Casket of Souls

by Lynn Flewelling

  “Run!” said Micum.

  Alec ran, dodging down the nearest side street, keenly aware of the mounted bluecoats close behind. Knowing he couldn’t outrun them, he dashed into a tavern that was just opening for the day and on out the back door into a small courtyard. A milk cart was there, the milk seller talking with the lady of the house and several servants. The woman screamed as Alec dodged around them, ran out the open side gate and on into a succession of narrow side lanes and over walls as he made his way toward the theater.

  It had been Brader’s idea to send out Teibo, just in case Lord Seregil and whatever companions he might have brought were lying in wait outside. When he was proven right, Brader set off to shadow them, while Atre ducked through a series of backstreets to Basket Street, dressed as a laborer in a coarse tunic, leggings, and a head rag.

  Arriving safely, Atre went in through the alley door in back and hurried down to his workroom in the cellar.

  Once he was inside, he struck a light and began pulling phials from the rack and placing them in his pack. Some would probably break, but there was no help for that. When he had as many as he could carry, he opened the casket under the table and threw handfuls of jewels in with the phials. Well provisioned now, he pulled the loose stone from the wall and took out the iron box containing his mother’s precious bone necklace and the phial containing the Cavish brat’s ring. The box was too heavy to risk with the bottles, so he tossed it aside and hung the necklace around his neck. As he did so, his fingers brushed the silver chain there, the one on which he’d strung Elani’s brooch and ring. That, and the cool caress of the old bones against his neck, stirred the ever-present hunger from a spark to a flame in an instant. Taking one of the newly completed noble potions from the rack without pausing to check the label—what did it matter now?—he spoke the words over it, and inscribed the final symbol with the copper stylus from the tool box. Hands trembling, he opened and downed it, groaning as the golden euphoria hit. This was a strong elixir, and he felt instantly restored and invigorated.

  Invincible.

  He pocketed the stylus and was reaching for another completed phial, or thought he was. Instead he found himself holding Elani’s jewels in his hand. Hunger flared to compulsion.

  It would only take a moment. It would be his parting shot at Lord Seregil, or at least one, he thought, running a finger over the phial containing the small silver ring.

  He pulled an empty phial from the rack, then opened the box of jeweler’s tools and pried one of the emeralds from the brooch. His mouth was already watering as he dropped the stone into the phial and reached for the waterskin hanging from the corner of the table. As he was about to open it, however, he heard the creak of a floorboard upstairs, then another, slow and stealthy and too light to be Brader. He listened for a moment, senses attenuated by the elixir; there was only one person moving around up there, but they were heading for the hidden door.

  Cursing under his breath, he pocketed the loose emerald and Illia’s phial, hung the chain around his neck again under his tunic, and picked up his pack. Where was Brader when he needed him?

  He left the workroom and hurried across the cellar to the wide staircase leading up to the prop hatch, hoping to outflank his adversary. With the front doors chained shut, there was only one way out.

  By the time Seregil reached the theater, there was light enough to see that the front doors were still chained shut. Dashing around the back, he went down the alley to the back door. It was unlocked.

  Inside, he drew his sword and paused a moment to let his eyes adjust to the deeper dimness. His heart was hammering in his chest, making it hard to breathe as he crept forward toward the corridor leading to the cellar door.

  Before he could reach it, however, he heard what sounded like the creak of hinges from the stage area. He raced back in time to see the scrim ripple, and then the muslin curtains leading into the left wing.

  “You’re not getting out, Atre!”

  There was no answer, and no sound of movement. He stood still, listening, and began to wonder if the noise had just been the old building settling, and the movement of the cloth nothing more than a breeze from the open doorway.

  There was no way to lock the door from the inside; if Atre was in here, Seregil would have to stay between him and the door. Unless there was another way out he didn’t know about. If there was, Atre certainly would.

