by D. P. Prior
“Shader?” She was about to ask how the shog he knew about Shader, when it hit her with a jolt. “Ludo! He mentioned a Ludo who helped him get away—”
“I used to teach him,” Ludo said. “First during his Elect formation; later at the seminary. One of my best pupils. Sharp mind. Keen as a blade.” He peered over the top of his glasses to highlight his little joke.
Rhiannon clenched her jaw and willed him to go on.
“Got himself into a terrible twist over Bernini’s paradox, I can tell you,” Ludo said. His face glowed as he remembered, but it was quickly plunged back into shadow. “I’m sorry. I’m probably confusing you.”
“I know about Bernini,” Rhiannon said.
“You do?”
“I was a postulant, in Sarum.”
“Ah,” Ludo said. “I see. And then the child.”
Rhiannon looked away and muttered, “I left long before that.” Long before the flight from Sahul and the fall of Aeterna. Even before that first fateful sip of champagne in Aristodeus’s ivory tower.
Ludo respected her need for silence. After an age, he said, “So, he told you about the Judiciary. Told you what they did to him.”
“He told me,” Rhiannon said. On that fateful reunion at Hallow. If nothing else, it had confirmed her in the choices she’d made. Turned her back even more fully on the Templum.
“I probably shouldn’t have gotten involved,” Ludo said.
“You regret it?”
He dipped his head in thought for a moment, and then said, “No. But the right road is seldom traveled without a toll.”
“You’re not wrong there.”
“This,” Ludo said with an expansive gesture, “is my penance. Well, more accurately, Aethir was to be my punishment, a kind of exile. Oh, they dressed it up as more than that. Said it was an opportunity to evangelize, but the Ipsissimus and I know each other well. I’m under no illusions as to what brought me into this. The only wonder is the magnitude of what I’ve gotten into. This business with Nameless: I’ve picked up a little, but I don’t even know the half of it. And coming here, to Verusia. To Blightey. It’s like entering the world of a fairy story. Only…” A haunted look came into his eyes. “Only, there are no fairies. Just a dwarf, Shadrak and Bird, and…” He shut his eyes and took a few short breaths. “Bodies on spikes.”
Rhiannon leaned in, touched the back of his hand; withdrew when he flinched.
He turned his head to look at her. “And the Archon is real. At least, that’s how it seems. Is this part of Shader’s thing? Is he caught up in this?”
Rhiannon did her best not to sneer. The only thing Shader was caught up in these days was a bottle. If he’d been more than a drunkard, more than a useless scutting priest, he might have done something; might have prevented Aristodeus from snatching her and her daughter.
“No. No, Shader’s nothing to do with this. He gave up on Aristodeus and his scheming a while back. Now the bald bastard’s just screwing with the rest of us.” Not strictly true. He was still trying with Shader. The wolf-men were testament to that.
“I see,” Ludo said. “But what I don’t see, is what interest the Archon has in me. I mean, I’m nobody, so to speak. Why should he care what happens to me? And more to the point, why send you when I’ve got Galen? How many guardians does one old man need?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Rhiannon said. “I’m here for one reason, and one reason alone.”
“Your daughter. Yes, I caught that part.”
“That’s the deal,” Rhiannon said. “Keep you safe, and the Archon will get Saphra back for me.” Though shog only knew how. “Thing is,” she said, suddenly feeling like she was in a confessional and needing to bare her soul, “I’m not sure I even cared… about my daughter, until that scut took her from me.”
“Ah,” Ludo said. This time, he was the one to touch the back of her hand. “Because of the father?”
To her ears, it was a word of power: Father. A word of force that punched a hole in her defenses. A sob burst through. Then another. And then she was racked with sobbing.
She expected Ludo to pull her to him, let her cry into his cassock, but he did not move. Her just sat there, studying her calmly, hand still touching hers, as if to say he was with her. But just that: sitting there, waiting for her to bleed out in front of him, and then what? Put her the shog back together again, like a Nousian resurrection?
She shoved his hand aside, drew back, wiped away her tears.
