by M. C. Elam
“Devon, Billy, Clay, even Chandler, their part of us, Christopher.”
“Part of us, I don’t understand.” A bewildered expression etched his handsome features.
“No time now. I’ll explain later.” She nodded toward Maudie. “Fetch Billy.”
“Might be hard to get him into the barracks. I heard Sergeant Clay tell him not come past the gate, but I can get him in.”
“That’s my fine girl. Mister Tyndall and I will see to the gent.”
“What about Bianca?” Christopher asked.
Millicent looked up at him. “She’ll have to sit tight for now.”
“I can see to her once I get Billy,” said Maudie.
“Just get Billy for now and bring him to the room yourself.” She held out her hand. “I need your pass keys.”
***
Christopher followed Millicent down the empty hallway toward Bianca’s room. The lantern she carried cast their shadows against the walls like giant phantoms moving in the night. Finding Bianca’s room would have created no problem for him, even without Millicent. Smudges of blood on the whitewashed walls marked a savage path. They passed the arena room. The closed doors and crossbar denied exit to the women inside. More blood covered the crossbar. Maudie, he thought. She had secured the room before she came to get them. The bloody trail ended and Millicent stopped. She handed Christopher the lantern, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. Christopher stood close behind her. His eyes scanned the empty hallway. When she stepped into the darkened room, he followed.
“Stand still,” she whispered.
He heard the rustle of her skirts as she moved across the room and lifted the lantern higher to help her see. When she knelt down, the intake of her breath told him she had found the man.
“Is he dead?”
“Hush a moment.”
Such presence, even here, he thought.
“He is alive, Christopher, but just barely. I will have to work quickly, and I need more light. Bring the lantern.”
The man lay on his back, the points of the shears Bianca had used to stab him, embedded in the left side of his chest. His face, parchment white in the lantern light, already bore the look of death. Blood gurgled in his throat and oozed from the hole in his chest. A gory stream encircled his neck pooling beneath his bald head. What little Christopher knew of such wounds told him the man would not survive.
“Hold the lamp higher, Christopher. I need to remove his shirt.”
She began at the spot where the shears protruded from the man’s body, ripped the shirt straight down the front, and lifted it clear of the wound. Examination of his exposed chest assured her no other injury existed. She closed her hands around the shears. Blood from the wound made them slippery. She sought a firm grip and, with a clean, steady motion, pulled the makeshift weapon from his chest. Blood spurted from the wound and covered the front of her chemise. Christopher felt his stomach roll. Not one hole but two continued to squirt dark purplish blood. He watched Millicent cover the wounds with her hands.
“Milady?”
She shot a fierce look toward him. “Quiet! Look away if you must but speak not. I need all of my concentration.”
Millicent turned back to the man on the floor. She sensed he held rank in Lawrenzia. His death would jeopardize all of them, and his heartbeat grew weaker with each bloody spurt. She could not allow death a victory tonight. No matter his rank or office, no matter the path he traveled, his blood, his life now belonged to her. Her small hands rested lightly on the wounds, and she closed her eyes. Soft and musical, the prayer song of her people filled the room, and Christopher, watched her body begin to sway in rhythm. The palms of her hands seemed lit from within, like holding a hand high against the sun’s rays on a clear day, but the room was empty of sunlight, and the source that made the flesh between Millicent’s fingers glow red remained a mystery.
“Leahnostra esplea, Anutaya.”
The song stopped on the whispered phrase and Millicent chanted the last words over and over.
“Leahnostra esplea, Anutaya.”
The red glow turned brighter and seemed to push her fingers apart. The light turned white like the color of a blacksmith’s hottest metal. White hot, until Christopher could see the delicate bone structure of her hands set afire in the searing heat. Why didn’t she cry out? Yet her face remained serene. Only the chanted words came from her lips.
“Leahnostra esplea, Anutaya.”
