From Under the Mountain

by Cait Spivey

  The boy stiffened on contact, whimpering in pain. Ivy was a resurrection plant. Its magic was working to repair the damage the witches couldn’t see unaided, fighting against whatever hellish venom remained in the wound. Coming back from the brink of death was not without cost.

  She’d finished salving and dressing the scratches when the doors opened. A thin, grey-haired witch was escorted to where the two men lay. The woman was virtually colorless in her hair and flesh; her blue eyes were almost white. Her tunic and leather pants, both black, contrasted greatly against her skin. She wore an iron breastplate, the signature armor of the Thiymen Guard; though it was heavy, it provided better protection against what they fought than steel would. Olivia knew that this was the Hand of Thiymen, Moira Emile, because Fiona had told her that was who she sent; without that advantage, she wouldn’t have known. Thiymen witches all looked the same after two hundred years or so. Olivia stood to greet her, wiping her hands on a cloth handed to her.

  “Captain Emile,” Olivia said, inclining her head slightly. They didn’t have time for proper greetings.

  Moira returned the nod. “Olivia-lami. These are the men?”

  Olivia nodded and stepped aside to let the visiting witch examine the hunters, signaling for water. She watched as the grim-faced captain turned her attention to the boy. It was clear to them all that the man was beyond help. Carulina and Tesla were keeping him alive only so that they could save his soul from the hound and let it pass on to Ilys, the field of the underworld for good souls. No Sitosen witch could have said for sure what his fate would be if the hound dragged his soul into Hell, and the Thiymen witches had never been much for sharing.

  “This is a good dress,” Moira said, checking the boy’s wounds. “The ivy is working. His scratches should heal. It’s the fever now that threatens him.” She took a sip of the water provided and rolled back the sleeves of her tunic. She pulled off her black gloves, revealing skeletal white hands. “Whatever happens, do not touch him or me.”

  The witches in the hall stepped back. Moira put her hands out over the boy’s body, fingers splayed like a puppeteer, and closed her eyes. Her fingers began to twitch, this way and that, sometimes plucking and brushing at things that the Sitosen witches couldn’t see. They could feel a change in the air; it became heavier and colder, and they instinctually drifted closer to each other.

  Suddenly, the boy screamed and lurched upward. Moira jumped to her feet and pushed him back down, her eyes still closed, her hands still in the air above him. Whatever she pushed, it was not the boy; it was something beyond the invisible curtain she manipulated with her fingers. Beneath her hands, the boy writhed and screamed in a language that, of the Sitosen witches, only Olivia had heard before. Moira shouted something back in the same harsh language. She braced her left hand flat against the air. With a great shout, she brought her right fist down like a hammer and shattered the fever’s hold on the boy.

  The chill left the air. Every witch in the hall exhaled in relief when the Thiymen witch opened her eyes. She staggered backwards into Olivia’s waiting arms.

  The boy’s color had returned, and he now appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Four standing witches removed him to the infirmary. Together, Olivia and Moira knelt on either side of the man. Olivia touched Tesla’s shoulder gently. The other witch nodded and gently placed the man’s head into Olivia’s hands.

  Moira sized the man up.

  “Now,” she said, “when I loose his soul from the hound, you must catch it and lift him up. Look for an old path and let him go when you find it. I only hope he is not too frayed to survive.”

  Olivia nodded, stroking the man’s cheek as she twisted her fingers around the dusty anchoring point of his soul. Her eyes met Moira’s. They were ready. Their eyelids fluttered shut.

  The hound was in the mountains now. The hunter’s soul was clutched in its teeth as it frantically searched for a tear in the curtain. Olivia, tagging along behind Moira, could feel the other witch’s satisfaction. Their linked magic allowed Olivia a glimpse at the other witch’s thoughts, and she learned that the entire Thiymen clan had been working through the night to inspect and fortify the barrier. It was likely that the tear the hound had come through had long since been repaired. It was trapped in unfamiliar territory.

