Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  Abruptly I no longer felt like drinking with those men. They had told me all I needed to know, and nothing would follow except personal questions and the exchange of lies. Blending in with the converted populace wasn’t difficult so long as I kept my tattoos hidden, for the rules were simple in the early Church of the time: praise Jesus, and if you ran into anyone who didn’t do the same, attack the weak and shun the strong. The social camouflage was easy to maintain but wearying on the spirit. I thanked the men for their company and excused myself to look after my horse, may the Lord bless and keep them and destroy all evil.

  I brushed Apple Jack down and fed him and settled in to wait out the night, resolving to get an early start in the morning. I wanted to strip and dry out my kit but the necessity of maintaining my Christian façade made that impossible. Whenever someone entered the stables I knelt and clasped my hands and made a show of prayer. No one interrupted my pious devotion.

  The rain renewed with a vengeance in the morning, determined to erode my substance away and chap my hide. Big fat drops spanged off my helmet and slapped against my leathers. I kept my head down for most of the time and trusted Apple Jack to follow the path. After a soggy lunch under the partial shelter of an ash tree, we longed for the dry comfort of the stable at the Silver Stallion.

  An hour’s numbing march after lunch brought a surprise. I wiped rain out of my eyes at one point and Apple Jack shook his head to accomplish the same end. Refocusing on the road, I saw a structure ahead that I had missed before.

  “Wait,” I said aloud, and Apple Jack stopped. “How did I not see that?”

 

  Yeah, that’s what I mean. It looks like a chapel. The cross on the roof was a bit of a giveaway. It wasn’t a cathedral or even a regular meeting house; it was a small gray stone-and-mortar job put together in such a way as to suggest that the mason had been in a hurry. Tombstones leaned left and right in the sodden earth and completely surrounded the chapel, giving the yard the likeness of stained and broken teeth. It was the most morbid house of worship I’d ever seen.

 

  Oh, that’s true. That must be what happened. There must be another Druid around here somewhere, and that’s good.

 

  How much? Is this just a vague uneasiness or do you actually smell rotting flesh through all the rain?

 

  No, I think we need to check it out.

 

  Come on, it’s just a chapel in the middle of a graveyard. Buried bones can’t hurt you. There’s probably someone friendly inside.

 

  Um. No.

 

  I dismounted and fed him an apple before casting camouflage on myself and my kit and drawing Fragarach from its scabbard.

  A low fence that marked the boundary of the hallowed ground had a single open gate that led into the graveyard and pointed to a narrow path between the graves. Once I passed through it, I saw that the door to the chapel was ajar. Candles could be seen burning inside. I began to think maybe Apple Jack had the right idea when I saw that the door was ajar because somebody’s head on the floor wouldn’t let it close.

  The head was still attached to a body, but it was a dead body with blue unblinking eyes staring at the door frame. It didn’t look like a member of the clergy; he was wearing a simple tunic of dyed blue cloth. I couldn’t tell anything more about him, including the cause of death, without getting closer and perhaps opening the door further to investigate.

  But there might be someone waiting behind that door.

  There could also be an archer waiting in ambush behind one of the gravestones. I dismissed that as unlikely almost as soon as I thought of it; ambushers rarely like to settle in for their long waits in the rain. Whoever killed this man was either long gone or still inside. I was betting the killer was still inside, or else he would have cleaned up the scene a bit.

  The sound of falling rain prevented me from hearing anything else, but the same noise would disguise my approach. I crept closer until I was on the doorstep and could peer through the opening. I saw a bit more of the body. The right forearm and hand were draped over the man’s belly. They were covered with Druidic tattoos like mine.

  I stepped back and considered. The floor of the chapel was stone and once I entered I would be cut off from the source of my magic. I was still centuries away from the creation of my bear charm, and our bodies can only store a little magic for a limited time, so I’d be able to walk in there with one spell and maintain it for no more than a couple of minutes before I’d be tapped out. The gamble would be choosing a spell. I tried to reason it out, because Druids are not easily killed but someone had clearly succeeded quite recently. If I went in camouflage, the killer would still see the door opening and might indeed be waiting for just such a signal. Speeding myself up would normally serve me well, but that advantage would be negated if I didn’t know from which direction the ambush would come and realized it too late. I opted for strength; if something zapped me or attacked after I entered, I would do my best to wrestle myself outside where I could tap into more of the earth’s magic. The dead Druid on the floor might have been trying to accomplish the same before he died. I resolved to keep close to the door if I could.

  Apple Jack’s voice said in my head.

  Yes.

 

  Yes.

 

  If I die, you have my permission to run away. Hush now and let me think.

  Apple Jack had a point. There was no need for me to go in. Dagda’s cauldron wasn’t in there. But thanks to the bloody Romans and the spread of monotheism, there were precious few Druids left and I felt obligated to avenge this one if I could.

