by Sean Russell
“Randall’s done no one harm that I’m aware of,” Hayes said firmly.
“Let us not argue again amongst ourselves,” Erasmus interrupted, his voice almost as deep as the drumming thunder. Hayes could see his face in the flickering light—like his neighbors in Paradise Street—flickering into being, then gone. “A man’s past is not always so easily revealed to strangers, and despite any liberties with the facts, I think you will find that there was truth in Randall’s story—the pain was certainly no exaggeration. Men often have good reason to keep their pasts from others. Let us judge Randall by his actions. By that standard he has earned the respect of us all. Let him paint his past in any shades he might wish, and I, for one, will bless him for it.”
The lightning flashed again, and all of them started, for a figure stood at the edge of the firelight—a grimly sad Clarendon staring at them, his pain obvious.
“It is the curse of my difference,” Clarendon said as the thunder rolled to silence. “I shall never be free of it.”
Suddenly they heard a call above the sounds of the passing storm. Each of them became still, straining to hear, for it was not the first time that they thought they had heard a voice in the wind. Then Kehler appeared in a series of flashes, moving jerkily toward them.
“The horses! They’re gone,” he called out, and everyone was up, stumbling through the bowing trees.
A parted rope was all they could find of their mounts, scattered by the storm like so many leaves. Nor could they immediately find Pryor.
“He must be searching for the horses,” Erasmus yelled above the thunder.
“Madness!” Hayes said. “We won’t find them now until daylight.”
“He will not likely come to harm this night,” Erasmus said, “but someone will surely get lost if we go searching for him. Best we keep to our shelter until there is light.”
“We cannot be lost between here and the cliff,” Kehler said. “Let us separate just enough to comb back through the trees. The horses might not have gone far.”
They split up and made their way back toward the shelter, finding their way by the flashes of lightning that drove back the darkness every few seconds.
Erasmus walked through the center of their line, and after a few moments emerged into the small clearing where the stream flowed. Here the lightning revealed two crouching figures. Erasmus hurried forward, sure that someone had fallen and been injured—easy enough to do in this alternating light and darkness.
As he came a little closer, Erasmus realized it was Deacon Rose bending down with his hand upon someone’s shoulder—Hayes, he thought, but then realized it was their guide, Pryor.
Erasmus was brought up sharp. A flash revealed the face of the young man, contorted in pain, streaked with rain—yet it was not raining.
He knows, Erasmus thought. The poor boy. That is his brother’s pyre.
And then the rain came, driving down upon them in thimble-sized drops. The little, burbling stream rose instantly to a torrent, swelling beyond its banks until it flooded across the fire pit, carrying the ashes and scattering them like memories.
Eighteen
Moncrief received the letter from his secretary, a grimly serious man who had suffered Moncrief’s employ for some twenty years. The King’s Man looked disdainfully at the envelope, which was clearly not part of the day’s post.
“From Sir John Dalrymple, sir. He . . . Sir John is waiting upon your reply.”
“He came with a letter demanding instant reply? I should make him wait the entire day.”
“He did say it was urgent, sir.”
Moncrief rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he did. Send Sir John home, and accept no argument. Thank you, Horton.”
Moncrief took the envelope, glancing at his name on the front written in an unfamiliar hand. It bore no title or honorific, merely Sutton Abelard, as though he were a commoner, a man of no consequence. He felt his anger well up. Sir John was proving to be more than an annoyance.
He slit the envelope quickly, and opened the letter.
Sir:
You will place all the resources in your power at the disposal of Sir John Dalrymple beginning immediately and until such time as Sir John releases them. If I suspect for even a moment that you have not complied in every way with this order, you shall wish you had not been born into this life.
There was no signature.
Moncrief felt such heat rise into his face that he could hardly speak. “What kind of joke is this?” he spluttered. “Has Dalrymple gone mad?”
He read the letter again, as though unable to believe that anyone could send such a missive to him. As he read, his hand began to shake with anger, and then, without warning, the paper burst into a ball of flame, burning his hands, the light paining his eyes.
He dropped the letter, stumbling away, blinded for the moment.
“Horton!” he called, thinking that the papers on his desk would catch and the whole building go.
The secretary burst into the room at the tone of his master’s summons.
“Lord Moncrief? Are you unwell?”
Moncrief waved his burned hand at the desk. “Put it out!”
“Sir?”
The bewilderment in the man’s voice brought Moncrief up short. He opened his eyes, the white flame still burned into his vision. But there was no fire. He stood mystified for a moment and then crossed to his desk. The letter was gone, and the envelope as well. He examined his hands.
“They are not burned?” he asked, showing them to Horton.
“No, sir.”
“Did I fall asleep? Was it a dream?”
“What, sir?” His secretary looked very concerned, as though his employer were babbling.
“Did you bring me a letter from Sir John just a moment ago?”
“You know I did, sir.”
Moncrief looked at the desk, and then at the floor beneath it.
“Have you lost it?”
The truth came to him, and he put out a hand to steady himself. The arts of the mages—of the mage. Eldrich. He actually felt the blood drain from his face. Quickly he sat down.