  Moira’s projection transformed into a massive black puma as the witches approached the frustrated hell-dog. She leapt nimbly from peak to peak, finding footholds in impossible places and quickly gaining on the hound. She pushed just ahead of the beast and leapt down onto the hound’s back. The puma once more became a woman, armed with two short daggers. She placed the daggers on either side of the hound’s neck, slicing up and back. The muscles that connected to the lower jaw severed. There was no blood to spill, since the body was dead, but the hound could no longer maintain its grip on the hunter’s soul. Olivia swooped down in the form of an owl and caught the drifting soul in her talons. She flew high above the trees and the mountains until she hit a sweet-smelling current of air, one of the old paths to Ilys; there she released the man. She let herself be carried for a moment or two, slowly releasing the magic.

  She and Moira returned at the same time, opening their eyes and relaxing their hands. The man was dead now, but his face was restful. The two witches stood. Olivia lifted a hand to order him carried away when Moira’s voice stopped her.

  “He must be burned,” she said.

  Olivia hesitated. The Sitosen witches still gathered gave Moira an incredulous look. Cremation was a sign of deep shame; it implied that the body of the deceased was not worthy to rejoin the circle of life by fertilizing the ground with their flesh. Moira, for her part, remained stone-faced, apparently insensitive to this knowledge.

  Still, Olivia knew she was right. A blight in the flesh, like the venom in the man’s wound, would put a blight in the earth. She nodded to Tesla, who, though seeming unconvinced, acquiesced.

  “Shall we still wash him?” Sora asked quietly.

  “Yes, of course.” Olivia turned to a young witch-in-training, instructing her to take refreshments to Olivia’s study for herself and the Thiymen captain. Moira followed her up to the tower.

  “The hounds’ bodies are made of dead flesh, scavenged from the wild and reformed,” Moira explained once they had eaten. “They are more magic than flesh, and it takes years, decades, to gather enough meat. They are made by demons and sent into the living world to hunt for more material. They usually get through by attacking a witch as she passes between worlds and jumping through the gap the witch has made. Hounds cannot tear the curtain themselves.”

  “Have any of Thiymen been attacked recently?” Olivia asked.

  “No. I know you saw my thoughts.”

  Olivia regarded her silently, tacitly admitting it. The hounds had come through a tear that was left open. Though Olivia had seen this, she could not tell how such a thing had been allowed to happen. She knew how strict the Black Coven was when it came to closing tears in the curtain between life and death. Moira looked grim.

  “Someone from outside Thiymen is using black magic,” she said, confirming Olivia’s suspicions. “The tears from their passings do not include the same wards that ours do, and none of them have been closed properly. It’s all we can do to repair them when we can’t even tell if we’ve found them in good time. And there’s something else—something aided by this rogue witch’s carelessness. It’s still trapped, but it can push, and push it does against these tears, ripping them further. My lady Fiona sealed it the day before yesterday, but even her power can only keep it at bay temporarily.”

  The other witch’s face lit for a moment with fury and fear, making Olivia’s heart skip a beat, before returning to its impassive Thiymen gaze.

  “This thing under the mountain . . . I have never encountered it, and I have been the Hand of Thiymen three hundred years,” Moira said, her voice soft. “Yet Fiona did not seem surprised by what she faced.”

  So I am not the only one Fiona is kee
ping secrets from, Olivia thought. She felt a chill through the marrow of her bones at the idea that Fiona was hiding some underworld being from not only her sisters, but from her own right hand. But at least there was one way she could help.

  “I know who the rogue witches are,” she said.

  Desmond climbed the stairs to his room at the inn, lugging two large packs of supplies. He’d spent the day doing errands in Olsrec; his intention had been to spread them out over a few days, but he was eager to get to Adenen.

  He was surprised, as he approached his door, to see light flickering from beyond it. He opened it slowly. A woman sat on his bed: tall, blonde, clad in a rich blue gown with a silver cloak draped over her shoulders. A light blue sail was folded next to her. She met his eyes, eyes the exact same shade of blue as hers. He let his packs drop to the floor.

