Elisha Daemon

by E. C. Ambrose

  Elisha sank into one of the chairs, Isaac seated at his right hand, and they shared a look. “Best get on with it, or I fear Liesel won’t abide so much excitement,” Isaac told him.

  “You shut your smart mouth, sir. With all of this travel, you’ve no idea what excitement I can manage.” His wife pushed back from the table, taking the satchel with her. “What tools? What do you need?”

  “Vellum, and drawing things,” Elisha said. “Thank you for the loan of your husband.”

  “You’d best keep him in better shape or you’ll not hear the end of it from me, doctor.” She breezed away, her long, fair hair swaying along her back.

  “She’s your wife to be sure,” Elisha said, and Isaac laughed, then they grew serious again as Elisha told him, “I’ll need to touch you, to maintain contact, is that all right?”

  “What’s this about?” Isaac asked.

  Katherine said nothing, but sat across from them, her eyes on Elisha.

  “Katherine and the others need to know who the mancers are. I can show her, and she can show them—but we cannot pass the images along without contact. If you can draw them, then others can see them as well, and know who to watch out for.”

  The novice returned. “Nourishment, and another visitor.” He set down a tall steaming carafe that smelled of wine and spices, and a platter of sausage alongside. At the entrance, Harald kicked a bit of snow off his boots and entered with a bow to Katherine.

  “Margravine. It is good to see you well.” With his sleek, dark hair and keen gaze, Harald carried the look of the coursing hound, a fierce hunter in the guise of a mere beast. To Elisha, he tipped his head. “Well met. Rome has not agreed with you, it seems.”

  “Nor I with it. But I’m still alive.”

  It seemed for a moment they all held their breath, then Liesel returned with a handful of parchment pieces and a leather-wrapped bundle of thin bars of plummet, a soft gray metal for sketching. She set them at her husband’s elbow and reached for the wine. “All around, yes?” After pouring it into a series of ceramic cups, she lifted one and drained a long swallow. “There, that should settle me nicely.”

  Down the hall, the girls’ giggles turned to a shriek as Friar Gilles roared out of his chamber and chased them back into the common room, hands raised and fingers spread like grasping claws. The girls fell onto each other on the cushioned settee, pulling a wrap around them, breathless.

  Seeing the light in Isaac’s face made the morning’s exhaustion worthwhile. Elisha took a swallow from his own cup and set it back. Laying his hand on Isaac’s arm, he spoke of the mancers, each one he had seen in the vale where they sought to make a saint of Brigit. He described the stout woman from England who wore the guise of a nun, and as he spoke of her, he pictured her in every detail, allowing this image to flow through his touch to Isaac’s flesh. The goldsmith’s right hand flew busily over a square of vellum, sketching her out in the silvery strokes of plummet. Isaac pinched off a bit of bread, rolled it between his fingers, and used that to erase and adjust his lines as he worked.

  Elisha talked his way through thirty others, including Renart, the Frenchman who appeared to be one of the leaders and had been present both in England, at Brigit’s attempt to seize the throne, and again in the vale. Liesel drifted away to work on stitchery with her girls while Friar Gilles joined the monks at prayer. Katherine and Harald sat by, listening and watching, Harald’s quick hands sliding away a few of the images into another pile while Katherine kept Elisha’s cup filled and quietly went for more wine. He made himself hoarse with talking.

  “Are we through yet?” Friar Gilles boomed when he returned, and Katherine scowled at him. The girls, restive with so much stillness, had dropped their stitching and begun to play noisily across the floor with a set of chess pieces. “Forgive me.” Gilles spread his hands and bowed his head, then he hustled a few steps forward and scooped the two girls from the floor. “Come, and I shall tell you a story.”

  Isaac smiled briefly in their wake, and Liesel paused in her stitching as Gilles settled on the settee, one child to either side.

  “Will it be a spooky one? I love the spooky ones!” one of the girls insisted.