Ludo cocked his head, and this time, when she found his eyes, they were not as cold and clinical as she’d first thought: they glistened with moisture, and he was watching her not with detachment, not with judgment, but with empathy, as if he felt what she felt. Felt, and suffered with her.
But of course he couldn’t. Couldn’t have known what she knew. Couldn’t have known what the Archon had told her.
“Shader,” she managed, dipping her eyes before he saw too much.
“I don’t understand,” Ludo said. “I thought Aristodeus was—”
“He is,” Rhiannon hissed. “But he’s… he’s…”
“He’s what?” Ludo said. “He is the father, isn’t he? That’s what I thought he—”
“He is Shader.” Rhiannon stared at him now. Dared him to laugh at her.
Ludo’s face was a study in plaster. It didn’t move. Even his eyes showed no reaction. He was struck dumb by what she’d said. She may as well have spoken in a foreign language.
“He is Shader,” she repeated. “Aristodeus and Shader are—”
Ludo clamped his eyes shut, held up a hand for time to think.
Rhiannon let out a long and ragged breath. Her heartbeat was a succession of muffled plops, like the sound of pebbles being dropped from a bridge into a river.
“One and the same,” Ludo murmured. “Ain and Nous. One nature in two persons.”
“No,” Rhiannon said. “In every way. The same in every way. The same person.” Except memory and experience, the Archon had said. Nous, she didn’t get it, even after the explanation. How could she expect Ludo to?
“Shader is the father of your daughter?” Ludo said.
“Yes… and no. I mean, I don’t know. I think so.”
Ludo opened his eyes and removed his glasses. He looked about to wipe them on his cassock, then seemed to forget he was holding them. “But Aristodeus is? Definitely?”
Rhiannon tucked her chin into her chest and sighed through her teeth. When she was able to look Ludo in the eye again, her remaining defenses melted. She told him everything the Archon had said, all the while watching him for any indication that she was mad, or that he just didn’t believe her. Once or twice, he looked up at the moon, as if he could glean understanding there. She poured out all she knew, and when he kneaded his forehead with a knuckle, she took that as a sign he believed her, even if he shared her own lack of understanding.
When she’d finished, Ludo took her hand in both of his and said, “What else?”
She frowned her incomprehension.
“When day breaks, we may all be in grave peril,” Ludo said. “Nameless, it seems, has no choice but to go on. Galen won’t stand for leaving him, and Shadrak has made it clear he’s staying. And so the rest of us must stay and see this through. If the others are right about Blightey—and I’m not ready to concede that point yet—there may not be another chance.”
“For what?” Rhiannon said.
“For confession.”
She wanted to say she was done with that. Done with Nous and his Templum. She could almost hear the black sword spit and curse, but there was something about the way Ludo held her gaze, the way his eyes reflected hers, filled her with uncertainty.
Soror Agna’s face sprang to mind, and the oily film of shame seeped from every pore of Rhiannon’s skin. She recalled her vows—not the solemn ones the priests took for life, but they were still vows, promises before Nous. She thought of her mom, her dad, and Sammy. She thought of Gaston, felt a spas
m in her stomach, and retched.
Still Ludo watched her, waiting for her to start, like she had no say in the matter. Slowly, falteringly at first, she began to talk, accusing herself of drinking too much, blaming herself for Gaston. Ludo sniffed at that, but let her go on. She told him of the soldiers she’d been with. She tried to count them all, but Ludo said it wasn’t necessary. She told him about her cursing, her fighting, the no-neck at the gym she’d beaten the living daylights out of. She told him about the champagne and Aristodeus. And she told him about the little girl she’d done her best to pretend didn’t exist. She told him about Saphra.
She didn’t cry anymore. This wasn’t about self-pity; it was about exposure, digging away the layers of snow and ice and revealing the dung pile beneath. She sat, scarcely breathing, waiting for the words of absolution. The pause was so long, she thought he’d decided not to absolve her; that her sins were too many. Too great. But then Ludo recited the formula, as if she weren’t the wickedest woman in the world. As if she weren’t a neglecter of children, a whore, and a drunkard. As if she were forgiven.
