“That’s really good!” Garrett said, “What is it?”
Caleb moaned.
“Well, whatever it is, I like it,” Garrett said, taking another bite.
Tom looked at Caleb again, and Caleb nodded his approval.
Garrett had just started in on his second bowl when an angry moan sounded from the hallway. Garrett turned to find a mud-covered zombie standing in the doorway, awaiting further orders, even as one of the zombies tasked with cleaning the hallway did his best to scrub the first zombie’s muddy footprints from the floor.
“Oh, you’re finished,” Garrett said.
The muddy zombie nodded slowly and groaned.
“All right then,” Garrett said, “Everybody to the garden.”
It took him a few minutes to round up the rest of the servants, but, eventually, he was able to gather them all in the walled garden behind the house. A large mound of freshly dug dirt lay next to a fairly broad and deep hole in the black earth of an old flowerbed. The bodies of the three zombies killed in previous day’s battle lay, wrapped in linen, on the other side of the hole.
Pointless sentimentality spoke Uncle Tinjin’s voice in the back of Garrett’s mind, and Garrett smiled to himself.
“I wanted to thank you all for saving my life yesterday,” Garrett said, addressing the assembled zombies, “You saved our home too, and I am proud of you all.”
Caleb replied with a low moan, and several of the other zombies did as well.
“I’m sorry that some of you got killed,” Garrett said, “and I wanted to say thanks to them as well.”
Garrett walked over and knelt beside the three linen-wrapped bodies. “Coachman,” Garrett said, “You always did a good job taking me and Uncle wherever we needed to go, and I’m gonna miss you.” He paused a moment, trying to think of something to say for the other two.
“I never really knew you other guys’ names,” he admitted, “I guess I don’t know most of your names, really.” He looked around at the other zombies with a sad smile. “Maybe Uncle is right… maybe names aren’t really important… but you guys are still part of my family, and I wanted you to know that. Thank you for saving my life.”
Garrett stood up again and then stooped to lift the shoulders of one of the dead men and drag him toward the pit. Caleb stepped forward to help him, and the other zombies joined in as well.
After they had packed the last shovelful of earth over the grave, Garrett wiped his hands and patted Caleb on the back. “Let’s go back inside,” he said.
As they went back in, Garrett heard a knock at the door. He rushed to open it.
He almost didn’t recognize the heavily bundled figure standing on his doorstep, but the way she rushed into his arms a moment later cleared up any confusion.
“Marla!” he cried, returning her hug.
“I just found out,” she said, “Garrett, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m fine!”
Marla pulled back her hood and yanked down the red scarf that covered her face to reveal the concern in her eyes. She gasped then and put her hand to his cheek. “Oh, Garrett!”
“It’s nothing!” Garrett laughed, gently pulling her hand away from the scars left by Claude’s fingernails.
Her eyes flashed dangerously, and she looked as though she was about to say more, but Garrett stepped in and silenced her with a gentle kiss.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
“I missed you too,” she sighed.
Marla’s eyes fell. “I don’t want you going to the temple anymore,” she said.
Garrett laughed again. “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he said, “at least not for a while.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as he ushered her inside and closed the door against the daylight.
“They kinda kicked me out,” he said, “at least until they sort out everything that happened and decide what to do about me.”
“Are you in trouble?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said, “I mean, they know that Matron Shelbie was the traitor now, not me.”
“Shelbie?” Marla gasped.
“Yeah,” Garrett said, “she made some sort of deal with the Chadiri, and the roach guy killed her when we found out.”
“Roach guy?” Marla said.
“Oh… yeah,” Garrett said, a little embarrassed, “I guess I never told you about the roach guy… that’s what Warren called him. He’s actually some sort of Neshite spy. I guess the Chadiri hired him to sneak in and bribe Shelbie.”
“A Neshite spy working with the Chadiri?” Marla said, shaking her head, “Garrett, that doesn’t make any sense!”
“Yeah,” Garrett admitted, “I guess maybe the Inquisitor is doing some stuff he shouldn’t be doing, so he’s using outside help so that he doesn’t get in trouble with the other Chadiri.”
Marla seemed unconvinced. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
Garrett shrugged. “I knew you were really busy,” he said, “I didn’t want to bother you about it.”
She gave him an exasperated look.
“Sorry,” he said, taking her hand, “I really did miss you…”
“I’m just glad you’re all right,” she sighed. She hugged him again for a very long time.
“You have the day off?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” Marla scoffed, “I’m supposed to be writing a poem.”
“About what?” he asked.
She stepped back, frowning at him. “It was supposed to be about Duty, but now I think it will be about a rather slow-witted boyfriend who regularly tries to have himself murdered and the poor girl who loves him.”
“Sorry,” Garrett said.
“No more secrets, Garrett,” she said.
“I promise,” he said.
“Is there anything else I should know?” she asked.
Garrett thought for a moment before answering. “Um… I was almost eaten alive by a bunch of worms… Annalien the ghost and Lady Ymowyn have decided that I should take over the world… that fairy that we set free in your shop has been following me around, and he thinks I’m gonna be like the fairy king or something… I, uh, kinda became the Songreaver for a minute and hurt Warren and Scupp, but they’re fine now, and I promised to never do it again… and I asked Mister Jannis about becoming a vampire, but he said I wasn’t ready yet.”
