by Kit Hallows
Something shifted beside me as I headed back across the room. I froze and glanced down to find two shining eyes peering through sheer strands of web. Its mandibles snapped open then a pair of small hands pressed against the cocoon and a long silver claw slipped through the strands and began tearing away the casing. I winced as I grabbed the sticky top of the creature’s head with one hand and drew my sword across its throat with the other.
There was a brief, plaintive gurgling cry and then silence as the remains of the creature turned to wisps of nicotine brown smoke. Another creature mewled, and another. I rushed toward the hall as the pods began to tremble and shudder and dozens of tiny hands prodded and struggled against the webbing.
Leaping out of the nightmarish room, I slammed the door on their muffled cries, and prayed to whatever deity that might be watching over this world that the mhudambe out by the bonfire hadn’t heard their younglings stir. So far I’d managed to slay them but that had been one on one and I was under no delusions as to what would happen if a mob of them attacked.
I climbed the stairs toward the top floor and glanced out the window on the short landing as I rounded the bend. The bright moonlight glimmered over the boggy marsh and the crooked trees that seemed to fidget and twitch.
The short hall at the top led to three doors. I glanced through the first to find a room with a large bed. Its thick wooden frame was stout and fitted in tethers. Whips, coshes and nightmarish implements hung on the walls and blood had stained the floorboards. Lots of blood.
A stab of cold hard fury shook me as Erland’s tale of the village girl leaped through my mind. I had to close the door on the gruesome sight and calmly still my rage. It wouldn’t do any good. I couldn't afford to lose control. Not here, not now.
I headed to the next chamber. A plush four poster bed, a pair of wardrobes and a long dresser furnished the space. I assumed this was where the sadist slept, a mere stone’s throw away from where he tortured and raped. I pulled my sword as I crept to the final door. It was closed. I pulled the fang from my pocket and squeezed it, taking in everything it had to give. My hands trembled and the magic raced through me with such force that the fang cracked.
Shit.
I slipped it back into my pocket and leaned in close as I inspected the threshold for traps. There were none, and I gasped as I opened the door onto a room brimming with a vibrant colorful light.
Jewels and gleaming crystals that I couldn’t begin to name shimmered in the tall glass cases that lined the chamber. In the midst of their glittering beauty lay a long translucent skull that twinkled and pulsed. I had no idea what species it belonged to, but whatever it was, slaying it must have proved a formidable challenge. Coins were displayed on several of the lower shelves, carefully laid out in the light of the gems, like a prized collection. Some were gold, some were silver, and many were made from metals unlike anything I'd seen before.
In the center of this treasure hoard was the cabinet that held the dagger. It was back-lit by an unseen source and its blade had a pearlescent glow, like frosted platinum. The handle was carved from bone, its surface covered with tiny, intricate, morbid iconography. I crouched to check the cabinet for traps. No wires, alarms or telltale signs of magic. Nothing.
“It’s not protected.” The quiet, silken voice came from behind me. “There was only one trap. And you triggered it the moment you entered my house.”
28
Talamos Gin stood in the doorway. The fae was smaller than I’d expected, and scrawny, with papery blue tinted complexion. His eyes were narrow, golden, and I saw a cruel, wily strength in them. A predator’s strength. The kind that knows only to strike when the odds are tipped in its favor. And it seemed, by the half smile dancing on his lips, that the odds were favoring him right now. “Why are you here?” He made the question sound almost reasonable.
“I’ve come to kill you and take the dagger.”
“That’s refreshingly honest, but why would you do such a thing? As far as I’m aware we’ve never met, and I’m certain from the stench hanging like a haze around you that I’ve never visited whatever hope-forsaken world you crawled here from. So, who sent you? And why take my dagger?”
“I need it to kill a shade.”
Gin nodded. “It could do that. And more.”
I pulled my sword and stepped toward him. He didn’t move and his smile didn’t falter. “You can tell me who sent you now, or you can wait until later. Depending on how much pain you’d like to endure.”