And then she wept, silent, warm tears that thawed her cheeks more than the dying campfire. She wept and smiled and felt the heat of her gratitude rising from her guts to encompass the whole of her body. She wept, and she saw nothing but Saphra smiling down at her, thankful to have her mommy home.
At her side, the black sword had grown silent, no more now than a sullen presence.
“You see,” Ludo said. “No one is beyond the mercy of Nous. No one at all.” His knees cracked as he climbed to his feet. “Now, I should leave you to pray for a while.”
Rhiannon almost nodded, but then she leapt up and grabbed the sleeve of his cassock. “Not so fast, Eminence.” She bowed her head a little out of rediscovered respect. “From now on, I’m your shadow, remember?”
“Then it’s a good thing your tent is so close to mine,” Ludo said.
They walked together in silence until Ludo reached the opening of his tent. “Let’s just hope Albert isn’t a snorer.”
“I’d be worried about a sight more than snoring, if I were you,” Rhiannon said.
Ludo chuckled, but he made no move to go inside.
“Well, good night, my dear,” he said. “And don’t worry. I’ll be quite safe.”
“If you say so,” Rhiannon said. “Don’t go wandering off. Wake me, if you need anything.”
“I will,” Ludo said. “And Rhiannon, have faith. This business with Shader and Aristodeus: pray on it. Nothing can separate you from the love of Nous.”
“Yeah, well,” she started to say. I don’t know about that. But at least she didn’t feel compelled to think about it at that moment. The absolution was holding, and she felt sleep coming on without the need for a drink, or the compulsion to cut. She’d not felt that way for a very long time. Before she could ruin the moment, she said goodnight and ducked inside her tent.
***
It was the black sword, right enough. Only, Rhiannon wasn’t wielding it. Monstrous talons griped the hilt; all that had yet emerged from the gloom. The stench of sulfur was thick in her nostrils. Throughout the murk, rills of lava weaved a web of flame across a floor of gnarled coal.
The tip of the blade took aim at her heart. She felt its hunger; felt what it wanted from her and recoiled. Dark flames flared like lengthening shadows. A thunderous footfall. Then another. A scaly forearm came into view; then the crags of a biceps, a shoulder. Pectorals like tectonic plates came next, then above them, a death’s head the texture of storm clouds. Ram’s horns curled away from its temples. With a ruffle and snap, bat’s wings unfurled, blotting out what little light remained, until all she could see were eyes like fangs that gleamed with malignancy.
From where Rhiannon should have been, a skull rose into the air. With a jolting disorientation, she now saw from the demon’s vantage; stared with horror at the pooling blood of the skull’s gemstone eyes.
The sword bucked in her taloned grasp. She let it go so she could cover her face, but the skull’s searing glare cut through her defense like a beacon through fog. The sword dropped like a feather, spinning languidly in its interminable descent.
The torrent of her being poured through her eyes, streamed into the eyes of the skull. Every rasp of breath diminished her. Every clack of the skull’s teeth echoed the stuttering beat of her heart. It was drinking her in. Drinking. She gave vent to an endless, silent scream.
The sword’s infinite drift suddenly switched to a plummet. It struck stone with a clang. Stone, not coal: flagstones, edged with furred-up grout.
Sulfur gave way to dank and mold, the cloying taint of blood. Screams assailed her like a gale, echoed along corridors from unfathomable chambers.
Another jolt. This time, her hands were mottled bone. She felt the overwhelming dread, the panic, the need for flight. A carriage at night. An ocean crossing. The further she fled, the more her emaciated frame was wreathed in fat, wrapped up in it like she might once have snuggled into a comfort blanket. She counted for calm. Each time she reached five, the scene reset, and she started again.
A heave of vertigo, and she stood before the obese bulk of Dr. Cadman as he handed her the sword. She had no defense as it leached the last dregs of humanity from her. Could not refuse the corruption of its touch.
“I was denied the grace you have received.” Callixus was before her now, radiant like the luminaries. “Have faith. Avail yourself of your absolution.”
“Your sword,” Rhiannon said. “Take it back. I’m not strong enough.”