“What?” she demanded.
“What part?” he said.
She shook her head. “Garrett, why would you want to become a vampire?” she asked.
He paused before answering. “I want to be with you forever,” he said.
She pulled him to herself. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said, “because I’m never letting you out of my sight again!”
“Well… you can’t take me back to the embassy. I kinda got banned from there for trying to kill Claude,” he chuckled, “or maybe it was because I’m the Songreaver… I’m not really sure anymore… We could run away together.” He pulled away enough to give her a crooked grin.
Marla looked as though she might strangle him, and then she kissed him again. “We’ll sort out the embassy problem later,” she sighed, “Right now… I just want…” she lifted her hand to her lips to try to cover a yawn.
“Hey,” Garrett said, “How long has it been since you had any sleep?”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Yeah, it does,” he said, “Come here.” He guided her into the parlor and they sat down together on the sofa.
She looked as though she might argue with him, but Garrett stroked her dark hair gently until she laid her head upon his chest and relaxed. He held her close, feeling her warmth and breathing in the scent of her hair.
“I can’t stay…” she whispered.
“Just for a minute,” he said, “It’ll be all right.”
“I missed you, Garrett,” she said. She traced the curving horns of the skull medallion on his chest with h
er fingertips.
“I’m here now,” he whispered.
“I…” Marla started to speak, but she yawned again, and then she relaxed into a deep slumber.
Garrett held her as she slept, listening to the distant ticking of Uncle’s clock.
*******
Garrett thought about checking in on the Lethians while he was in Queensgarden, but it was getting late, and he didn’t want to impose on their hospitality again if he couldn’t make it home before Curfew. He headed up the steps to Cenick’s townhome and worked the key in the lock.
Garrett stepped inside and touched the gem set into the wall beside the doorframe. The house was suddenly filled with the glow of hundreds of tiny magical crystals set into the tiled floor like a meandering river of light.
Garrett closed the door behind him and then smiled to see movement in the large glass fish tank that Cenick kept in his front parlor. A huge deep-sea fish swam within, a hideous creature with countless teeth bristling from jaws nearly as large as its own body. Its lifeless eyes stared back at him, sunken deep in their sockets, and little tatters of flesh dangled from its zombified body.
“Hi, Shan,” Garrett said, calling the fish by name. Cenick had never bought into Uncle Tinjin’s policy of nameless zombies either. Likewise, he greeted Yzelle and Chassa the two slender zombies seated at the dinner table, each wearing the jewel encrusted wrappings and beaten golden death masks of ancient Zhadeen princesses.
Garrett walked through the house, checking on the tattooed necromancer’s belongings, but everything seemed to be in place. He patted Krute, the mummified parrot atop the head when he looked in on the birdhouse room, but he hurried past the shelves of shriveled monkey heads, shuddering at the way their eyes turned to follow him as he walked by.
The shelves that once held Cenick’s prized root collection now lay empty, save for a single twisted gray root in the rough shape of a man. Garrett wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw it move when he passed it. When he looked again, it lay motionless on the shelf.
Cenick’s knife room bore a few empty spaces on the wall, but that was not unusual. Cenick’s blade collection was a functional one, and the big man tried to keep the weapons in use, taking some with him every time he went out.
Garrett frowned at the cool, damp air in the room where Cenick slept when he was home. He couldn’t imagine how anyone would be able to sleep in there. A fountain of tumbled stone, surrounded by moss and ferns bubbled and splashed in the dim light of the skylight above. Cenick’s bed, a great four-posted sprawl of green blanket and white pillows, took up most of the rest of the room. A number of curved jungle knives and canisters of essence hung within easy reach on either side of the bed.
After a brief inspection of the rest of the house, Garrett concluded that everything seemed to be in order. He waved his goodbyes to the undead and headed out the door, locking it behind him.
He walked the short distance to Max’s townhouse as he fished out the skull-headed key to the door. Opening it, he was greeted by a foul, moldy scent from within. Garrett made a face, standing beside the open door for a moment, letting most of the bad air clear out before he headed inside.
The servants within still wore the red robes and white wooden masks that Max had given them and gave no indication that anything was amiss.
Garrett wrinkled his nose and made a quick search of the house, finding the source of the smell in Max’s library.
Garrett grimaced at the sight of a large patch of black mold that had spread across the spines of several of Max’s books on their shelves. One book, a large, leather-bound volume at the very center of the moldy patch seemed unaffected by it. Garrett stared at it a moment in confusion, it seemed as if the mold had not touched this book at all, even though the books to either side of it and the ones on the shelves directly above and below it were completely covered in the foul-smelling stuff.
Garrett decided that he couldn’t leave a mess like this for Max to find when he returned. Who knows how far it would spread by then. He decided to pull out the unaffected books first and then do his best to clean the stain from the rest. He reached up and pulled out the strange book at the center of the stain.