I raised my sword. “Give me the dagger.”
“You can take it yourself.”
I shook my head. “No, you’re going to open the cabinet.”
Gin stared at me and I saw a flicker of… desire? Not sexual. Desire for sadism and torture. Slowly he clapped his hands and for a moment I thought he was mocking me until I realized it was a summons.
I ran at him. “End!” I shouted, thrusting the sword at his chest. It struck the invisible barrier shielding him and glanced off amid a blaze of bright blue sparks.
Somewhere, on one of the floors below, a door burst open and I heard the clatter of feet on the stairs.
“They’re coming. For you,” Gin said, “I’ll have them swaddle you in one of their cocoons, then the fun will begin and I’ll make it last. Unless you tell me who sent you. If you do, I might even forbid my servants to wear your skin. ”
I turned away from him and brought the sword of intention down on the cabinet. It struck another invisible barrier. I reached into my pocket for Erland’s charm but it was cracked, broken.
Help me, I called to my other. He ignored me. I glanced at the walls and cabinets. My other had absorbed magic from the yard and used it against the mhudambe. This place must be teeming with it. The quandary was it would be Gin’s magic, dark and malevolent… but there was no time to be choosey. “Fuck you.” I said it to Gin as well as my other, then I closed my eyes and focused on the magic seeping through the walls. This was going to be like the asylum all over again.
The mhudambe were on the landing now, I could hear their twitching limbs and clacking mandibles.
I pressed my hand to the wall. A deep harsh energy leaped into me, my body buckled as it entered my system and the surge forced my eyes open.
Gin watched from the doorway as his creatures gathered behind him, his steady gaze piqued with curiosity as I commandeered his magic. It was as if he’d never seen someone do such a thing before. I smiled as my mind began to sort through the numerous ways I could hurt him. Yeah, why not? There was no rush…
It wasn’t my voice. Wasn’t me. It was the sadistic tone of the magic. I smashed my fist through the cabinet and grabbed the dagger along with the sheath it rested upon. The blade felt substantial yet curiously light in my grip.
Gin looked shocked and surprised as I turned and threw it. It slipped through his invisible shield and embedded itself in his chest. Blood seeped from the corners of his lips. “Wh…”
I crossed the room, yanked the dagger free and kicked him back into the horde of mhudambe lurking behind him. They froze, their heads cocked as they gazed down at their dying master. I slammed the door before they could react, cast a sealing spell and shoved a nearby cabinet in front of it. Neither of these flimsy measures would last, which meant I had to get out, and fast.
I crossed the room, snatched back the heavy velvet drapes and looked out across the marshlands. The bonfire still blazed in the yard, and three pools of blood soaked the soil where the corpses had been. I’d become the fourth one if I didn’t move quickly.
The rattling alien cries of the mhudambe filled the hall, and the door began to buckle. I turned back to the window and pulled it open. The drop was at least thirty feet…
I glanced at the window ledge just below mine, and the one beyond that. My other stirred, roused by the arrival of the cruel furious power surging through our veins. I laughed as I climbed out the window; if he showed his face now I’d smother him.
The wind was icy o
n the back of my neck as I gripped the sill, turned and slipped over the side where I hung for a moment before letting go.
I fell. Stone wall and glass panes flew past me, and then I grabbed the next sill. Agony tore through my arms. It was all I could do to keep my grip.
I considered smashing the window before me and climbing through, until I caught a glimpse of the cocoons clinging to the ceiling inside.
I glanced down to the next sill, focusing the magic thrumming through me. And then dropped.
A blur of stone, a whistle of air… I snatched the sill, jerked to a halt and screamed as a deep violent pain shot through my limbs. I gritted my teeth, took a sharp breath and before I could think about it, dropped again.
The ground rushed toward me. I hit it hard. A stinging ache cracked like a whip through my ankles and up my spine.
I hobbled away from the house and glanced up through the bonfire’s drifting smoke as a mhudambe thrust its head through the open window. Jewel toned light shimmered around it as it glared down at me and rattled off a cry to the others.