The white light wavered, flickered, melted to gold, and her hands seemed to melt into each other her fingers clasped and raised above the wounds. The golden light moved up her arms, out across her shoulders, and in seconds, consumed her whole body. She bent low and placed her open palms above the wounds.
“Leahnostra esplea, Anutaya.”
The soft music of her chant continued. The golden light, emanating from her fingers, entered the bloody wounds, swallowed the whole body, filled every pore, and bathed the gent in Millicent’s light. The skin around the wounds puckered, and they disappeared as if they had never existed. No cuts, no wounds no blood, all that remained was a torn shirt. The golden light faded away and Millicent sank back.
“How, how did you do that, milady? He breathes as a man asleep. No sign of a wound.”
“Only these,” said Millicent. She lifted the bloody shears, “and the blood on my clothes. As for him, he will remember none of what happened, just a brief gap in time.”
“But how?”
“The Mother gifted me with a healer's hand.”
“Shadow magic?”
She nodded. “Yes, if you wish to call it magic.”
Maudie opened the door and ushered Billy Runderly into the room.
“He tossed him a fit, but I got him, Miss Millie. Like you told me, I got him.”
She pushed Billy ahead of her.
“He’s still breathing. I don’t believe it. Not dead?” said Maudie.
“He’s just fine, Maudie. A little drunk, I think, and his head will tell him the same thing come morning.”
Millicent stood up and turned to face them.
“But you be all over blood!”
Millicent looked down and brushed at her skirt with her free hand. She held Maudie’s shears in the other.
“I know. I’ve ruined my clothes if it won’t come out, and Sergeant Clay just brought me this new garb a month ago.”
She sighed as though only her bloodied garb concerned her and wiped the shears clean on her skirt before handing them over to Maudie.
“What happened here, Maudie. That gent looks plenty alive to me. Reeks from ale is all.”
Millicent answered before Maudie said anything.
“Maudie called Mr. Tyndall to help when the gent cut Bianca. The blood on my skirt is hers.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Gone to my room to clean her wound. It wasn’t much. Just a lot of blood. She will be fine. I expect Sergeant Willis would want you to help the gent out to the main gate. He’ll probably wake up once he is out in the air.”
Billy looked baffled. He wasn’t sure what to do. If he did the wrong thing, Sergeant Clay would take him to task, and Devon might have a thing or six to say about it. Lady Millicent never told him wrong, though. Good she was helping Maudie. Poor old Maudie, why the way she told it when she come looking for him, he expected the whole place was a blood bath, and on his watch, too. Guess he could get the gent out. Mean bastard, cutting a woman. Billy wondered what Bianca did that got him so riled. He’d talked to Bianca once or twice before she got took to the whores. Pretty and little was what Billy remembered, with a real soft voice. Yeah he’d get the gent out. He walked over, bent over the man. That was when he saw the feathered mantle. Near took the breath out of him, and he slumped low to one knee.
“What you got here be one of King Peter’s Elite Guard. Piss and vinegar, if he talks they’ll burn the lot of us.”
“Do you trust me, Billy?”
“Aye, milady, truly. But this
here’s a high rank Owlman. Yonder be his feathers.”
“Look at me Billy. Look right here and listen to my words.” She waited until he focused his attention. “This man will not remember anything when he awakes except drinking too much.”
He looked perplexed but heaved the Owlman off the floor and across his shoulders. “Sergeant Clay be on me sure for leaving my post.”
“Aw, Billy, he won’t be vexed soon as I be telling him was me needed your help,” said Maudie. “Follow me on out. We can wake the gent once you get him outside. Act like we come on him there.”
“Good, Maudie,” said Christopher. “Lady Millicent can check on Bianca while you are gone, and I’ll go to work on the blood.”
Christopher tried to sound confident though his insides shook like an undercooked flan. Healing, she said, but from what he saw, how could it be anything less than magic? A man dying and a man healed with nothing but a chanted prayer in a language he did not understand. And the light, that all encompassing golden light grew from her hands and poured into his body. What she claimed was no tale whispered in the shadows of a dark night. Could people do such things? What other answer could he find? Through her hands came healing light, light created in her mind, or sent to her through a prayerful chant.
