowed. “She lives in a Void. She comes out of the water to twist and torture Corrupted.”
Nora shook her head. She stepped away from Vrana, setting the crossbow down onto the table beside the candle. She stretched her arms outward, upward, and squealed with delight. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ve no books on that. There was a woman, though—and I suppose Witch would be the most appropriate name for her, now that I think about it—who came to our little town when the sea refused to do anything but spit back empty nets and lures. The men took to her, of course, like the bottles they took to at night to drown their feelings of inadequacy. Stupid, dumb, weak men.
“Their wives came to me, asked me to send the woman on her way. I’d been planning on it before they asked, but a lot needs fixing around here. That Witch, she was very pretty and charming; I couldn’t fault the men for their lapse in logic, but I couldn’t let them keep at it. There was something foul about her.
“What little money these families had left was thrown at the woman’s feet, and I’m sure she’d no need for it. She took it, but I found it months later, hidden in the walls in the house she’d been staying in. Eventually, I grew tired of her giggling and the morons she had made of my workers and decided to be rid of her. The next morning I stepped outside and found her at sea, on the sea, standing, yes, on the waves, and I watched as my people walked one by one into the waves, choking on the water as they called out to her. Men, women, and children were all lined up on the shore, ready to make the plunge. They weren’t afraid of dying, and that’s just what they did on that shore. You see those shadows out there on your way in? That’s them, their ghosts. Every night, for all nights since.
“I went back inside, found my crossbow, and when I opened my door there she stood, drenched and rotted. She laughed, touched me on the cheek with her hand, and walked off, disappearing in that mess of trees on the outskirts. Seems she was content enough to go on her own. Does that sound like your Witch?”
Vrana nodded, making a mental note of the similarities between Nora’s story and those she had read and discussed with Aeson. “Did she ever return?”