I looked to the marsh, then up to the creature’s cold glinting eyes and I backed away as a fresh wave of pain surged through me. There was no way I’d ever make it.
A haunting chorus of cries echoed through the stone tower and the mhudambe withdrew its head from the window.
They were coming.
29
I staggered past the bonfire, to the door of Talamos Gin’s house and thrust my hands against the thick planks. My fingers singed the wood as I soaked up the last dregs of his magic and I shuddered as the ominous power rushed into me. The depths of its malevolence was almost irrepressible. Images of Gin’s wicked deeds came with it. Stark horrible visions of cowering, bloody faces, many of them young, all of them screaming. I fell back and puked on the dusty ground.
The mhudambe were coming. I could hear them clattering down the stairs.
I leaped back toward the door, sealed it and reinforced the spell a second time. And as I staggered back toward the bonfire, I got an idea.
Summon your fire, I commanded my other.
I sensed his presence, sulking amid the torrents of my newly acquired power but he did not reply.
Summon your own. The voice wasn’t his; it was Talamos Gin, his essence infusing the magic I’d leeched from his dark dwelling. Do it. Burn it all.
An ironclad hatred engulfed my senses as I glanced back to the house. The door buckled in its frame and a mhudambe burst through a window and prepared to leap.
Cruel notions flooded through me along with a torrent of memories featuring Gin’s most prized assaults and retaliations. Bile scorched my throat and my stomach flipped as I clasped my hands together to consolidate the dark power within me. When I drew them apart, black flames danced in my palms. I rubbed them together, coaxing them to burn brighter.
“More!” I demanded. The swirling flames flickered, twisted and rose, forming orbs of black fire. I hurled one at the door as it flew open. It smashed into the emerging mhudambe, consuming the creature in an instant. It roared and its body turned to smoke. With a wave of my hand the door slammed shut and violent flames leaped across the oak trapping the creatures inside.
I conjured another burning black sphere and a savage thrill filled me as I cast it through the broken window. Within moments an inferno raged and the mhudambe screamed as it disintegrated
“You want more?” Another fireball leaped up from my palm and my ire shifted to the mhudambe’s young. A slow, cruel smile tugged my lips as I hurled the orb through their nursery window, and pictured their foul cocoons blazing.
I stood back and watched as the tower was engulfed by a raging black inferno.
Mhudambe leapt from windows, and I relished the crack of their limbs as they hit the ground and twitched in crumpled heaps. I strode toward them, my own pain vanquished by the dark magic, and grabbed one. It glanced up at me and its eyes narrowed in agony as I pried open its mandibles, stuffed black fire into its mouth and clamped its jaw shut.
The creature convulsed as it writhed in…
What the hell am I doing? It was the first true thought, of my own, that I’d had since Gin’s magic had tainted my mind. I looked down as the mhudambe vanished to smoke, and the others tried to crawl away.
I pulled my sword and put an end to their suffering. Then, thrusting the blade into the tangled grass, I staggered to the marsh and plunged my palms into the murky water, dowsing the flames. I doubled over and puked again as my system tried to purge itself of the dark fae’s tainted magic.
30
I made my way back through the marsh hoping I was going in the right direction. Everything seemed turned around, backward, out of order. Even the moon. I was dogged by a dark, foreboding mood as I passed the bent little trees and leaped across the boggy trails. It was the same darkness that had plagued me after the slaughter in Galloway Asylum and in Copperwood Falls after I’d used the black crystals to follow that lowlife dealer into the underworld to save his sorry soul.
I’d been warned about using other people’s magic and the consequences were becoming clear as the last vestiges of Talamos Gin’s malign energy crawled through my blood. I was certain it was his essence that had inspired the sickening pleasure I’d felt slaughtering the mhudambe. Gin’s magic, like most, left its own imprint.