Garrett’s skin crawled as his gloved fingertips sank a little into the softly yielding leather of the book’s cover. It felt strangely warm and supple as though the thick leather were still attached to whatever beast had worn it in life. He glanced at the cover out of curiosity but saw no title there, only a single, spiky rune that looked as if it had been burned into the leather with a hot iron brand. Garrett stuck his tongue out in disgust and found a spot for the book to lie on a nearby lectern.
He next removed the books around the edge of the stain, stacking them on an adjacent table, until a sizeable buffer of empty space stood open all around the infected patch of books. He found water and a cloth in the kitchen and returned to start scrubbing the moldy books clean.
It took longer than he thought it would, and he was interrupted from his labors by the sound of the Evenchimes ringing out.
“Cramps!” Garrett sighed. He thought about making a run for it and coming back to finish tomorrow, but decided against it. He resigned himself to spending the night at Max’s house. The guest room was comfortable enough, and he had enough dry goods in the kitchen to muddle through a modest supper and breakfast. Max owed him that much, at least, for doing this.
It was well past midnight by the time he had scrubbed the last of the mold from Max’s books. Some of them still bore the indelible stain of their contact with the nasty stuff, but he had, at least, stopped the spread of it.
He took the bucket of filthy water to the kitchen and poured it down the drain before cleaning himself up. He lit Max’s stove and set a pot on to boil for a pudding before he headed back into the library to make certain he hadn’t missed anything.
The faint scent of mold still hung in the air, but nothing as bad as it had been when he arrived. His eyes went to the creepy leather book again, and he wondered if it was something about it that had caused the problem to begin with.
Garrett walked over and rotated the book on the lectern with one finger, grimacing at the way the corner of it sank in beneath the pressure of his fingertip. He felt a prickly feeling on the back of his neck as he lifted the cover and opened it to the title page.
Garrett drew back in revulsion at the monstrous, leering face, drawn in rust-colored ink, which stared back at him from the page within. He dropped the cover shut in alarm before he could get a good look at it. He laughed at himself then for being afraid of a book and pulled the cover open again.
Then he really was afraid, because the face was gone. Only a few lines of spidery black text, written in a language he did not recognize, filled the first page. He quickly flipped through the first twenty or so pages of the book, finding nothing but more cryptic text. He propped the cover open with one finger and tapped it with his other hand, hoping to dislodge any pages that had gotten stuck to the inner cover, but there were none.
Garrett let out an uneasy breath and let the book fall shut again. He wiped the fingertips of his gloves on his robe and backed away from the lectern. “Yeah… no,” he said, deciding to abandon his investigation of the strange book.
He retreated to the kitchen and had his pudding before closing himself up in the guest room. It took him a while to get to sleep that night. Every time he started to drift off, he thought he heard a voice whisper his name, and he would spring awake again. Finally he cried out loudly in frustration, “What?”
Just ignore it, spoke the voice in the back of his mind.
“You shut up too!” Garrett growled. He buried his head under a pillow and hummed to himself until he finally fell asleep.
Garrett arose, weary-eyed and grumpy, with the chimes the following morning. He looked in on the library before he left, finding the creepy book still where he had left it. Its leather glistened wetly, and a small puddle of some foul-smelling liquid had begun to spread across the wood
of the lectern.
Garrett shook his head and made a rude gesture at the book before walking out. He stopped by a small café for breakfast, which improved his mood a bit. By the time he turned down Vaaste Street toward home, he had forgotten all about evil books and black mold. Perhaps he would see if he could find Marla again, once he got cleaned up.
He turned the key in the front door and pushed it open, and then froze in alarm.
Cenick’s voice, muffled and broken, called out from the dining room.
Garrett dropped the key and his shoulder bag on the floor of the entryway and raced down the hall.
“Uncle Tinjin!” came the muffled voice of Cenick’s Proxylich from beneath the tarp in the corner.
Garrett ran to pull the tarp away. The two withered bodies still lay there where Uncle Tinjin had placed them.
The body with the black swirling runes painted on its face opened its jaw to speak again. “Uncle Tinjin! Are you there, Tinjin?” came the crackly, panicked voice of Cenick.
Garrett scrambled to find the silver bowl with the grumling skull in it. He snatched it up along with the little vial of essence beside it. He quickly stripped off his gloves and performed the simple ritual that would allow him to answer Cenick’s call.
“Cenick, can you hear me?” Garrett cried out with his palm against his throat.
“Garrett, is that you?” Cenick’s proxylich croaked, “Where’s Uncle Tinjin?”
“Uncle Tinjin’s gone,” Garrett said, hesitating then, unsure of how much he should tell Cenick, “He’s gone north to find Max.”
“What? No!” Cenick cried, “Max is running for it! Weslae is burning, Garrett! The dragon lord is back, and he’s headed for Wythr now!”
Garrett stared at the proxylich in stunned silence.
“Garrett, did you hear me?” Cenick shouted.
“Yeah,” Garrett gasped.
“You have to warn the ghouls… warn the priestesses… warn the vampires, Garrett, but then you have to get out! Garrett, go south to Faedrel. I’ll find you there as soon as I get back.”
The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4) Page 38