“Sir?”
“I must have fallen asleep.” He took a long breath. “Very odd dream.” He tried to smile reassuringly but failed utterly. “That will be all, Horton.”
“If you’re sure, sir,” Horton said, clearly not ready to go.
“I’m sure.”
Horton nodded and backed up a pace, examining Moncrief as though he might just call a physician anyway. Then he turned to go.
“Horton?” Moncrief said as the man reached the door. “Is Sir John still waiting?”
The servant shook his head.
“Have my carriage ready, I shall be going out for a while.”
“Immediately, sir.”
* * *
* * *
Sir John sat at his desk, unable to concentrate to even the slightest degree. There were a dozen reports staring at him, unread all the days he had been in Castlebough. He turned and looked out the window into the common across the street. How did one carry on the normal routine after the experience he’d just had? And now Moncrief was being most difficult. What if he did not bother to read the letter at all? Eldrich would not be pleased.
“Flames,” he said quietly.
A knock startled him, and his secretary’s face appeared in the open door. “Lord Moncrief, Sir John.”
“Here? Now?”
“This minute, sir. He says it is most urgent.”
Sir John had an urge to make the man wait but had no time for such pettiness. The door was left ajar; a moment later it swung gently back, and Moncrief stepped around it rather gingerly. He still wore his cape, hat and cane clutched in his hands.
Sir John had never seen the man look so pale, as though he were very ill. The King’s Man st
ood there for a moment saying nothing, gazing at Sir John, his look neither malevolent nor defiant. The predatory Moncrief, with his beaked nose and eyes set too close together—the pinched look of disapproval—he appeared cowed! Sir John could hardly believe what he saw. Moncrief looked cowed! Moncrief! What was in that letter?
“I did not realize,” the King’s Man said at last, his voice very small. “I had no way of knowing. You need not be concerned . . . I . . . Pray, let there be peace between us, Sir John. Think of me as your friend, your ally in all things. Ask whatever you will of me. I am your servant in this matter.”
Sir John nodded, not so far gone that he could not enjoy this moment. He smiled rather malevolently at the King’s Man.
“We . . .” Sir John began, but then changed his mind. “I am looking for a young woman. A dangerous young woman. She has recently been using the name Anna Fielding. A captain of His Majesty’s navy will arrive posthaste. He can identify her.” Sir John held out a piece of paper upon which the woman’s description had been written. He waited until Moncrief realized that he must cross the room to take it. “It is imperative that she not take ship, especially for the island of Farrow. Is that clear?”
Moncrief nodded, perhaps a little surprised by the request. He stood there like a minion, unsure if he was to be invited to sit or if he’d been released.
“I shall put the agents of the Admiralty to work this night. The pleasures of the day to you, Sir John,” Moncrief said, bobbing his head and raising his cane slightly in salute. He backed out the door, closing it quietly behind him.
Sir John went to the window and watched Moncrief scurry into his carriage. Word of this unprecedented visit to Sir John would get about immediately. It was almost worth a life’s servitude to the mage just to have had that experience. Moncrief currying favor—as he likely did with no one but the King. He heard himself laugh.
What had Eldrich written? Whatever it was it had frightened Moncrief like nothing else. And why did Moncrief believe it? Certainly anyone could have written the letter and signed Eldrich’s name, though only a complete fool would do so, for if Eldrich learned of it the man would suffer. Sir John was not quite sure what, but one did not anger the mage. Or fail him.
Nineteen
A vapor wraith streamed up from the cup, fixed in the eye by a flash of lightning. Anna sipped the elixir made from king’s blood, her hand trembling perceptibly.
Wind gusted down the slope and flattened her fire, spreading the tongues of flame so that they wavered but could not speak. A dry gale off the sea, and on the distant edge of the world a lightning storm the likes of which she had never seen.
The smell of king’s blood was familiar to her now, and the taste. Her body reacted to it with a kind of hunger, even as her mind felt growing revulsion. There were precautions she would have to take soon, for the seed had other effects—none of them desirable—and one readily became habituated.
She closed her eyes and sipped again, the lightning still thrown against her retinae. The liquid ran warm into her center, entered the blood, and flowed outward, invading the rest of her body—or so she imagined. Blessedly, the elixir blunted the sharp edge of pain that cut into her brain—the hangover from augury. She pulled her cloak close around her, sinking back into the cedar boughs she’d cut for comfort.
What did the vision mean?
Men pursued her, a group of them: Erasmus and the others from the cave, she was sure. But there had been one among them who was only a shadow. Was it Eldrich? Eldrich seeking her in the hills? Mages commonly used minions for such tasks. Or was this a measure of how desperate Eldrich was? Of how badly he wanted Landor’s seed and the words written in the chamber?
The meaning was clear. Somehow they had discovered that she had not died in the cave even though Halsey had sacrificed himself and she had taken a life so that this knowledge would never surface. A life for nothing.
“They come after us,” she said to her familiar which hunkered down on a branch nearby.