I pulled his dagger from its sheath and held it in the moonlight. It glistened with an iridescent sheen. I turned to sever a branch from a tree and there was almost no friction, the blade just slipped through the heavy limb and it fell away, splashing into the water.
But would it work on Stroud? I was itching to be the one to cut his wretched throat a second time and send him to whatever special hell awaited men like him. I’d never fought a shade before, my dealings with spirits and ghosts had been limited, but if Erland was right about this blade, it would destroy Stroud. If he was wrong, the world as I knew it was about to end. No more blinkereds. No more Mrs. Fitz. No more drunken antics with my friends in the Rocket Bar. Just restless devastation. And watching over it all, Stroud. The ender of worlds…
Splosh.
“Great!” I’d taken a bad step and was up to my knees in icy water.
“Oh dear,” said a low, sullen voice. It was the toad. He sat on a log watching me closely with his twinkling golden eyes.
“Oh dear what?”
“You smell awful. Just… horrible.”
“Thanks” I called as I slogged away through the marsh. The last thing I needed was insults from a maudlin amphibian.
“Are you sure you don’t want that wish?” he called. “You really look like you could use it.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
“Don’t worry, things can get better, you know!” the toad cried. “It happens. Sometimes.”
I bit my tongue and waved over my shoulder as I walked.
Dawn tinged the sky with a deep marmalade hue and eventually I found the path leading back to the village. My journey to the temple was pretty quiet save for a singing caravan full of strange, hairy folk I had no name for, and a group of fae that shot a few insults my way as they trotted by. Perhaps, once word spread of the fall of Talamos Gin, my name might garner some respect from the fae. But I wasn’t banking on it.
I stood outside the temple and waited as the glyphs morphed into fearsome beasts. Then the door opened, Aberfellow Hax appeared and with a courteous nod he ushered me inside. “Is the deed done?” he asked.
“Yes. There won't be any more trouble”
“Good man.” He smiled briefly. “Please accept my apologies for my initial curtness. In this realm our memories are long. But you're not responsible for that…sordid history, and neither am I. So please know you’re welcome in my house, Mr. Rook, whenever you have need of it.”
“Thank you.”
“Now,” Aberfellow said, “I’ll leave you to your business with Erland.” He gave me a slight bow and vanished into a side room as the short, agonized moan of his patient rang
out.
I made my way downstairs and found Erland asleep in his chair by the fire. I stood for a moment watching. He looked different asleep, almost childlike. It was a strange, unsettling sight that was compounded as his eyes opened and found me with laser-like precision. “How did it go?”
“Gin’s dead.” I replied as I handed him the dagger. He slid the blade from its sheath and gazed at it, he expression both fascinated and repulsed.
“Be very careful with this weapon, Morgan. It’s sharper than any sword but it’s fragile.” His eyes flitted over mine. “I suggest you keep it well hidden until it’s time to confront Stroud.”
“I will.”
“Now, I expect you must be ready to venture back to reality?” Erland said, with a rare smile. “Or what passes for reality in the blinkered world.”
“Yeah, I’m especially anxious to pay Grandfather Lampton a visit. And Endersley too, hopefully. Before he manages to unleash his pestilence.”
“I can’t think of a better man for the job, Morgan.” He fell to silence for a moment, before adding, “I wish I’d trusted you more than I did. And that I’d taught you how to wield your own magic. But I will one day, once things have settled.”
“I’m not sure there’ll be an Organization left by the end of all this. After my run-ins with Osbert and Ebomee, and the way Rhymes was on my tail when I went after Wyght, it seems the Organization aren't the good guys anymore.”
“It's complicated. Avoid them for now. But if you come up against those agents again, and they mean to harm you, execute them. I’ll deal with the partners myself. At least one of them’s working with Lampton, and the Council appears to be against our interests. As soon as I’m healed I’ll be back, and when I am there will be a day of reckoning. I swear it. But in the meantime you must find Endersley and Stroud. Definitely start with Franklin Lampton. He could very well be the weak link that brings them all down.”