  “Mother,” Desmond said.

  She rose and embraced him. She was much thinner than him, merely half his breadth. As he drew back, he saw the new concern etched on a face already written with years. She squeezed his shoulder tightly and sat him down on the bed next to her.

  “What is it, Mother? What’s happened?”

  “The situation has grown very dire, child,” Olivia Kavanagh said. “The creatures of the underworld are breaching the living world.”

  Desmond gasped. “What? But Aunt Fiona—”

  Olivia squeezed his hand reassuringly. “She is fine, for now. But she needs our help. I am going now to my sisters, and then we will go to her. You must go to the capital, to Del, immediately and warn the new empress.”

  “Of course,” Desmond said. “Yes, I’ll go at once.”

  “You must speak to her privately. Do not give her this news at court,” Olivia cautioned. “It well may be that we will not have to tell the public at all. Fiona has sealed the gate, and her seals are very powerful. It should hold long enough for the rest of us to get there and decide what must be done.”

  Desmond nodded, considering this new information. He felt sorry for Guerline. She was so young; to have this placed on her mere days after her coronation!

  “How have things been getting through?” he asked.

  “There are two rogue witches. You will not remember them; I banished them from Sitosen when you were a child. But they too are in Del, and you must find them and stop them. Employ the crown if you must. Use what I’ve taught you to negate their magic. Their names are Arginine and Alanine Maravilla.”

  Desmond nodded again, committing the names to memory and planning his journey. With a little magical assistance and his new steed, the ride to Del from Olsrec would take perhaps a full day. Desmond did not have the ability to cast spells himself, but he had powerful natural energy and was able to use talismans and other spelled objects made for him by his family and friends to channel that energy.

  Olivia ran a hand over Desmond’s hair and kissed his brow.

  “Rest brief and deep, my child, and then go to Guerline. She will need your help. I’ll give your love to your aunts,” she said.

  And with that, she was gone. Desmond sighed, blew out his candle, and settled in for a short sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Guerline held her first court the next day, to avoid another council meeting. She knew her advisers were clamoring to talk more about the witches behind closed doors, especially given the reports of various disasters and abominations which had rolled in that morning from three points of the country. Only the East remained silent, and some took this as proof of Fiona’s responsibility.

  Shon, of course, argued that it only meant Fiona had things well in hand. Those from the East certainly had a strange level of loyalty for the Thiymen leader, there was no doubt about that. She remembered again her parents’ funeral, the gentle way Fiona had coaxed soul from body. The black witches were frightening in appearance, but their work was neither pleasant nor easy. Arido expected someone to do it. How could they revile those who rose to the occasion?

  These thoughts occupied Guerline as subject after subject came with complaints for her to address. To her annoyance, many of them were small matters—like how many goats a sack of potatoes was worth. Guerline told the man that a sack of potatoes was worth perhaps one old goat, since the potatoes would eventually be used up, while a goat could continue to be of use its whole life.

  The man was indignant. “But I was planning to slaughter the goats for meat!”

  “In that case—one goat, of whatever age the other man please,” Guerline said. “Go by the weight. You shall receive one goat of equal weight to your sack of potatoes.”

  The man looked like he was prepared to protest, but Guerline waved him away.

  “Well done, Lina,” Evadine said from her position at the empress’s right hand. She and the other council members sat upon the dais in line with Guerline. The empress was elevated above them on a platform.

  Guerline grinned at Eva. “Meat is denser and more nutritious than potatoes, and then he’s also gained a pelt. It’s only right that he give more in potatoes than he shall receive in meat.”

  She leaned over the small table next to her throne, on which stood paper and ink. She dipped the quill and wrote a note to discuss a hierarchy of arbiters with the Lord Justice. It hardly seemed appropriate that Guerline herself should deal with all the minor civil disagreements. She’d never be able to get anything else done.