  “Very well, then.” Gilles drew a hand down over his face, transforming it from foolish to stern. “Do you know what it means to be a revenant?” He waggled his eyebrows and leaned in toward the fire, drawing them along with him. “A revenant is a poor soul who has died but was not properly laid to rest. Instead of lying peaceful in his grave until the judgment day, the revenant rises up from the dirt and stalks the streets of his home, searching for solace.” He thrust out his hands as if clawing his way from a grave. Elisha flinched, but the two girls squealed in mock-terror, and Gilles went on, “The only way a revenant can be quieted is if he shall be cut limb from limb and scattered like a criminal!”

  “Brother, please,” Liesel cut in as the girls shrieked all the louder. “This work requires calm.”

  Gilles collapsed under her glower, sinking back into the cushions with a sigh. “Very well then, how about a few miracles of the Virgin? Come, take up your stitching, and I will tell you about them.” When Liesel subsided, Gilles whispered behind his hand to the girls, “Some of the miracle tales still have a bit of torture before the Blessed Virgin’s intercession, eh?” But his voice fell low, and the girls hushed themselves to listen.

  Elisha finished a few more descriptions, grateful for the occasional burst of laughter that made their work flow a little more easily. When Elisha fell silent again, Isaac pushed back and shook out his hand, working the fingers for a time while Elisha withdrew his contact for a longer drink and a few bites from the platter.

  “I know these.” Harald tapped the pile. “Three are at the court of Emperor Charles all the time, and these two are frequent visitors. These ones had been to call on Emperor Ludwig, God rest his surly soul.”

  “What about him?” Elisha plucked the drawing of Renart, but Harald shook his head. “This man, Renart, is a leader, probably in France. Keep a sharp eye out.”

  Isaac leaned back wearily, letting his head rest against the wall at his back. “Is there anyone else? Anyone we should watch out for?”

  Swallowing a bite of spicy sausage, sucking the grease from his teeth, Elisha considered the question. There was one he had not mentioned, one who had been absent from the vale. “The master of Rome, Count Vertuollo, but he doesn’t travel. He keeps to his own ground and lets his son pay calls beyond his own keep. At least he did until his son’s death.”

  “Not a threat, then.” Harald popped a bite in his mouth and chewed.

  Not a threat. Elisha considered that. Vertuollo was, quite simply, the most controlled and deliberate mancer and the most sensitive magus Elisha had ever met. The thought of having to fight him made Elisha’s stomach queasy and his heartbeat stutter. With a drop of blood, the count could siphon the nectar of dying from the gallows of Rome, and with a turn of his hand, slay a living thing that ventured into his shadow. To be sure, Vertuollo had not gone to the vale. Instead, he barred the Valley to ensure Elisha could not escape that way. Vertuollo held the power to stop the passage of the living into the Valley of the dead. But he held Rome with a similar will. It was his city, nay, his kingdom, and Elisha had broken its heart. Just before he killed Vertuollo’s son.

  Elisha beckoned Isaac back to the table. All of them leaned closer, watching, as Isaac sketched the long face and high brow, the narrow nose, sharp eyes and exquisitely tidy hair.

  A tiny shock of the Valley pricked Elisha’s heart, and he broke off, bolting from his chair, stung by the sudden memory of Father Uccello, the Roman priest whose torture he had overseen, whose corpse he had taken from the gallows. He swung about as the Valley slid shut. There before him stood Count Vertuollo, his robes still swirling in the winds of death.

  Chapter 7

  “Brother, you do not look well. Please,
don’t feel you must stand on my behalf.” Vertuollo spoke in the rolling dialect of Rome, spreading his hand in a gesture of invitation. The deep black of his robes set off the silver of his hair and echoed the darkness of his eyes. “What a merry gathering. Do I smell mulled wine?”

  Isaac stirred at Elisha’s side, but Elisha’s own body blocked him from Vertuollo’s gaze. Elisha put his hand behind him, holding the goldsmith back, urging him to stay down. Somehow, he kept his feet under him, kept his heart beating. “Brother.” Elisha stumbled over the language of Rome. He swallowed hard. What could he say? What could he possibly do? “Please allow me to offer my condolences on the loss of your son.” An apology in part, and a reminder of his own power. As Elisha fought back his panic, he gathered his strength.

