Stain

by A. G. Howard

  Crony rolled her eyes. As if she weren’t aware of that fact. The sun-smugglers used to visit her stall on their bimonthly excursions. They would purchase her wares for protection against the forest’s shrouds. The ravenous creatures always kept watch over the liquid sunshine inside the entrance. Memories were the one thing a person could bargain with to keep their flesh intact, since the shrouds couldn’t resist a glimpse of what they once were. Crony had missed the extra funds.

  “But ye be overlookin’ the crimp in Dregs’s tale . . .” She resumed her and Luce’s conversation upon catching up with him. “Since when do a horse with wings leave hoofprints?”

  “We’re getting off subject, as always.”

  “Ah, but I thought yer kind liked chasin’ rabbits.”

  He sneezed in derision before resuming his trek. “A boy lies dying in the ravine, his coffin dragged in and snapped open by the serpentine briars. He appears to have been flogged with barbs. His skin is worse off than the shreds of his clothes. More than one eye saw it.”

  “Multiple eyes. So, it weren’t the word of a cyclops then. Be good, that. They have tunnel vision ’bout most things.”

  “Ha.” Luce leapt over a quag-puddle. The living murk spread in an effort to trap him. He sailed to the other side at the last minute, scrambling to his left on nimble paws. The puddle burbled in frustration, releasing a putrid stench. The fox barked a laugh, his silver-tipped tail high and proud.

  Crony chose a longer route to escape the puddle and had to duck to miss low-hanging branches as black and ungiving as onyx. Her left horn hooked around one and jerked her back. Head throbbing, she freed herself before skidding behind her companion along the sharply declining path to the lowlands. Even using her staff for balance, she could barely keep up with Luce’s four legs. “Ye know we not be welcome in this part of the forest. They despise me for not sharin’ me pilfered memories. And ye—”

  “And I talked them out of a kill years ago by suggesting they could feed off her conscience. Is it my fault they misplaced it? The shrouds are about to strip the boy of his flesh. What’s left of it. I assumed you’d want to claim his dying thoughts and maybe his bones. You’ve been needing a skull for your new staff, yes? We can strike a bargain with one of his final memories.”

  “Hmmm. Judging from the one and only bargain ye ever striked with them, I venture they not be so receptive. Stay in yer doggy form and I do the quibbling.”

  “Once again, you underestimate my charm.” Luce’s retort muffled beneath a rush of inhuman whispers and hisses. He rounded a bend, his pointed ears perked.

  Dropping to her knees, Crony crouched with him behind a fallen stump. She clutched the gnarled wood, her brown leathery hands blending in. Her staff rested atop the ash that slithered about their feet.

  Up ahead, the shrouds drifted in a dusty clearing—an uneven circle devoid of trunks and shrubbery that still managed to be claustrophobic, cloaked in darkness by the thick, low-hanging canopy stretching from the trees around it. A coffin was toppled open, its small occupant slung over the edge with arms splayed across the ground, unmoving. The vaporous collective had yet to notice their two visitors. A shroud’s wit tended to be as thin as its smoky silhouette, making it easy to elude when preoccupied with the promise of a feeding. But this situation was different, and only one look told Crony why.

  Each time Mistress Umbra skimmed forward to attack the dying child, a merging of shadows and luminous-blue rime scorpions rose to defend the supine form. The Shroud Collective cowered behind trees surrounding the clearing, eyes glimmering white. They had no means to pass through, either as unsubstantial shapeless creatures or shifted to their humanlike forms. On one hand, their barrier was as vaporous as they, and on the other, venomous stingers waited to attack. It was a standoff between a cursed darkness and an appointed army. A standoff that could go on for hours.

  Judging by the putrid scent of infection and toxins in the air, the victim didn’t have that kind of time. And loathe as Crony was to admit it, said victim was no boy. Even with the child shaved bald . . . even in a page boy’s shredded tunic and pants, with her exposed pearlized skin marred by ash, mud, and hundreds of seeping puncture marks . . . Crony would know Eldoria’s sovereign heir anywhere by the fealty of her night creatures.

