“Stay where you are, cochon.”
Pol spat, glaring venom at the pair.
“Do it. I’d rather die than be captive to such cowards as you.”
The Malleus man that held the crossbow in one hand cocked his head to one side.
“Oui?” He moved his arm in one broad sweep, till the point of the crossbow bolt lay pressed gently against the fair-haired head of Larcia who sat closest to the entrance of the wagon. The girl’s eyes widened in fear as the man’s finger tensed on the trigger. “Does your friend here feel the same way, I wonder?”
A moment’s pause, the air filled with tension, then Pol’s head slumped in defeat.
“Now get back onto the bench,” commanded the Malleus man. “S’il vous plait.”
Slowly, reluctantly, the youth rose and backed away to resume his place, wiping away a trickle of blood from his chin as he did.
“Tres bon.” The man turned now, his eyes on Gwenna. “Now you, come with us. His holiness wishes to speak with you.”
The red-haired shaman nodded, slowly, not wishing to antagonise the men and endanger her troupe further. To the worried stares of the cowed troupe behind her, she departed the wagon.
The iron bars behind her shut with a resounding clang.
***
The room was dim anyway, being a basement room; however, the curtains were also drawn over the high windows so that barely a ray of sunlight penetrated the gloom. Where thin rays did manage to pierce the darkness, they illuminated motes of dust that drifted lazily through the air from the ancient furnishings and the bed that nestled, unused and threadbare, in the corner.
The leader of the Malleus had acquisitioned a room rarely used, it would appear.
The door closed behind Gwenna and she was suddenly alone with the man. He didn’t even deign to look at her, sat behind a heavy-looking mahogany desk in the centre of the room, his cold eyes fixed on the piece of parchment upon which he patiently wrote with a scratching quill.
“Please,” he told her, eyes never leaving the paper. “Sit down.”
She made to resist, made to stand in defiance, but something in those words caused her to move involuntarily and sit on the chair before the desk, directly opposite him. She frowned, as she did so, for there was something intensely familiar about the feeling that came over her.
At first, she could not place it. But then the man looked up, fixing her with those eyes, so cold and grey, that seemed to bore deep, deep into her very being. She shuddered as she finally recognised the feeling for what it felt like; glamour. Yes, that mesmerising stare, so similar to the glamour of the spirits of air.
But how?
“You intrigue me,” he told her. “You’re different to my usual prey. And I’m not sure I know what to do with you…”
She shook her head, summoning her willpower to shake off the effects of his hypnotic gaze, before replying.
“How so?”
“Tell me, how many witches do you think we capture and try every year, my child?”
She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
“I wouldn’t care to guess,” she spat. “But from what I’ve been told, your trials are frequent and your witch-hunters prolific…”
The man smiled, the look not entirely suiting his gaunt face, not sitting there well.
“Oh, oui, oui; all true. But you misunderstand me, my dear.” His eyes twinkled, darkly. “How many real witches do you think we capture each year…?”
A look of fresh horror must have crossed Gwenna’s face at the words, for the man before her laughed.
“You… you know that these people,” she stammered out, “these innocent people that you capture and condemn to death… you know all along that they’re not even what you make them out to be?” Her green eyes glistened with a mixture of growing hatred and horror. “You bastard.”
“Innocence?” The man laughed again, the sound chilling the shaman to the bone. “You speak of innocence, child, as if such a thing exists. There is no such thing. Read the good book, my dear.” He gestured over to a thick and leather-bound tome that sat upon the desk, emblazoned with the gilded form of a cross upon its cover. “Mon dieu,” the man smiled, “but that book makes things easy. For who can live up to such exacting standards? It all but gives me licence to condemn and kill whomsoever I wish.”
Again, the shaman shuddered at the pure and utter disregard for life that she heard in his voice. He continued.