No response. He did not like this storm and appeared to be sulking, pulling his head back into his shoulders, fluffing his feathers. He rode his wildly swinging branch through the gusts with almost comic determination.
Her eyelids fluttered like wings and closed. Anna began to feel herself drift as though she were floating away from her body. Of course, the vision had not been so simple—such was the nature of augury. She had also seen herself in a circle of columns and at each column stood a man: Erasmus was one; Hayes and Kehler; a priest; another she could not quite see; and again the shadow figure. They performed a ritual—a rite that would make her a mage.
They will destroy me or help me, she thought. But which? Should I run or seek them out?
Visions never offered answers—only possibilities.
Although she kept her eyes tightly closed, shadows formed at the periphery of her vision, hissing voices whispering unintelligibly, only the loathing articulated.
Anna emptied the bitter dregs of the cup, and lay her head back, the folds of her cape fluttering about her face like the wings of bats. Lightning branched toward the world’s edge, rending the fabric of night.
She felt herself rise and opened her eyes to find herself crossing to the horses, the landscape oddly illuminated, almost dully luminescent.
She slipped the hobble on her gray mare and with neither saddle nor bridle swung up onto its back and set off across the meadow, voices hissing from the shadows.
Among the trees they found a path that led up into a cleft between hills. She did not question where they went; she was in the grip of king’s blood and obeyed its dictates. The shadow figures seemed to follow her, silent now, but increasing in number.
The mare stopped suddenly as though the way were blocked, and Anna heard a hiss like brittle leaves in the wind. There, rising out of the ground, was the face of Banks. He bobbed as though floating up from the sea, hair plastered to his forehead, white shells for eyes. He rolled slowly, turned by an unseen current, and his shell-eyes looked up at her, ghostly blank.
“Farrelle’s oath . . . Banks?” she exclaimed, her voice barely rising above the wind. “Banks? Is that you?”
He opened his mouth, but only insects emerged, scurrying off into the night. Again he tried, but the wind carried the words away.
Anna had slumped over her horse’s neck, the horror held at bay by the king’s blood. “What? I cannot hear. Banks!”
“There will be a price,” he hissed, and he slipped beneath the surface, one white shell left upon the ground like a tiny moon.
She slipped off her mare and plucked up the shell, turning the delicate object on her palm. Armor, she thought. The armor of some fragile creature.
“Banks,” she whispered. “A price for what?”
She went on, leading the gray horse by its halter. Tears slipped down her cheek but were flicked away by the wind. “Banks,” she said again, “so many have died.”
The path twisted upward among the swaying trees, over a landscape of gnarled root and shattered stone.
“An-na,” someone whispered.
She looked around, searching the ground. “Banks?”
“An . . . na . . .”
The voice did not come from the ground, and she looked up to see a form hanging from a tree. Reluctantly she moved forward.
“Kells? Farrelle’s blood!” she cried. “What has been done to you? Kells?” She could see him now, his neck caught in the crook of a branch, his body hanging limp.
For a moment he struggled to breathe, trying to swallow, breath gargling in this throat like a death rattle.
“I will get you down, Kells,” she said.
“You cannot . . .” he managed, “. . . help me.”
“Kells—” her voice choked off in a sob. “Is this what becomes of us?”
“Not . . . you . . .” She could see him blinking
, and then he began to choke again, his breath cut off. Anna closed her eyes, unable to bear it. But then the choking subsided and she could hear him drawing shallow breaths.
“He watches,” Kells whispered hoarsely. “. . . listens . . .” His breath caught. And for a moment there was utter silence, as he fought to draw a breath, his throat seemingly blocked. No sound, only the lifeless body and the gaping mouth, bulging eyes.
She could not bear it anymore and, almost running, pulled her mare forward.
“Farrelle’s blood,” she heard herself say again and again. Was this a vision of death? Was this what awaited her?
“Not you,” Kells had said, but what had that meant? Her fate was different? Worse?
She stumbled along the path, half-blinded by tears, unsure if the shadows to right and left were trees animated by the storm or creatures of nightmare.
She burst through branches into a small clearing and there a fire burned. Was she back at her own camp?
But no, it was not the same. And someone sat on a fallen tree near the fire.
She edged closer, fearing what she might find. The branches of the fallen tree reached up, tipped in white blossoms. The woman was rocking, humming to herself. Anna could see her now. A large woman of indeterminate age, wisps of gray hair threaded among the dark.
The woman looked up, her face kind. She cradled a baby at her breast, bundled in white, and sang softly.
“My heart will keep the storm at bay
The wraiths, the rain, the whispering night.
The eye will see what’s foul and fey,
The way by darkness
Into light.”
For the briefest instant Anna’s familiar settled on her shoulder, but then took flight again, agitated, muttering its single syllable like a curse. The chough was battered by the wind, which then dropped to complete calm, though the shadow trees still writhed and swayed. Only here, in this small vale was it tranquil. Beyond, the world had succumbed to madness.
“Ah, child,” the woman said, smiling at Anna. “You look chill. Will you not warm yourself by the fire? I’ve nothing more to offer, I’m afraid. Just fire.”