  She was about to call an end to open court when the next supplicant entered. He was a tall, thin man with fair skin and coal-black hair worn in a ponytail at the crown of his head. He was very finely dressed in a silver tunic that buttoned all the way up his throat and was laced down the front. He wore ballooning cream-colored breeches made from a cloth that moved easily, tucked into knee-high black boots that shone. He was exceedingly good-looking in a delicate kind of way, with slim features and arched eyebrows. Guerline sat up a little straighter on the throne, intrigued by this man. Next to her, Evadine frowned.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” the man said, sweeping into a deep and graceful bow. “My name is Kieran Brynn. I come on behalf of my masters, the royal family of Giarda.”

  So he was a courtier from the country beyond the Zaide Mountains. That explained his expensive clothing and his light build. The Giardans were willowy people who built their homes in the trees. Guerline received messages of condolences from them after the deaths of her parents and brother, as well as a gift on the occasion of her coronation. She hadn’t expected an emissary.

  “We bid you welcome, Master Brynn,” Guerline said. “Please, feel free to speak.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said with another dip of his head. His eyes met hers again, and her heart stuttered; there was something so familiar about his gaze. As they stared at each other, he smiled, and the expression seemed oddly thoughtful. “It is so good,” he added, “to finally see Your Majesty in the flesh.”

  Evadine scoffed, softly so only Guerline would hear, and Guerline shook her head slightly to dislodge the odd sense of intimacy the emissary’s words inspired in her. The sensation that she had met him before, that somehow they had shared something important, was so strong—but her mind was all blank as to actual possibilities. She tried to find something to say in response to the emissary’s odd comment.

  Before she could, he spoke. “My masters send again their congratulations on your ascension and wish you health and success. However, I fear that I come to you now with a very serious matter, which I pray we can resolve rapidly and amiably.”

  Guerline frowned and leaned forward to hear him better. “Say on.”

  “Well—the heart of the matter is that dragons have been attacking villages on our westernmost borders,” Brynn said with a pained look on his face.

  Shouts of shock and anger erupted in the throne room. Her council members stood and began yelling across at each other. The guards rushed the dais, either in defense of the dragons or with offers to go kill them. Guerline could only be grateful that she received supplicants one at a time,
or half the kingdom would have also heard this news before she could decide how to handle it.

  “Enough!” she said.

  Silence descended on the room. She stood on her platform and glared at everyone until they hung their heads. She looked last at Kieran Brynn, who seemed to be smiling the slightest bit. What on earth would make him smile? Was he impressed by her, or by the commotion? She glanced at Evadine, whose mouth was a thin, furious line as she stared at the foreigner.

  “That was poorly handled, Master Brynn,” Guerline said. “Such news is grave indeed, and ought not be revealed in public forum. But since you have already opened your mouth, say on and explain this further to us.”

  Brynn dropped briefly to one knee. “Apologies, Your Majesty. Of course, you are right. I do not know all the details of the attacks, but this is what I do know. They began three months ago, when we began to see the dragons more and more frequently. They came progressively closer to the villages.”

  “If I recall my draconic calendar, that would have been the beginning of their mating season,” Evadine remarked. “Though they mate in hundred-year cycles, the Purvaja dragons are also humans, Master Brynn. To mate, they sometimes swoop down upon men and women, take them to secluded places, and then return to their human forms in order to woo their chosen. Eastern women historically reside in the caves for two or three years after their dragon babe is born.”

  “They have never come to our side of the mountains in my recollection, Chief Adviser,” Brynn replied.

  Eva glared at him. “All animals seek to expand their species, including humans. It is not unlikely that after several generations, the dragons would look for new partners.”

  “Well. Regardless, the villagers knew naught of this practice. As livestock disappeared and fields were burnt up, they began to set traps for the dragons; they tried to fight the beasts. It was, of course, futile, and many lives have been lost,” Brynn said.