“Avail yourself—” he started to say again, but a voice like the shattering of mountains blasted him aside.
“One task, I gave you!” the Archon raged. “And you have failed at the first.”
Hands grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, shook her.
“Wake up!” It was Galen.
—Shog! What was he doing in her tent? She sat bolt upright, blinked her eyes into focus.
“He’s gone,” Galen said.
Outside, she heard Albert say to someone, “If anyone had slept in my tent, I’d have known about it. Always sleep with one eye open.”
“Ludo?” Rhiannon said.
“You were with him last,” Galen said. He may as well have added, “You were supposed to be watching him.”
“I saw him to his tent,” Rhiannon said. “To Albert’s…” But she’d not seen him enter. As a sinking dread gripped her, she uttered, “Lorgen and his people?”
“Left at dawn, like he said they would.”
“Could they have taken him?”
Galen shook his head. “They headed west. Shadrak found a single set of footprints going in the opposite direction.”
“Toward the castle?” Rhiannon said. Already, the warmth of absolution was giving way to the chilling grip of shame. “He gave me his word.” But he hadn’t, had he? He’d merely agreed to call her if he needed anything. No wonder the Archon had yelled at her in her dream. He’d been right to. She’d failed before she’d even started.
“But why?” Galen said. “Why would he do such a thing?”
No one is beyond the mercy of Nous.
Rhiannon gasped. Ludo had not just been referring to her. But this was crazy. More than that, it was suicide.
“He thinks he can save Blightey,” she said. “And by doing so, save us in the process.”
Galen looked too dumbfounded to speak at first, but then his eyelids drooped shut, and he swallowed thickly. “Oh, Eminence.”
Shadrak poked his head through the door flap. “It’s Ludo, right enough. The prints enter the mist. He must’ve lost his shogging mind.”
“Damn it,” Galen said, but the glare he shot Rhiannon gave the true meaning of his words: “Damn you. Damn you, you useless shogging bitch.”
“Let’s go,” Nameless called from outside.
“No,” Shadrak said loud enough for the dwarf to hear him, but his pink eyes were fixed on Rhiannon. “There’s been enough sho
g-ups already. I’ll go. Give me a couple of hours. If I ain’t back by then, come running, and tear that scutting castle to the ground till you find me, ’cause no one’s shoving a spike up my arse.”
“This is my fault,” Rhiannon said. “I need to go.”
“We all do,” Galen said.
“Fine,” Shadrak said. “But still give me a head start. Stealth first, hammer later.” And with that, he ran off toward the trees.
One task, the Archon’s voice reverberated around her skull. And you have failed at the first.
He was wrong. He was shogging wrong, and she was going to prove it.
WOLFMALEN CASTLE
Shadrak retraced Ludo’s footprints to the fringes of the mist that lay like a blanket over the snowy ground. Wispy tendrils snaked toward him, but he skirted around them.
The sun slid from behind a cloud; was swiftly smothered again. A sinuous rope of mist separated out from the main body and quested in his direction. Others followed, sprouting like insubstantial branches to block his advance and forbid his retreat.
Shadrak backed away and then broke into a run. A feeler lashed at him, but he tumbled beneath it and kept on running, boots crunching through the snow. Others slithered in pursuit, and behind them, the entire carpet of mist changed its course like the turning of the tide.
A tendril tried to trip him. Shadrak leapt over it, swayed aside from another coming at him head-height. He danced between two more strands, twisted and backflipped over a third, and kept on flipping feet over head until he made the tree line.
Once there, he glided from trunk to trunk. Mist seeped over the roots, always just a heartbeat behind. Breaking into a sprint, he slipped and slid down a low bank. Vaporous threads curled over the ridge, as if uncertain, then began to worm their way down after him.
Shadrak backed away, rummaging in a belt pouch for a glass sphere. He palmed it for a second, then threw it at a tree. A flash of brilliance lit up the gloaming, and the mist recoiled.
Plumes and streamers thrashed and intertwined, writhed and conferred. They began to feel every inch of the tree’s bark, as if they might find some trace of their elusive prey there.