Balefire

by Jordan L. Hawk

  Rupert slid his fingers beneath his spectacles, pressing against his closed eyes. “We thought we were coming to rescue everyone—we thought the Fideles were behind this. So many died trying to breach the barrier. Justinian’s own sister. His own twin. How could he?”

  Whyborne shifted uncomfortably. “It’s possible something is controlling his mind. He might not be acting rationally.”

  “And he did try to warn us,” Hattie put in uncertainly. “Told the flotilla to get back. Maybe the Fideles are involved. Maybe they got him mind-controlled and he was able to fight through just long enough to warn us.”

  No one bothered to answer her obvious grasping at straws. I couldn’t blame her for her desperation, though. She and Rupert must surely be heartbroken at the horrors their family had inflicted on one another.

  Katherine crossed her arms. “I don’t know. I tried not to ask too much, or learn too much. I didn’t trust anyone else to properly care for the children.” She sighed. “In time, Charlie seemed to become…less sure, shall we say. He never spoke much to me, but I think his initial certainty, that Justinian had acted for the good of the family, began to fade.” She shook her head. “Then he stopped coming. I hadn’t caused any trouble, and I didn’t dare ask what had happened to him, so I was allowed to keep on my routine unsupervised.”

  “You did the right thing.” Rupert let his hands fall. “Thank you, Katherine.”

  She put a hand to his shoulder. One of the toddlers tripped over a carpet and began to cry. Katherine excused herself, picked her charge up, and bounced the girl in her arms.

  I beckoned the others to form a tighter circle. “What do we do now?” I asked in a low voice. “I know we meant to go to the alchemy lab, but we were expecting to fight the Fideles, not your own family.”

  “Justinian might be under outside control, but all of them?” Rupert stared into nothing. “It seems unlikely, to say the least. Which means some of them chose this.”

  “Then they ain’t family,” Hattie said. Her expression of helplessness began to give way to one of anger. “If they willingly went along with turning people like Earnest into monsters, they’re lower than any abomination I’ve ever put down. We have to stop this, no matter what.”

  “We’re talking about potentially killing cousins, uncles, aunts,” Rupert protested. “I know you say they aren’t family, but when you’re face-to-face, will you really be able to strike a blow?”

  “I did below, didn’t I?”

  “These will have human faces still,” I said. “Faces you know and perhaps love.”

  “It don’t matter.”

  “It will,” Whyborne said. He folded his arms over his chest. “Speaking as someone who killed his own brother. You think it will be easy, and maybe it will in the moment, when everyone you love is about to die if you don’t act. Or perhaps it won’t be nearly as simple as you think.”

  “And what other choice do we have?” She spread her hands apart. “If we don’t act—”

  There came a loud rustling from the wainscoting.

  She fell silent, and we all froze, listening. More muffled sounds, followed by a soft chitter.

  Then more rustling, and more, tiny feet and claws moving through the walls. It grew louder and louder, the children falling silent in fear and horror, until it sounded as though a veritable army of rats closed in on the crèche.

  “Run!” Katherine hastened to the door leading to the hall and flung it open. “Get out. Draw them away while you still can!”

  Chapter 32

  Whyborne

  “We’re going to remove the barrier!” Rupert shouted over his shoulder to Katherine as we bolted out the door. “Be ready to get the children across the causeway the moment the way is open. With any luck, some of those in the flotilla were able to swim to the headland and will meet you there.”

  The patter of rat feet grew louder and louder as we raced out the door and into the hall. There was no point in secrecy anymore; we had to draw the rat things away from the children if Katherine was to have any hope of getting them out of this prison. We dashed up the wide hall, past suits of armor on pedestals, up stairs, farther and farther along Balefire’s mad spiral.

  A lookout tower opened to our left, and as we passed it, the mass of rodents found their exit from the walls. A rat thing burst forth, followed by a tidal wave of normal rats beneath its thrall.

  “Good gad, where did they all come from?” Christine panted.

  “It doesn’t matter—run!” I exclaimed.