  “Damnation!” he muttered, quietly advancing down the left wing. Alert for any sound or movement, he looked into each cubicle, using the point of his sword to move the fabric back. Some had an old trunk or abandoned bit of furniture, but most of them were empty. And there wasn’t just a single row of them down each side of the narrow corridor; there were some behind others, making for a labyrinth that was as easily passed through as it was to hide in.

  Suddenly he heard the creak of a floorboard at the far end of the corridor and looked up just in time to see a fabric wall settle back into place where someone had passed. Whoever it was, they were trying to flank him. Seregil quietly ducked into a small cubicle on that side only to find that there were two more behind him. While he was searching those, he heard a sudden burst of footsteps from the corridor. Fighting his way through layers of muslin, he dashed back to the door in time to cut off a dark, running figure who disappeared back into the maze once more.

  They played at this game for some time, Seregil wondering all the time where the others had gotten to.

  He was guarding the door and about ready to set fire to the place when he heard the clink of glass from beyond the scrim. If Atre was making a break for the front of the theater, then he’d be trapped in the open. Seregil pushed past the scrim and stepped out onto the stage.

  Enough light came in through the partially open skylight and between the cracks in the shuttered windows for him to see Atre standing at the front of the stage, facing him. He was dressed like a peasant and had a pack at his feet. A crude necklace of long pale beads hung around his neck, unlike anything Seregil had ever seen him wear. As Seregil slowly approached, the actor smiled and held up something that caught the light.

  A glass phial.

  “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you, Lord Seregil,” he said, giving it a slight shake that made whatever was inside tinkle against the glass. “I’m tired of our game. I think you know what’s in this one.”

  “Yes. And you’re not leaving with it.”

  “Tut, dear Lord Seregil. You’d better mind your manners. This bottle is rather fragile and it’s very risky, freeing an unfixed soul. You never know where it will end up. Some get home to their bodies. Others?” He made a graceful fluttering gesture. “They just float away.”

  Seregil swallowed hard. Thero had warned of this. Perhaps they had just been lucky with Mika.

  “Put down your sword, Lord Seregil.”

  Seregil laid it on the stage beside him and raised his hands to show the other man they were empty. He was less than twenty feet away from Atre, but he doubted he could close that distance in time if Atre let the bottle fall. Or threw it.

  And he noticed something else. Atre was not wearing Elani’s ring.

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Atre with mock-deference. “Well, here we are, onstage together at last. No masks or costumes for you this time, though. I knew there was more to you than you let on.”

  “I could say the same of you. You know why I’m here.”

  Atre smiled and gave the bottle another little shake and Seregil caught a glint of silver in the morning light. “I enjoyed dancing with little Illia at your party that night. Delightful child. Such a shame you and your friends got in my way. I might have left her alone if you hadn’t. Will you tell Micum Cavish that it’s his fault, as much as yours, that his daughter died?”

  Seregil took a deep breath and said as calmly as he could, “If you break that bottle, I’ll have no reason not to kill you.”

  “But she’ll still be dead. Now surely we can strike a bargain.”


  “You give me the bottle, and Elani’s jewels, and I let you walk out of here. Their lives for yours.” Where in Bilairy’s name are Micum and Alec?

  “I have your word on that, do I?” Atre asked, and tossed Illia’s bottle from his right hand to his left with a juggler’s flourish.

  “Yes!” It was all Seregil could do not to jump Atre then, but he had to learn if Elani’s soul had been taken, too.

  Atre chuckled as he tossed the bottle up in the air and caught it again. “I give you the ring and the bottle, and you let me go?”

  “And the brooch.”

  Atre laughed. “You are a stubborn one. But I think you are honorable, as well. All right, it’s a bargain. I’d shake on it, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get within arm’s reach of you.”

  “I thought you said I was honorable?”

  “Honor has its limits for any man. I’m going to set the items down here.”

  Seregil heaved an inward sigh of relief as Atre stood the bottle on the stage in front of him, then pulled a silver chain from his neck; on it were the ring and the emerald brooch.