“But, to answer your question; oui, I know, of course, that the majority of those we capture are nought but scapegoats. Not innocent, never innocent, I’ll hasten to add. But certainly not the witches or sorcerers that we make them out to be…”
“You’re evil,” the shaman whispered. “All of you.”
“Oh no,” smiled the man. “My brave men of the Malleus out there, they don’t know the difference. How could they tell a man who has the gift of sorcery from one who has not? No my dear, they’re merely zealous. Merely misguided.” His eyes narrowed, pits of merciless, inhuman cruelty. “It is only I that is evil, my poor girl.”
“What are you?”
“What I am is of no consequence, child. It is what you are that is of interest to me right now.” He sniffed again, the nostrils of that slim nose flaring. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I could smell the sorcery upon you. I can taste it. It tastes ripe, well-developed. Full and flavoursome, not like the weak and watered down magicks I’ve encountered elsewhere in this land. There’s something… foreign about it.” He narrowed his eyes, cocking his head in curiosity. “Where are you from, child, you and your companions?”
“From the north,” she told him, eyes defiant.
He studied her, his cold stare piercing her lies with frightening ease.
“No, my dear. You are not from the north. Not from the north of this land, nor the north of any other land.” He smiled, and for the first time she noticed how predatory he looked. As though she were no more than prey to him. “Trust me; I’m well-travelled.”
She stifled a laugh.
“Well-travelled, you say? And where-to have you travelled, hmm? Have you ventured beyond the veil? Have you crossed the boundaries of time and space? You have no idea what we’ve seen, where we’ve been.” She stopped herself, face suddenly cold as he leant forwards, a gleaming curiosity in his eyes.
“Do go on…”
She had fallen under his spell, again. That intense gaze loosening her tongue without her even knowing it.
“Magic,” she whispered. “Glamour. You’re trying to beguile me with a spell. You’re no less than the very same that you yourself hunt down. You’re no different from us.” She furrowed her brow in distaste. “And that makes you even worse than I thought before; you’re a killer of your own kind.”
He snorted.
“My own kind? Girl, you know nothing of my kind. But I digress.” He bored into her with those eyes once more. “Tell me more of what you’ve seen. Tell me more of whence you came…”
She shook her head, her anger now steeling her against the bombardment. Her green eyes flashed with inner fire as she summoned her own reserves of will, ready to change the rules of the game despite the ache that yet beset her.
“I think not, traitor.” She smiled as she exerted her willpower, reaching out toward him with her very mind. “In fact, I think it’s about time that you did some talking.”
The tall, aristocratic man jumped backwards in surprise as he felt the fingers of her will begin to penetrate his mind, the calm demeanour disappearing in a flash at the unexpected assault. Frantically, he hastened to summon mental defences, but to no avail.
Gwenna had met, mind-to-mind, such as this, but three times in her career as a shaman. Once, recently and willingly, sharing herself with the girl Virginie. That had been a beautiful and intimate experience, bringing two people closer, mind and soul.
But on two other occasions that same process had been used for less... consensual purposes. On both occasions with the s
ame person; Ceceline, the Seeress. Former mistress of Stone, in his previous life as the tyrant Invictus. A sorceress of great power; a mortal representative of Those Beyond the Veil.
On both occasions, Gwenna had been lucky to escape with her sanity and her life. The first time, she had been rescued by the power of her master Wrynn. The second time, by the interruption of Stone himself.
But this man before her now was no Seeress. Whatever powers he had, he had been used only to using them upon normal mortals, weak-willed individuals that he saw as no more than cattle. He wasn’t used to facing the tempered will of someone trained for such subtle methods of warfare.
Woefully unprepared for assault from a warrior of the mind.
He stumbled backwards, knocking over his chair as he went, whilst the shaman still sat calmly and serenely, her eyes glowing a glistening, vivid green as she exerted her will.