  I paused for a full minute to listen. I heard nothing but the white noise of water on stone. I dissolved my camouflage and whispered a binding that would strengthen my muscles; I drew as much power as I could hold and then kicked the door open, charging in and looking behind it. No one there. I looked up; no one waited to drop on me from the rafters. I crouched and surveyed the rest of the chapel, cautiously sidestepping back toward the open door. It was a single chamber. There was an altar in the back of the chapel surrounded by candles, and a body rested on it: a second Druid, his tattoos clearly visible, and his arms folded over his torso and clutching a sword like a soldier.

  “Hey, lad,” I called. “Wake up.” He didn’t move. His chest remained still, bereft of breath.

  Dafydd’s claim that two Druids had left the Silver Stallion in recent weeks came back to me. Apparently they’d both met their end here. But how? I didn’t want to be Druid number three and I was operating on too little information. I backed out the door, grabbed the Druid lying there by his tunic, and dragged him outside with me for a proper investigation. The chapel was simply too creepy; someone had lit those candles recently, and I doubted the dead men were responsible.

  I knelt beside the Druid in the rain. He had no visible head wounds—not even bruising. A purpling of the skin low on the right side of his throat, however, made me look for more; on the left side were four more marks. This Druid had been choked to death by a single large hand. Perhaps it had been gaun
tleted—but that hardly mattered. I’m sure the Druid hadn’t meekly accepted his strangulation. He must have fought back but it had done him no good. There was enormous strength behind those telltale bruises.

  My hand trailed up to my neck and I speculated on how much protection the chain mail would offer against a hand like that. Probably very little.

  I wondered if the Druid on the altar had been killed the same way. It was probably safe to investigate since the owner of the giant hand was obviously not in the chapel at present.

  Stepping back inside, I noticed most of the candles around the altar had been snuffed out, presumably by the wind circulating through. The only illumination now came from the pillar of wan light cast by the open door, largely occluded by my own shadow, and a single candle in front of the altar. I was halfway to the altar when the strangeness of it upset me. If the wind had snuffed the candles, the one that was still burning would have been the first one to blow out. So what had put them out…?

  Movement drew my eye to the lower right corner of the altar. A huge disembodied black hand and forearm crawled toward the final candle using its fingers. The hand was an unnatural carbon black, scarred and pitted like volcanic rock. It pinched out the candle with its thumb and forefinger, and then I lost it in my own shadow.

  It had no trouble finding me, however, as I backstepped. It scrabbled inhumanly fast across the floor and gripped my leg, not to halt my progress but rather to climb up one finger at a time. I hurriedly swiped at it with my left hand to knock it off, but it must have been waiting for just such a reaction, for it somehow caught my fingers, spasmed, and flipped itself onto my forearm, now much closer to my throat. It knew which direction that lay, for it immediately began to inch its way up my arm with ropelike finger movements.

  My panicked brain suggested that I cut off my own arm with Fragarach to prevent the hand’s advance. Its enchanted blade would slice through armor as easily as skin. But after my logic had its say in the next fraction of a second, I thought of something else. “Freagroidh tú!” I said, pointing my sword at the hand and activating the primary enchantment, which would force the target to tell the truth. But I didn’t want to talk to the hand; I wanted the secondary effect, which prevented the target from moving more than a few inches from the point of the sword while under interrogation. Move the point, and you effectively move the target. I directed the point at the floor in front of me, and the hand was yanked magically from my arm and placed under firm control a comfortable distance away. I watched it writhe and struggle to break free of the spell for a few seconds while I caught my breath and tried to slow down my heartbeat. It was too repulsive to bear for long, however, and I began to saw off the digits, starting with the thumb. Once disconnected from the palm, they ceased moving. The arm still tried to attack me with all five fingers missing, so I stabbed it through the back of the hand and it finally slumped inert on the floor.

  Before I could sigh in relief, the Druid on the altar stirred and sat up, vacant eyes swiveling to face me. His feet slapped the cold stone as he advanced, sword raised. His movements lacked grace and his jaw hung slack.

  It was evidence—if the hand hadn’t provided enough—that I was dealing with a true necromancer, and I’m not ashamed to say I turned and ran out of there, calling for Apple Jack to meet me at the gate. The other Druid was on his feet outside and managed to trip me as I passed. Mud and turf rippled all around; the dead were rising from their graves. A heavy hand closed around my leg; I swung Fragarach behind me and the grip fell away. I scrambled for purchase in the mud and tore down the path toward the gate as fists erupted from the graves nearby.

 

  Yes, well, you might find me more willing to listen from now on.

  I had to decapitate one of the raised dead at the gate, but otherwise I had fled in time to avoid the crush of them. I looked back from the saddle as Apple Jack galloped away and saw that the milling creatures did not leave the fenced area around the graveyard. I blinked rain out of my eyes and when I refocused, the chapel was gone. It was as if it had never been there. I didn’t know how I’d convince anyone it ever existed, for what would I say—“My horse saw it too”?