  “It is kind of you to say so. May I take it that you were yourself responsible?” Vertuollo folded his hands together, waiting.

  “We had a dispute over the matter of his knife. I found it stuck in my back. I’m sure you understand.”

  “At least, I do appreciate your candor.”

  With a whisper of movement, a salt blade struck through Elisha’s awareness to one side, feeling more like a gap than an object. Vertuollo flicked his hand in that direction, allowing his sleeve to make contact and force a magical connection. The blade did not change course, and he twisted aside, his civil demeanor slipping just for an instant as the knife brushed past his arm and the salt inlays shattered against the wall behind. The count’s eyes flicked back, but Harald had already dropped out of sight—Elisha felt his departure and sensed him lurking among the furnishings.

  “I am not impressed with the company you keep, Brother. You should come back to Rome, and I will show you greater hospitality than I did the last time. A single soul is hardly enough to sustain you, even with such a perfect blow as the one you struck last time you came to call. Rome is turned from an empty ruin to a banquet.”

  “Thanks for the invitation, but I must refuse.”

  “You are not through playing with the desolati? Well. Don’t forget my offer.” His extended hand seemed to suck the warmth from the room. “I have certainly not forgotten you.” In his hand he held a scrap of flesh, a dried sliver of Father Uccello’s ear shorn from his head when he would not reveal Elisha’s secrets, a slender but powerful link between Elisha and Rome, one perhaps only Vertuollo was sensitive and subtle enough to use. “What price my son’s life? What price, my shattered city?” Vertuollo closed his fingers around it, cradling it like a bird in his palm, head slightly cocked. “Can you be killed, my brother, or must you choose to die?”

  Reaching through the contact of that death, Elisha snatched back the sad remnant of Uccello’s torture and tossed it into the fire.

  The count raised his head and took a long, slow breath. “Would that it were the only one. Brother.”

  Brother. Every time Vertuollo used the word, it stung. Without the death of Elisha’s own brother he would never have become the magus he now was. A bitter gift, indeed, that his brother’s death had brought Elisha to the place where he might be seen to share a bond like brotherhood with a necromancer. And yet, how many more would suffer without him? “If you had tended your own city, as you had planned, Brother, there would be no need for anger between us.” The ear—a talisman—left a cool patch at the center of his sweaty palm, like another scar. “I did what I had to to save the lives of thousands, so that other fathers need not go through what you have.”

  “What can it mean to save thousands if you lose what matters most?” Vertuollo folded his hands together again, his gaze perfectly level. “I will unravel you like a bit of bad embroidery.” He inclined his head toward the woman and girls on the settee, their stitchery still clutched in their hands. “Enjoy your wine.” With a breath of cold, the count vanished into the Valley.

  Elisha’s knees buckled and he dropped into his chair, trying to catch his breath.

  Isaac shot from his chair and went to his wife. “That was him—you said he did not travel. I’ve risked my entire family for this—for what?”

  “Was he a wonder-worker, too, Papa?” asked the older girl, still blinking at the spot where Vertuollo had been.

  “I’m sorry, Isaac, I am so sorry.” Elisha knotted his fingers through his hair. “He needs the contact of the dead to travel that way, and the death he called upon belongs to me. Your family should be safe.”

  “Should be?” Liesel pushed up from the couch. “We should leave, right away, if men like that can simply come and go and assault us at their will. We were safer at home, Isaac, away from your friends.”

  “Liesel, please.” The goldsmith bent to his wife, and the pair of them began a furious whispered discussion.

  “Elisha, what did he say to you?” Katherine asked, coming around to lay her hand on his shoulder.