  “You probably want to make certain they’re the right ones.” Atre tossed the chain to him, but as Seregil reached to catch it, a board creaked behind him and he had the sudden crawling conviction that there was someone behind him. Once again, sharp ears and good instincts saved his life; he ducked and rolled away from Brader’s flashing sword, grabbing the poniard from his boot as he did so. Springing to his feet, he faced down the swordsman. In defending himself, he’d left the path to the back door open. He feinted toward the phial but Brader blocked him and took another swing, staying between him and Atre. The man was dangerously good, and Seregil’s sword was out of reach.

  Atre gave Seregil a sly smile as he walked back toward the bottle.

  “No!” Seregil growled.

  The distraction nearly cost him his life; Brader thrust at him. Seregil tried to dodge but the blade pierced his right shoulder under his collarbone and he dropped the poniard. Pressing his advantage, Brader wrenched the blade free and caught Seregil around the neck in a chokehold, then brought his blade up to cut Seregil’s throat.

  “Wait! Let him see,” Atre ordered.

  Dragging Seregil nearly off his feet, Brader turned him so he was facing Atre. Grinning, the actor started to raise his foot to crush the fragile phial, then screamed in pain as a red-fletched arrow pierced his boot, pinning it to the boards scant inches from the bottle. Another struck Atre in the side, knocking him off balance. The man went down awkwardly, one foot still held to the floor, clutching the arrow shaft protruding from between his ribs.

  “Atre!” Surprised, Brader loosened his hold on Seregil just enough for him to elbow the man in the ribs and slip free.

  As Atre thrashed in pain, his free foot hit the bottle, sending it spinning toward the edge of the stage between two footlights.

  Seregil lunged after it and caught it one-handed just as it tipped over the edge. At the same instant two large hands clapped around his and Seregil found himself fetched up painfully against one of the footlights, looking down at Micum Cavish’s pale face.

  “You take her,” Seregil gasped, releasing the bottle very carefully into his friend’s hands. Micum pressed it to his lips with a gasp of relief. It held Illia’s ring.

  Seregil got to his feet clutching his wounded shoulder and looked back at Brader, expecting an attack. But the man was on his back in a pool of blood, one of Alec’s arrows protruding from his heaving chest. Seregil scanned the theater and Alec waved to him from one of the boxes—the one they’d been sitting in with Kylith a few short months ago—and started down for the front of the theater. The front doors stood open now, explaining how Alec and Micum had gotten in while he and the others had been distracted.

  Grimacing in pain and feeling a little dizzy from blood loss, Seregil picked up his poniard with his left hand and stood over Atre. The man coughed out a spray of bloody spittle; it reminded Seregil of the black poisoned blood running down Thero’s cheek, and he resisted the urge to kick the remaining life out of Atre.

  Instead he knelt beside the dying actor, placing the needle-sharp point of the poniard to his throat. “How do we restore Illia’s soul? Tell me!”

  Atre let out a wheezing laugh. “Or what? You’ll kill me?”

  “Slowly.”

  “Too late for that, I’m afraid. Unless you let me drink.”

  “Those are swallowtail arrowheads,” Alec informed him as he climbed onto the stage to join them. “They have to be cut out, and even then you probably won’t live.”

  “Let me drink,” Atre rasped again. “If you do, then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “I’ll get it,” Micum said.

  “You’re not serious!” Alec gasped.

  Micum regarded him stonily. “It’s my girl’s life. And you know the ones in the bottles with the completed seals are already dead.” With that, he climbed onto the stage and disappeared behind the scrim.

  “He’s right,” said Seregil.

  Alec picked up the fallen chain and examined Elani’s jewels. “Seregil, there’s a stone missing from the brooch.”

  “My pocket,” Atre gasped. “Take it. I haven’t hurt her.”

  Seregil searched him none too gently and found the loose stone. It fit the mounting on the brooch. “All right. Is Brader still alive, Alec?”

  Alec bent over the other man. “Yes.”

  Brader raised a bloody hand, motioning him closer. Alec went to one knee and bent over him. “What is it?”