  The rain stopped soon after I left the chapel. The waterlogged landscape abruptly turned into a dried-up wasteland of red rock and pale straw skeletons of plants. Trees like scarecrows scratched at a cloudless blue sky. I looked behind me and saw only more of the same; the verdant forested path had vanished like the chapel.

  Which was the illusion? My kit was still damp and Apple Jack was thoroughly wet, so I chose to believe the desert was a lie.

  It didn’t feel that way after a few more hours on the trail, however, once I’d completely dried out and started to bake. A necromancer who was also able to either control weather or my perceptions like this was indeed a formidable opponent. But every step I took confirmed that he was precisely the type of opponent Druids were tasked to take down. He was doing serious damage to the environment here, not by polluting or mining or anything conventional, but through magic.

  The wasteland went on for days. It would have killed anyone who wasn’t traveling with a keg of water. I periodically bent down to the earth, asked it to part for me, and water welled up for Apple Jack and me to drink. Still, I tried to look thirsty when we rode into Sveinsey. The people there were getting their water from the River Tawe. The markets were unsurprisingly bare of fresh vegetables, though there were some wormy apples here and there. There was plenty of fish to be mongered, but as Dafydd had observed, it was a sailor’s diet. Except that somewhere in the fortress they had Dagda’s cauldron. The graal.

  There was an upper limit to the number of people it could feed; at some point, there was only so much food that could be scooped from a magical container per day. But the Pict’s plan was becoming clear: With a nearly impassable desert surrounding Sveinsey and no land nearby to pillage, an army was going to have a tough time getting here, and laying siege would do them no good when he could feed his people in the keep indefinitely with Dagda’s cauldron.

  The keep wasn’t complete yet, but it was taking shape, and the walls of the fortress looked like they had been shored up and thickened. It sat upon the river’s edge and there was no doubt a well inside that afforded them plenty of water.

  Some judicious inquiries with a fishmonger here and an apothecary there revealed that the captain of the guard was looking for a few good knights to join the crew.

  “You look like you can dish out a good fonging,” the apothecary said as he measured out some herbs that I would use for purposes beyond his ken. He squinted at me sideways. “The pay is good and so is the food, I hear. The Fisher King is generous to his subjects, even though he be plagued by some terrible pestilence.”

  “The Fisher King?”

  “Aye. Quite an upstanding chap as far as kings go. The bloody Pict on his elbow is a nightmare, but thank the tits of all the saints, he’s not in charge.”

  “Where can I find the captain?”

  “Inquire at the fortress first,” he said, “but check the pubs along the docks if you don’t find him there.”

  I checked along the docks first, primarily to give myself cover; I wanted the captain to think I arrived by sea rather than braved the wasteland. After picking a suitable ship—it was a busy port—I searched for a stable to house Apple Jack. If I’d come across to Sveinsey on ship, it would be unlikely for me to arrive on horseback.

  In Apple Jack’s assigned stall, I knelt down and touched the earth with my hand and made contact with the local elemental. It was understandably distraught at what had been happening in the area and relieved that a Druid had finally made it far enough to possibly address the problem. I asked for its help: I’d been thinking of how I could access magic for a longer period of time when cut off from the earth. Could it charge up a stone or gem, perhaps, with enough magical energy that I could still craft a few bindings?

&n
bsp; //Not stone// it said. //Metal Silver or gold Stores magic best//

  //Gratitude// I replied. //Query: Craft silver storage talisman for me?//

  //Affirmative Contact with skin required/

  After some additional back and forth, a rough silver cross pushed up from the earth into my hand, imbued with enough magic for several spells. Social camouflage again: If I cast any magic, it would be seen as a miracle performed by the Christian god. All I had to do was whip out the cross and give praise for my deliverance. I stowed it in a belt pouch for easy access.

  Four men-at-arms challenged me at the gate to the Sveinsey fortress—the soon-to-be castle. The captain was in attendance, a middle-aged veteran with more salt than pepper in his beard. He saw me as a threat at first since my armor was better than his, but once I humbly begged leave to join the guard, follow his lead, and serve his lord, he relaxed somewhat.

  “Why are you here?” he said.

  “I came in on the last ship from the Frankish lands.”

  “Fine, but why sail to Sveinsey, boy?”

  I never get tired of being called “boy” by men who are hundreds of years younger than I am.

  “I heard about the Fisher King across the channel. Kind and generous and yet invincible.”

  “You heard about the Fisher King across the channel? Come with me. I think he would be very interested to hear the details.”

  He led me through the gates and into the fortress, past halls hanging with tapestries and maids keeping the stone swept.

  “It’s near time for the evening meal,” the captain said. “I’m sure they can find a place for you at the table. Always enough food to go around, of course.”

  The great hall was a festival of tapestries and seven-branched candelabras. Long tables with simple benches were placed end-to-end on one side; the other side was curiously bare, and everyone sat facing the blank space, which I began to suspect would be the scene of some entertainment forthwith.