“Yes. Doesn’t feel good to be powerless, does it?” she asked him. “I could make you do whatever I want. I could make you release me and my friends, then fall upon your own sword. Your will is as nothing. Your cheap parlour tricks avail you nothing.” She felt dirty doing this. It was mental rape, subjecting one person’s will to the domination of your own. But the hatred at his deeds and the cold way in which he carried them out fuelled her and she continued, some small part of her taking an infinitesimal amount of pleasure from the act. “What manner of man are you that willingly hunts and kills his own kind?”
The man snarled as he backed against the stone wall of the room, trying to get as far away from her as he could, but it was futile. He shook his head, feeling her flaying away the barriers about his memories, sifting through them as one might do so through an old box of assorted oddities found in a loft.
Gwenna wrinkled her nose in disgust as she saw images flash past her mind’s eye, years of the man’s duty as a witch-hunter of the Malleus, the murder of innocents, the persecution of any that might have a trace of the gift. And many, many more that didn’t, but were tried and found guilty nonetheless. Burnings. Hangings. Yet they told her nothing more of the man before her. She forced on, clawing deeper into the depths of his mind, the further past in his memory.
She frowned for a moment. Something was wrong with these memories. Images of people and towns flashed before her. They looked different. Styles of clothing had changed. Buildings rose and fell and rose again in reverse order as she flew into the past. Through it all, the man wore different faces, different names. Moving through each society he found himself in with anonymity.
She was in a time long before the Malleus, now. A primitive time, where there were few large towns, just simple folk living in forest villages. He was living in the wilds. Through his veins, a hunger that could never be sated. A guilt that could never be absolved. Friends, family, loved ones; all nothing but prey. She saw him being chased from village to village by angry mobs of fearful peasants, blood streaming from his mouth, tears from his dark and sorrowful eyes.
What was he? What was this man that had lived so long, seen generations of people come and go? She pressed further, seeking the truth of his heart.
What she found made her scream.
Hunger; ancient, cold and evil. A primal hunger passed on from blood to blood over the centuries. A curse that could never be lifted. And with the hunger, immortality. And with the immortality, a boredom, a sense of ennui that permeated every second of a never-ending existence. Leading to madness, leading to despair, then finally, eventually, after long, soul-crushing years, leading to evil.
Pure and cold. Dark, stalking evil in the dead of night.
The horror of such an existence snapped Gwenna back to the present, her mind recoiling at what it had seen as she blinked away the images. A roar from the man across the room, as his hands clutched his bald skull, free at last from the mental fingers that had probed, that had prodded.
He looked up, eyes fixing her with a glare of hatred that chilled her. Then, in a blur of black fabric, he moved.
With one hand, the creature posing as a man hurled the heavy, solid desk aside, to smash to kindling against the far wall. Then, still moving forward, he grasped Gwenna about the neck, lifting her with one arm as easily as if she were a tiny child, moving forwards and slamming her hard into the door through which she’d entered.
Her feet were dangling high above the ground, her eyes bulging as she choked. The man hissed into her ear.
“You meddle too much, child. You probe too much.” He gazed at her neck, at the soft skin and the pulsing lifeblood within. “I was tempted to spare you, leastways for a while. You intrigue me. And I do so enjoy a distraction these days.”
“You are nought but a demon,” the red-haired shaman managed to croak, “masquerading as a holy man.”
The man smiled.
“But of course. Where better to hide than amongst your enemies? Where better to be above suspicion than to be the very executor of their zealous crusades?” He laughed, but then in an instant his face grew dark, serious. In his eyes, a hunger. “But enough talk. I’ve spared you for too long…”
He opened his mouth, as if to rend her neck, to rip out her jugular with a single bite, long, sharp incisors stretching out to pierce, to puncture. But then noises from beyond the door; the cries of alarm from the Malleus, the screams of fear from the villagers.
“My lord!” came a worried shout from the hallway. “We are under attack! The prisoners are escaping!”
The tall leader of the Malleus growled, still gazing at Gwenna’s exposed neck, then snorted, hurling her away to land with a thud on the stone floor. He cast her a cold look.