As soon as they were gone, Millicent hurried down the corridor to the storage closet. She lifted the crossbar and pulled Bianca into the light. More blood, and another gaping wound. This one began at the corner of the girl’s mouth and slit it wide on either side creating a kind of clownish grin. Christopher had seen wounds like Bianca’s before. Inflicted out of cruelty, they left hideous scarring.
“Get her into my room, Christopher, please,” said Millicent.
He lifted the girl and followed Millicent back to number sixteen. Bianca whimpered but did not cry out when he put her down on the bed. She gestured and pushed at him to let her go and he stepped away.
“I can see to her if you would check the hallway and be sure no blood remains.”
He nodded and left Millicent to care for the girl. He knew what would happen inside the room once the door closed. Hadn’t he witnessed it once already this evening? He was far better off with a scrub bucket.
When Maudie found him a few minutes later, he was working on the hallway outside the storage room.
“Gent woke up with a head on him. He don’t remember none of what happened, except he cursed me for putting him with a girl the likes of Bianca. He don’t even remember cutting her.”
“And Billy?”
“He be mad the gent hurt Bianca. Billy’s a good boy.”
“Better than I thought about him at first,” said Christopher.
“Aye and he be thinking more of you than at first.”
Christopher eyed her, surprised.
“Well, no sense lying.”
“No, I suppose not.” Maudie, and her blunt way of getting right to the point, grew on him by the minute.
She fetched another bucket of soapy water and went to work beside him. She didn’t suggest that he stop or apologize for tonight’s events.
“How’d Miss Millie get that gent back from the grave? I saw the shears, Mr. Tyndall, saw them plain.”
“I thought I did, too.”
They cleaned up the rest of the blood, and Maudie emptied the buckets. By the time they finished, Millicent appeared at the door with Bianca. The girl seemed shaken but, like the gent, did not remember exactly what had happened.
“I fear our time to talk grows short tonight, Christopher,” said Millicent.
“Aye, true milady. Never have I stayed away so long, but questions burn for answers. A few more minutes can make little difference.”
She nodded and stepped back into the room. The forgotten decanter of wine rested on the round table. The fresh candle she lit upon his arrival, sputtered and hissed in a puddle of tallow that threatened to swallow the last of the brave little flame. She wished for sleep, constant dreamless sleep. Most of all she wished she could take the memories of tonight, from her own soul as she had from Bianca and the monster who savaged her. She bent across the table, and pinched the wick of the candle stub between her thumb and finger. No more struggle against the dark, only oblivion, she sighed.
“Do you think death takes us as easily as I take the light from the candle? Here one moment and gone the next, in an instant and without a struggle.” She turned to face him. “Do you think death comes like ending a light, or does our light pass to another place? Tonight I find no peace. I healed a man intent on malevolence, a vile coward who maimed an innocent girl.”
“Millicent, dear lady, you healed Bianca as well. If that pig had died tonight, what fate would she face? Don’t regret your action. All that you revealed tonight, I believe. A great power lives in you, milady, and in your soul only goodness abides.”
A melancholy smile played across her lips. “I read questions in your eyes,” she said.
“Why, milady, with such wondrous gifts inside you, why didn’t you rescue Ellyanna?”
“Don’t you think I would if I had such power? My ability is weak, Christopher. I am only a healer and a telepath. I can walk in your mind and know what you think. I can cast a vision into your memory and you will see events as reality,” she said.
“The bird woman?”
“Yes, the bird woman. But I cannot free Ellyanna. I cannot even free myself.
“Milady?”