  Turning to her canine companion, Crony whispered, “That be no page boy. That be the royal princess, what that freed me from Eldoria’s dungeon.”

  Luce bowed his head and long muzzle. He hadn’t been happy leaving Crony that day to be captured by soldiers; but the two had a code: should one of them ever be captured, the other did their best to escape so they could help from the outside. Luce had been trying to come up with a plan when Crony found her way home to the ravine.

  However, it was more than the guilt of that day weighing on him now.

  His wet, black nose wriggled. “I know who did this child ill. I can spot that woman’s handiwork anywhere. And I’m guessing she used some poison to aid her crime.”

  His orange eyes blazed. He rarely spoke of his past, yet there were a few details he had divulged. He once flew above the world with a bird’s-eye view of the humans, leaving him detached enough to take advantage of Queen Arael’s pure heart under the advisement of his lover. Even before that, he was indirectly responsible for a human death, first, by suggesting Griselda do away with her conscience, weak as it was, and second, by giving her a spell-book, which she used to rid herself of her husband.

  Now that he was grounded, making him a part of the order of things, he had to face the consequences of his actions daily, as any human would.

  Crony turned again to the ethereal standoff, her slitted nose sniffing the scent of panacea roses. The princess’s limp arms cradled the dark purple bouquet. Crony recounted seeing the child holding a flower pot during her stint in the dungeon. Regent Griselda had degraded and manhandled the princess that day—calling her a stain. She must be cackling her harpy heart out in that plush castle, convinced she’d rid herself of her niece forever.

  May-let this could be Luce’s chance to find redemption for his part and win back his wings. May-let Crony could repay her own debt to King Kiran’s bloodline, to the sun and the moon—a debt known only by she and one other. Crony had made a sacred vow not to intervene directly with kingdom goings-on, which is why she hadn’t shared who’d killed King Kiran. She’d only given away the prophecy half of the memory to the constable, information that would’ve come out on its own via missives or talks between kingdoms. Crony had hoped it might keep the girl safe until she reached a marriable age, yet here she was in a worse state than before.

  Retrieving her spirit from the dead without interfering would take some doing. There would have to be a compromise. To save the princess’s life, Crony would have to make the girl anonymous, inconsequential—even to herself. Then Lyra would have to rediscover her true identity without Crony ever telling her.

  It could put things right in both kingdoms. Allow the shattered pieces of the prophecy to find their own way back to completion—however messy that reconstruction might be.

  Crony whispered again to Luce: “I don’t know ’bout ye, but I be feelin’ a new thirst in me roots of late. Shall we bargain with the fleshless devils and save the girl? Turn over our old ne’er-do-well leaves for a chance at atonement?” Casting him a sidelong glance, she waited.

  His long pink tongue lolled out in a half grin. “Are you saying what I think? You’re to perform the trick that outshines all tricks? Recall her from the other side of death?”

  Crony suppressed a tremor of panic along her spine, wishing she could share his eagerness. What Luce didn’t realize was that summoning a mortal back from the dead came at a heavy price—her own immortality. Her hide would soften with age; all the years she’d outrun would catch up. And her innards would no longer be impervious to sickness or toxins.

  This information she would take to her grave. Were he to know, her sylphin companion would try to talk her out of it, and she
needed all the courage she could muster. If anyone was worthy of a second chance at life, it was this broken child, and truth be told, Crony had been anticipating . . . and fearing . . . this moment for centuries. “If ye wish to see me greatest trick, first ye must perform a grand gesture yerself.”

  Luce tilted his head in a purely canine manner, curiosity clear in his puppy-eyed expression.

  “I can’t be takin’ on such responsibility alone,” Crony explained. “Will ye help me? Stand by the princess in thick and thin? Be there, if for some reason I can’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be there? You will outlive us all.”

  She squeezed her staff for comfort. “I’ve been known to take a trip or two for leisure. Ev’ry lady needs her private moments for reflection.”

  “Ha! Of course. You’re the essence of ‘every lady.’” He twitched his whiskers.

  “As for yer help, will ye do it? Give me a tail wag for yay, or a bark for nay.”