  Elisha prayed that none of them spoke Italian, then Harald, steward to an emperor, assassin for a queen, emerged from the shadow of a tapestry and moved soundlessly toward them, dropping to one knee before Elisha to meet his eyes. “He said he would unravel you,” Harald murmured, in serviceable Italian. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have to go. I have to distance myself from the rest of you and hope to God he wouldn’t recognize you.” Not only had he antagonized the count, he had brought an enemy into the midst of his allies. Elisha had done his best to shield Isaac, and Harald had dodged away as soon as possible, but the others had been in full view the whole time. Vertuollo wouldn’t know them well enough to find them magically, but he would certainly know them on sight, and there was no reason he could not do as Elisha had and find himself an artist to spread the images of his enemies.

  Through their contact, Katherine gleaned what he said, and her touch felt hot with fear and anger. “You can’t go now, you just told me you would stay and fight with us.”

  “I’ll have to fight a different way. If I am anywhere close to you, he can find us again. Just my focusing on him, conjuring his image, was enough for him to know I was targeting him, at least while he was holding a talisman linked to me.”

  “What about you? He’s just proven that he can reach you at any time,” Harald pointed out.

  Elisha grabbed the nearest cup and drank down the last of its wine, then stood up, withdrawing from Katherine’s touch. “The hunting of mancers must be up to you.” He shared a glance between the two of them.

  “Where will you go?” Worry pinched her brow and hollowed her cheeks.

  “It’s best you don’t know.”

  “Well, then,” said Friar Gilles in a broad voice, “I’ll get my things.” He rose and dusted off his habit, then gave a smile and a pat on the head to each of the girls. “You shall have to take care of things for your parents. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Yes, of course, Brother. I am nine years old,” answered the older girl.

  His booming laugh did nothing to dispel the foreboding that hung over them.

  “Where are you going?” Isaac demanded. “Are you not as much in danger as the rest of us?”

  The monk shrugged. “Yet I am of little use. I am no hunting hound, I am no artist. I am, if anything, a purveyor of blood and bone and stories.” He lifted one hand, and added a flourish to a deep bow in Elisha’s direction. “And I am at your service.” He turned to Isaac. “I shall leave the relics you require for the project, master goldsmith, plus a few other items, as I gather we shall be travelling light.”

  “I can’t accept your service,” Elisha said, waving away the offer. “Anyone in my company is at risk.”

  “You need me, Doctor, for the relics I possess if nothing else. I should like to accompany you, the better to reveal your story when the time comes. Besides, a man should be willing to risk his life in the duties of the lord. What is the flesh but an anchor to the soul?” He sidled out from the nook by the fire. “So. I will fetch my things.” He shuffled down the
corridor to his chamber.

  Harald touched a scabbard at his belt. “The margravine would defend you with magic and I with a blade, but we have our own work to do. Perhaps Friar Gilles’s faith will serve where we may not. Godspeed, and good luck.”

  “This is madness,” said Katherine. “Surely there is a better way. We are stronger together, are we not? And you’ve still had no rest, certainly not enough to undertake another—”

  “Let him go.” Isaac swung away from his wife, arms folded.

  “Indeed,” Liesel echoed. “The sooner he is gone, the sooner the rest of us can be at peace.”

  The goldsmith stopped her with a look. Flecks of blood still marked his temple from the morning’s first encounter, and Elisha’s heart sank. Here they came to it, a return to Isaac’s acid demeanor. “No,” said Isaac. “There is no peace, not here, nor anywhere in the entire Holy Roman Empire. The pestilence has only just breached the mountains and already the battle is joined. I have done my part, minor though it may be, and he must do his.”

  Isaac turned to Katherine. “Forgive me, Margravine, but you know I’m right.” He gave the slightest incline of his head. “These villains are not of one nation or another, and we cannot afford to act as if they are. Elisha must be allowed to do the work that only he can.”

  Katherine stood stiff and straight, then pivoted on her heel and walked away. After a moment, a door creaked open and slammed shut, with a breath of crisp air as she let herself into the bleak winter’s garden.

  Springing lightly up, Harald gathered the rest of the sausage into a napkin and tied it off. “You’ll need something to eat.” Then he took one of Isaac’s dwindling stack of vellum scraps, drew a few quick lines of plummet and turned back. “It’s a map, a place in Heidelberg where you can stay the night.”