  We fled as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, Mother’s legs, while well-adapted for the water, were less so for sprinting. Her batrachian feet smacked against the gray stones, then back onto a runner, and her breath came in harsh gasps.

  I took one of her arms and Griffin the other, but there was only so much we could do. The hideous squealing behind us dinned in my ears, and I knew we’d soon feel the first teeth sinking into our heels. I had to do something, or else we’d surely be stripped to the bone.

  “Rupert, the oil lamp!” I shouted. “Throw it!”

  Thankfully, he didn’t question, but hurled it behind him in an arc. It hit the stone and burst.

  “Keep running,” I gasped, and stopped.

  Griffin cried out, but I didn’t have time to see if he and Mother had obeyed me. The oncoming horde had already reached the oil streaming across the floor.

  It exploded into flame at my command, so hot and close I singed my own hair. The rat thing was caught in the conflagration; it shrieked and twisted, along with a few unfortunate thralls.

  Released from the rat thing’s magic, the natural beasts immediately panicked. Squealing in terror, they scattered, fleeing both the flames and our presence as swiftly as possible.

  “Well done, Whyborne.” Christine ran back to clap me on the arm, then leaned in to peer at my face. “Oh dear.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you used to have eyebrows?”

  “Curse it.” I felt my forehead; the skin was tender and a good deal of the hair on the right brow seemed to be missing.

  “Never mind that,” she said. “That was some quick thinking. You kept us from…”

  She trailed off as three figures emerged from one of the side rooms we’d dashed past. All of them held swords, and with a sinking feeling I recognized them as witch hunter’s blades.

  “Very quick indeed, abomination,” said a hard voice. Four more Endicotts had bottled us in from the front, three armed with the same swords. The fourth, a woman with flaxen hair, I assumed to be a sorcerer.

  “Aunt Ophelia,” Hattie said. Her voice grated in her throat. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t see you here.”

  “There is much you don’t know.” Ophelia tilted her head to the side. “By order of the Keeper of Secrets, surrender your weapons.” When Hattie didn’t move, she arched a brow. “Hattie? The Keeper orders you. Do it.”

  Hattie’s knives hit the floor.

  I looked around wildly, but there seemed no escape. The sword wielders closed in. Thanks to the witch hunter’s blades, my magic was useless against them.

  “Surrender,” Ophelia repeated. “You can’t win this. You can come quietly…or we can paint the floor with your blood.”

  No one moved. My heart beat in my throat as I tried to calculate odds. Neither Rupert nor I could fight the witch hunters. Hattie had already surrendered. Iskander, Christine, Griffin, and Mother might stand a chance, but it would be poor odds against six armed fighters and one sorceress.

  Christine cursed and hurled her cudgel to the floor. The rest followed suit. A few moments later, a pair of the witch hunter’s manacles clamped around my wrists. Rupert and Mother were restrained in similar cuffs. Everyone else they quickly bound with rope.

  “Bring them,” Ophelia ordered. “They have an appointment with the Keeper of Secrets.”

  Chapter 33

  Griffin

  I fought to maintain my composure as Ophelia and her guards hustled us down th
e passage. We should never have come here; we should have stayed in Widdershins and left the blasted Endicotts to tear each other apart like rabid animals. If we died here in this God-forsaken mansion…

  I glanced at Whyborne. His face was fixed in the haughty expression he adopted whenever he was angry or afraid. God knew I was both at the moment.

  The corridor ended in what must have been the Great Hall Rupert had spoken of. The room was enormous, roughly the same size as the cavernous dining hall in Whyborne House back home. Centuries of soot darkened the thick rafters, and iron chandeliers filled with hundreds of candles spread flickering light over the scene. The cold fireplace was large enough for a man to stand upright in. A pair of heavy oaken doors had been left open to catch the summer breeze. Beyond them a long, crooked stair descended to the causeway far below.