  Glaring at her, Luce flicked an ear in annoyance. “You’re aware I can talk.”

  Crony smiled freely. Here in the ravine, everything was either as good as dead, or the cohort of death already, so there were no flowers or grasses to wilt. “Aye, but we be making a contract. I need yer pledge, me courtly mongrel, that in either form, yer whole body be willin’ to see this through to the very end. The very end bein’ yer fat, fluffy tail.”

  Growling softly, Luce gave said tail two shakes, but no more. She was happy to accept it. Let him keep what remained of his dignity.

  As for herself, Crony shuddered at the thought of relinquishing her armor; but she would hang her courage on one hope: to live long enough to watch the girl win her prince, claim her throne, and bring the nights back. It would be worth it all, so long as Crony could hear a symphony of crickets in the darkness one last time before taking her final breath.

  Her lot decided, Crony stood, staff in hand. Fur bristling, Luce snarled a warning, and together they stepped from behind the stump and into the midst of the collective.

  The wee princess died the instant her unlikely saviors finished bargaining for her remains, though the witch managed to capture the tail end of her final breath and the memory tied to it. That’s all Crony needed to bid a spirit from beyond, and to split a past wide open so she could carve out the identity hidden in the nooks and crannies of a person’s mind.

  To Crony’s relief, the shadows and scorpion army receded once the flesh-mongering shrouds withdrew, seeming to understand their charge was now in healing hands. Crony and Luce left the pine box and roses behind. By the time Luce shifted to his human form to carry the princess out of the lowlands, the girl’s breathing had resumed and her lashes, having been trimmed down to stubs, grew long before their very eyes. Luce studied her shaved head, her troubled, sleeping face cradled in the crook of his arm. Her breath ruffled the red hair draped across his shoulder.

  Crony had never seen the capricious sylph look more somber. He would see this through to the end, in spite of his selfish past. Or may-let because of it.

  Once home, with the princess unconscious, the witch began her task. Using the captured memory to lure others out, Crony sandwiched them between paper-thin glass triangles and sealed them after blowing her own breath across. She continued the process, joining one contained memory to another with magical threads that streamed like lightning from her horns, similar to a spider using its spinnerets. Crony labored, withdrawing the next and the next and the next—hundreds upon hundreds—over two cessation courses and into a third day while Luce managed her booth in the market and restocked herb supplies.

  Upon finishing, Crony stood back and viewed the stack of memories, folded together with glowing thread down their spines. It resembled a fat, miniature book made of stained glass. Were she to animate it, at the turning of each page a new scene of the princess’s life would play out. She’d taken care to leave the princess’s memories of language, communication, the written word, and knowledge of the natural world intact, so as not to risk a blank mind and stunted acumen. It was this intricate mental probing that made a memory-cleanse such a challenging venture.

  Crony drizzled a healing potable between her ward’s drowsing lips, as she had done over the past two days to keep her alive. The witch sipped some for herself, feeling a sudden weariness, due to her own exchange—immortal advantage for mortal limitations. For the first time in all her years, she ached deep within her bones. Once Luce left for market, Crony hid her eyes behind a blindfold, curled upon her mattress, and slept.

  In the next room, the girl continued to sleep as well, having nothing left to dream of but the residue of memories in blurred colors and fuzzy stimuli: the salty flavor of tears; a velvety rain of lavender rose petals; a red-leafed tree standing vigil in a courtyard so stark white it singed the eye; gauzy dresses in soft pastels, minty green, buttery yellow, and sugared blue; fuzzy gray moths and biting brambles; and golden ink catching fire to black paper and curious fingertips.

  The scent of decomposing leaves, combined with something medicinal, seeped into the girl’s consciousness. She awoke to the sensation of her hands burning.

  No, not just her hands—every facet of her skin . . . itching and blistering. She attempted to move, her bones sluggish. Her teeth ground together and she would’ve groaned, but her vocal cords quivered—as inefficient as a lute with no strings. She tugged at bandages wrapped around her limbs, neck, and torso, beneath an ankle-length gown and a threadbare blanket, trying to remember where . . . how. And most essentially, who.