“Miles from here, across the mountains there is a girl capable of powers far greater than any before her. Already her ability dwarfs mine by comparison. Like me she is from a race of shadow people. Christopher, do you understand? She learns from a great and powerful teacher. But turn your thoughts to Ellyanna. She must carry the child to term. See that she rests well. Bid her take the greatest care. I have prepared medicine for her.” She walked to a small cabinet, opened the door, and removed a wooden box. “You must see that Ellyanna mixes a single dram in water each morning and drinks it down, all of it. The medicine will keep her from losing the child.”
“Then her baby will live?”
Millicent shook her head.
“No, Christopher. The baby will survive for only a few days. Brenan's disease eats it's tiny brain. You must not repeat this to Ellyanna. Swear what I tell you shall remain a secret.”
“I do so swear, milady.”
“Ellyanna’s child shall perish.”
“Then why?”
“Why must she carry the child only to lose it, milady. Despite her hatred for Peter, she would love a babe.”
“I know. Still the child can’t live with such deformity.”
“Then why? Her heart will break.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Christopher slammed the box down on the table and moved toward the door.
“Stop this instant. You must see that she takes the potion. Don’t you think it pains me to know the anguish I force on my only child? She must give birth.”
“You ask that I trust you, believe in you, but you do not trust me enough to tell me why Ellyanna must suffer.”
Through her silence, Millicent considered the young man across from her. Not knowing protected him and Ellyanna, but didn’t he have a right? Their survival depended on Christopher’s trust and devotion. How could she offer him less?
“The girl I told you about is with child. She carries our salvation in her belly. I know not the path, only that the she is coming, and Ellyanna must bear this child.”
“Milady, you ask me to believe, and so I do, but…” He searched her expression for anything that might make her story seem more than a wild rambling.
“But it sounds false.” Lady Millicent finished for him.
“Aye, false.”
“Then you must believe with the same faith I do.”
Christopher took the potion from her and tucked it inside his tunic. Everything Millicent revealed stirred his doubt and disbelief. Yet, he had seen the way she healed the Owlman and mended Bianca’s torn face. The v
ision of the two travelers on the trail across the mountains, the feather that came into his pocket and disappeared by her will, gave him the faith to know she spoke truth.
“I must go before they miss me.” He stood and moved toward the door.
“One other thing, Christopher, Brenan believes his control of Lawrenzia is impenetrable. We−Clay Willis, Billy and Devon Runderly, Chandler and hundreds more, keep watch. We know his movements. Those who spy for our good, move within his very household. Think of those who show you kindness, and the breadth of our movement grows. None will claim identity. Safety prohibits them from speaking. Still they are present.”
“An underground?”
“A loyal underground, Christopher, they will rise when the time is right. You must have faith in my words but repeat them to no one.” She took his hands into her own. “Swear upon your love for Ellyanna that you will not speak a word, even to her. The less she knows, the safer her position.”
“I swear, milady.”
She smiled and released him. “One more thing before you go. Rumor tells of a passage inside the palace. Brenan had it constructed as an escape route. They say that once completed, he had anyone who knew its location killed to keep it a secret. They say it comes out below the palace, somewhere along the Osway River.”
“You want me to find the passage.”
She nodded. “Yes, and keep watch for the girl from Ascalla.”
18 - Hawk’s Quest
Hawk scaled the narrow path to Dragon’s Point. He had climbed it once before. That day the chasm below revealed nothing but an angry sea that pounded the rock-face with such force he felt the vibration pulse through his bones. Today the song was different, just as harsh but with an enigmatic voice that promised adventure.
“Come, Hawk. Shadall opens the caves,” Griffin called. He and Terill stood at the edge of the cliff.
The seawater receded enough to reveal the passage only twice a year. When Griffin had talked about the moon and the sun, how they teased Shadall until, in a fierce rush, she pulled away from the land farther than at any other time, Hawk thought him daft, but now, standing on the point, he looked over the edge and knew Griffin spoke true. He had not expected such a gaping hole. The shape, like a giant, hellish maw filled with serrated fangs, dripped sea foam.