“I shall deal with you later.”
With that, he wrenched upon the door and stalked forth into the hallway beyond.
Yet Gwenna didn’t hear those last words, as she rose up to her knees from the cold, stone floor. Even with her mind still burning from that mental contact, a new sensation bombarded her, that she could never hope to mistake in a million years.
Spirit-craft.
Somewhere close by, within the village, spirits were being called upon to work mighty deeds.
And they were answering.
***
The petite French girl placed her hands on the iron bars, closed her eyes, then strained. How, she didn’t know, but the strength of the earth itself flooded her limbs. With a great groan of tearing metal, the door to the wagon was ripped clean from its hinges. Opening her eyes with a look part amazement, part fear, Virginie dropped the heavy door to the ground with a thud.
Within the dark interior of the covered cart, a dozen faces stared out at her; hopeful, curious, excited. Two pairs of eyes, however, afraid. Suspicious.
Just as she knew they would be. Yet it hurt all the same.
Quickly, Virginie gestured for the shamans to exit the wagon. At the rear, slowly, hesitantly, Felice and James made their way to the entrance. As her cousin’s face came into the light, Virginie could see the confusion and apprehension there. She made to open her mouth, to allay her fears, but then Felice’s eyes widened in alarm as she looked over the younger girl’s shoulder.
“Behind you!”
Virginie turned. Malleus men came charging towards her, swords at the ready. The French girl snarled, a fiery hunger rising unbidden as spirits took over, lending her their gifts. Her eyes flared a bright orange, then the Malleus men stopped, screaming, as they hurled their red-hot swords away and clutched at smouldering palms.
Foes now unarmed, the troupe of released shamans descended upon the men in a storm of fists and feet, giving the two no time to reach for their crossbows.
A clawing fatigue began to make itself known to Virginie, and she staggered, held upright by her cousin and James.
“No,” the young French woman mumbled, as if to herself. “Not yet. Just a little longer. I need to make sure she’s safe…”
A pause, then fresh strength flooded her, a wicked smile appearing on her face. Good. Now where was Gwenna? The spirits of water ha
d aided her in tracking the party here, rendering the path they’d taken as clear as day. With her mind, she called upon them again. Her attention snapped to a building to the right; a large stone inn. Ignoring the protestations of her cousin at her back, Virginie walked forwards.
The door opened, two figures standing there, just inside the doorway and shaded from the morning sun. One, clearly another Malleus soldier. The other, a tall, regal-looking man, with the bearing of a hawk and the bald head of a scholar. He fixed her with cold eyes and nodded to the man beside him, who hoisted a crossbow and, quick as a flash, fired.
The bolt traced a languid path towards the girl, ripples of air in its wake as she watched its progress with fascinated eyes. Then, with a smile, she raised her hand before her. A surge of heat flooded her arm, then erupted from her palm as a ball of supernatural fire. It raced forwards, following the exact path of the crossbow bolt, incinerating the projectile in a cloud of smoke as it met it head on, then continuing on. The ball of flame smashed into the crossbowman, hurling him back into the darkness of the inn with a scream of pain.
The taller, older gentleman raised his eyebrows in amusement, then walked backwards, slowly disappearing in shadow as he went. The last thing she saw was his mocking hand, gesturing for her to follow.
She did.
She entered the gloom of the inn’s hallway. The corridor stretched off before her, to stairs that led up to the first floor and down below to the basement. Upon the stairs that led upwards, the smouldering corpse of her crossbow-wielding attacker, his weapon lying discarded, no use had his blackened fingers for it now. To her left, a few paces in front, a doorway that led, no doubt, to the common room and bar. To the right, opposite it, another doorway, leading off to the kitchens, perhaps.
A flash of startling colour from up ahead, as a figure of bright red hair and green eyes rose, wearily, from the stairs below. Virginie gasped, a smile of delight upon her face.
“Gwenna?”
Stone Rising Page 18