  She couldn’t remember a name, or even her own face. The unknowing sat upon her chest, weighing her down and stealing her breath. She moved her hand up to her throat where a necklace rested atop her collarbone. Lifting the circular charm, she studied it in the soft light. It appeared to be a braid of white hair wound upon itself. Was it important to her? Sentimental?

  A distant, piercing roar—feral and inhuman, like a horse bugling in fury—sent her scrambling to sit up, rebelling against reluctant muscles and throbbing flesh. She could see her surroundings clearly, despite the thick, leafy canopy stretched overhead that stifled the light. It was as if she’d awakened within the belly of a skeleton. There were no walls here, nor doors, nor windows. Only a framework of wood. Yet there was no breeze either, no moving air or birdsongs, no sounds of nature other than a rustle beneath and around her mattress—as if the ground itself moved.

  A soft snore, from a blindfolded figure, curled up and sleeping a few feet away, gave her pause. She didn’t recognize the hideous reptilian face, or the black, curving horns, or the gaping, muddy lips.

  Dread chilled the blood in her veins as she looked upon her bandages. Something terrible had happened. This creature had captured her. Tortured her.

  The bugling cry sounded again, but this time, the girl heard a shout woven within—a raspy, male voice underlining the horse’s helpless indignation, as if they spoke in unison. She caught a breath, stretching lungs that ached as if carved hollow. Her captor slept on, so firm in its sleep not even a third roaring neigh woke it.

  The girl backed away, pushing through warm, powdery ash across a stone floor, avoiding dilapidated furniture and wooden planks until she’d crossed the threshold into a yard. Spinning around, she stumbled along a path, out of the small grove and into the thickening trees. With each step, her body acclimated to her injuries, her movements awkward but gaining strength.

  She followed the horse’s brays tangled with the husky male shouts. The duo songs of agony, anger, and loss were emotions she could relate to; they felt familiar.

  Yet her enchanted surroundings felt foreign—claustrophobic and dark. The airtight canopy overhead stretched on as far as the eye could see. Sunrays pierced through intermittently, warming the sooty ground cover that sifted across her feet like a low tide. She skirted the areas of light as she tromped onward, discovering that even through her bandages they seared her skin. Strange, vicious puddles appeared out of nowhere and followed until she o
utran them. She made a note to anticipate them by their stench.

  Closer now to the duel cries, she rounded a bend. A new smell assaulted her nose as she tripped into a thicket of briar vines where the canopy hung low. Unless one was a small woodland creature that could weave in and out of the prickly maze, there appeared to be no clear pathway. Thorns snagged the girl’s bandages and gown, piercing already tender skin. She yelped soundlessly, thinking to back out, but stopped in her tracks.

  Just ahead, a black stallion struggled to get free from a gurgling bog in the midst of the thicket. A silvery light glowed from within the sludgy liquid, seeming to rise from the bottom. The domed thicket absorbed the light, making the surroundings brighter than the journey here.

  The horse’s front hooves, coated in muck, pawed for purchase on the bank. A giant bracken had sprouted from the depths, wrapping around his neck. The fernlike leaves worked with the mire to drown their prey—like a frog’s tongue might capture a fly.

  Already, the ooze had claimed his tail and flanks . . . the rest would soon follow, as with every movement he sank more. The horse might manage to climb out if she could free his neck.

  Stop moving, please. She couldn’t say the words, could only think them. But the horse stilled in response.

  His graceful neck craned. Across the short distance, a fire ignited within his eyes’ dark depths, orange and flickering behind the whites of rage and fear that rimmed them. A reflection of the same orange sparks flickered within his mane. The girl stared, gaping, as cinders stirred at his withers where something unfurled.

  Magnificent wings, gilded with orange-and-gold embers, opened and flapped wide. This was no common horse. He was something rarer than a black pearl . . . he was a Pegasus.

  This detail revived her determination. She wrinkled her nose, strategizing. Though the briar’s vines hung too low for him to fly, his wings could aid his escape; with their thrust, he could drag himself out of the bog if she untangled the binds around his neck.