  At one end was a dais, set with two chairs. One chair was empty, but in the other sat an older man with a thick white beard, who must have been Justinian. A few dark strands remained amidst the snow of his hair and beard, and he seemed Minerva’s elder by years, even though they were twins. Perhaps his actions over the last few months had aged him prematurely.

  My heart pounded, and my mouth had gone dry with fear. I cast a quick look around the room, desperate to find some means of escape. But none presented itself. The Endicott who’d taken my sword cane dropped it along with the rest of our weapons onto a long table near one wall. Witch hunter’s manacles encircled Whyborne’s wrists, preventing him from using any arcane power. Rupert was in similar straits, and two different Endicotts trained their weapons on Heliabel, whose power was also bound by the manacles. Christine glared daggers at Justinian while Iskander stood stiffly beside her.

  We were in very bad trouble.

  “Well, well.” Justinian rose to his feet and stepped closer to Whyborne, peering at him like a man inspecting some hapless animal at a county fair. “I thought that the abomination who murdered my children would be more impressive.”

  Christine and I both moved to step between Whyborne and Justinian. The guards leveled their weapons at us, and Ophelia said, “Hold still if you value your lives.”

  Whyborne put his shoulders back and met Justinian’s gaze. “If you refer to Theo and Fiona, they left me no choice. I didn’t seek their deaths. I wanted to be an ally to the Endicotts, until they—”

  “Silence!” Justinian barked. I tensed, certain he would strike Ival, but though his fist clenched he didn’t raise it. “My children did their duty proudly. The last communication I received from them was a farewell. They realized that foul town of yours needed to be wiped off the face of the earth if any of us were ever to be safe, and to that end they meant to give their lives.” Tears filled his eyes, and he swallowed hard. “If they had never met your sister, never met you, they might have returned to me safe. Instead, you destroyed my legacy and left me without even ashes to bury.”

  “Keeper, I must speak with you,” Rupert said urgently. “Something is very wrong. I—”

  Justinian rounded on Rupert. “How dare you presume to speak to me, when you return in the company of this. You and Fiona worked together in the alchemy laboratory, and yet you ally yourself with the man whose hands are stained with her blood.”

  Rupert hesitated, no doubt asking himself what approach might reach Justinian. Whether to address him as a grieving father, or a victim under control of other powers, or simply a madman. At last he said, “The Seeker of Truth sought the alliance. When Balefire was cut off, we feared the worst. Surely you didn’t imagine your own sister would abandon you?”

  Emotions chased one another across the Keeper’s countenance, almost too fast to categorize: grief, resignation, anger. He turned away, clasping his hands behind him, and stared at the cold fireplace. “I tried to warn you all. I told you to turn back. I didn’t want…” His shoulders trembled, then steadied. “But that was before I knew Minerva had betrayed me by allying not only with ketoi, but with the murderer of her own niece and nephew.”

  My patience was rapidly reaching an end. “You dare speak of betrayal? Of murder? Do you think we haven’t seen what’s been done to your kinfolk who opposed you?”

  “Does Ophelia know?” Rupert asked on the heels of my questions. “Does she realize how you twisted Earnest and Charlie and the others?”

  “I know the duty I owe this family,” Ophelia snapped, at the same moment as Justinian said, “The oath-breakers had to be dealt with somehow, and of course I didn’t wish to kill them. I was offered this compromise, so I took it.”

  “Compromise?” Christine spat. “Torturing your own people? Breaking their minds and leaving them with the choice to either starve or kill and eat one another?”

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Ophelia jerk slightly. But then she firmed her stance once again, as if to make up for her lapse. “I did not break my oaths.”

  “What oath?” I asked.

  Ophelia’s gaze went to Rupert, then to Hattie. “The oath we all take upon reaching twelve years of age. To obey the Seeker of Truth and the Keeper of Secrets. To place the good of the family above our own lives, our own happiness, our own desires. Supra alia familia.”

  “And those who died at the barrier?” Hattie asked. Her voice was low, and her remaining eye fixed on the floor rather than any of us. “What oath did they break?”