  “The company—” The way Brader’s voice gurgled in his throat spoke of a punctured lung, or worse. “Merina and the others. They know nothing about any of this. They had no part. I’ve no right to ask, I know, but please, I beg you, spare them! I swear to you, they had no part—”

  “Do you know how to restore Illia’s soul?”

  “The necklace.” Brader waved weakly in Atre’s direction. “Use it! Use—necklace. He always did. Will you swear? Please! My children—”

  “Unlike you, we don’t kill the innocent,” Seregil growled. “And if they are innocent, we’ll see that no harm comes to them.”

  Brader looked up at Alec, eyes growing dim. “I’m so sorry—for all of them.”

  As they watched, Brader let out a racking, bloody cough, shuddered, and went still.

  “Saved us the trouble,” Seregil sneered, then broke off as Brader began to change before his eyes. The long, bloodless face crumpled in on itself as the skin went brown and leathery. In moments the corpse was wizened to the bone, shrunken limbs like old sticks wrapped in rags, fingers curled like leathery claws, the skin brown and dull as an old boot. Only his hair remained as it has been, coppery red against the crimson blood pooling under his head.

  “Looks like you and Thero were right about what they were doing with those souls,” said Alec. “How old do you think they really were?”

  Seregil looked down at Atre and snorted. “Far too old.”

  Micum returned with a sealed bottle.

  “Quickly!” gasped Atre.

  Seregil took the phial, broke the seal, and held it tantalizingly close to Atre’s lips without actually giving it to him.

  “Tell me.”

  “Drink—first. Or I take it to the grave.”

  Micum looked ready to do murder. But instead he softly implored, “Seregil, please.”

  Gritting his teeth, Seregil tipped the contents of the phial into Atre’s mouth. The actor swallowed convulsively, half choking, then shuddered violently. Seregil was afraid it had killed him, but instead color flooded into Atre’s cheeks and his eyes went vague and glassy. In spite of the arrows embedded in his body, he looked as strikingly handsome as he ever had onstage.

  “Ah, that’s better!” he sighed.

  “Now tell me how to save my daughter, damn you!” Micum demanded.

  Atre laughed. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I only take the essences. I don’t put
them back.”

  Micum grabbed him by the throat, his face a mask of rage. “Liar! Tell me!”

  But Atre let out a strangled laugh and rasped, “Can’t.”

  “Then you’re of no further use to anyone.”

  Seregil handed Micum his poniard. The big man gazed down at Atre for a moment, then stabbed him through the heart again and again, until his own face and tunic were covered in blood.

  At last Alec grabbed his arm. “Enough, Micum. He’s dead. Look.”

  Atre’s body was shriveling and going leathery and brown, as Brader’s had, but more slowly. That handsome face gradually transformed to a horrid mask as the flesh darkened and shrank on the bones, eyes wizening like raisins. When it was over, his exposed white teeth and auburn hair were the only recognizable remnants of the man who’d been the toast of Rhíminee.

  Seregil handed Micum his handkerchief. “You’re covered in blood.”

  “So are you. How’s the shoulder?”

  “It hurts,” Seregil admitted. And it was worse now that the excitement was over.

  Micum helped Seregil out of his bloodstained tunic while Alec tore strips from his own shirt for bandages. When they had made the best job they could of binding the wound, Alec looked back at the corpses. “What do we do with them?”

  “Leave them,” said Seregil. “We’ll lock the place up again, until Thero can figure out what to do with all those bottles downstairs.”

  Alec gave him a worried look. “If he’s still alive.”

  “If he’s not, what do we do?” asked Micum. “Atre was no use, but Thero did get Mika’s soul restored, even if it was only by chance.”

  Neither Seregil nor Alec had an answer for that.

  After taking the bone necklace, several phials, and labeled bits of jewelry to show as proof to Korathan, they hid the door to Atre’s workroom behind piled crates again, to keep the rest of Atre’s cache safe until Thero—or some other wizard—could decide what to do with it. The bodies they left for Korathan to deal with. Locking the theater securely behind them, they began the long walk back for their horses.