  “Never mind any of that,” Whyborne said. “What do you mean you were offered a compromise? Have you been seeing things in dreams? Are you allied with the masters? What the devil have you been in contact with?”

  Justinian’s eyes hardened. “You might be a spark of something greater, but you know nothing, abomination.”

  My breath caught. There should be no way Justinian could have learned of Whyborne’s true nature. Balefire had been cut off long before Rupert and Hattie found out Whyborne was part of the maelstrom. “How did you know that?” I asked, though perhaps the better question would have been what he intended to do with that knowledge.

  “Keeper, please.” Rupert bowed his head. “I beg you, listen to me. Far beneath our feet, there are ruins constructed by the masters themselves. Sir Richard built Balefire according to dreams, but the manor echoes those ruins. The barrier that has kept us safe for so long is a spell of the masters. If something has been influencing you, speaking to you through dreams, it may not have any of our best interests in mind. Please, just take a moment to really think about your actions. I don’t—I can’t—believe they originate with you.”

  To my surprise, a look almost of sorrow touched Justinian’s face. “Oh Rupert. You have always chafed at the idea there are secrets you aren’t entitled to know. Minerva you trusted without question, obeyed without hesitation, but me?” He shook his head. “I knew of the ancient passageways beneath our feet. I knew about the voice within the Needle that spoke to Sir Richard in dreams. The Keepers who followed after him all knew of it—and knew better than to trust something the ketoi and their wretched hybrid offspring had once worshipped.”

  He walked a few paces to stand before Whyborne, studying him once again. “The Needle is a source of great power, but only when handled cautiously. Responsibly. The alchemists of old summoned creatures from the Outside they named demons, but so long as they were careful in their dealings, they could come away with valuable knowledge.”

  “So you’re some sort of imitation Dr. Faustus?” Whyborne demanded archly.

  Justinian frowned. “Hardly. The intelligence within the Needle slept for five hundred years, its dreams touched only a handful of times by prior Keepers, and then only within very controlled circumstances. Our law was to learn only how to strengthen the barrier, nothing more.”

  Rupert’s expression had grown even more wretched than before. “So what caused you to break that law?”

  Justinian began to pace, hands still clasped behind him. “When the Fideles arose, I began to learn everything I could about the masters. Our duty to defeat them seemed clear. I read our fragment of the Wisborg Codex. I c
ombed every inch of the Pnakotic Manuscripts. And I came to a terrible realization.” He paused. “We cannot hope to fight them and win.”

  My blood ran cold, and a part of me wondered what he’d seen, and if what he feared was in fact the truth. “If you know anything that might help us—”

  “Nothing will help us,” Justinian cut me off. “All who resist are doomed. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw the fate awaiting us. All dead, from the youngest babe to the oldest grandmother.”

  “So you were influenced through your dreams,” Whyborne interrupted.

  Justinian waved an angry hand. “Don’t be absurd. I hadn’t awakened the Needle yet.”

  Whyborne’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Perhaps you didn’t. But the Restoration proceeds, despite all our attempts to stop it. If all the arcane lines are in fact connected, if it serves as a sort of, of control switch for them, then—”

  “Don’t presume to lecture me on my own family’s legacy!” Justinian shouted. A wild look had come into his eyes, one that instantly put me on edge.

  Whyborne’s mouth shut with a snap. Into the ensuing silence, Rupert quietly said, “Justinian, what you have done?”

  Justinian ran a hand across his face. “What I had to do. We Endicotts have fought monsters for a thousand years…but that is not the oath we take. That is not our motto. I had to put our family first and find a way for at least some of us to survive, no matter what.” He bowed his head. “I awoke Morgen’s Needle and it showed me how to create a barrier that would keep us safe. But it is merely the tool of something larger. There was only so much I could learn from it. I had no choice but to reach for greater assistance. Not if I was to keep the children safe.”

  This was bad. This was very, very bad. It sounded as though Justinian had dealt with something from the Outside. Whether the dreams from the Needle had warped his mind, or whatever being he’d called forth had driven him mad, I didn’t know.