by Terry Madden
“You must drink this,” Angharad begged him, holding out a cup of that vile sleeping draught of hers. “It will heal your throat.” And if Talan stayed quiet, perhaps the little man would drink it and sleep. Yes, drink it you vile leech, drink it down and bring it to me.
He was awash in the warm, sweet fluid. He tried to drown himself in it, but it buoyed him up, like an over-salty sea, higher, until the creature vomited and Talan rode the tide to the opening of his trachea and there clung to the ragged mess left by Lyleth’s knife. He did have legs, he was certain of it.
Darkness followed.
Chapter 20
Connor cradled his wounded arm and tried to keep up with Lyleth and Dylan, sloshing their way ahead of him in a stream of excrement. Lyleth had bandaged Connor’s arm so tightly, his fingers were going numb, but he could feel the wetness of blood soaking through, even in the darkness of this sewer.
Fiach had told them to get as far away from Caer Emlyn as possible. Lyl took some convincing, vowing that she would not leave her daughter behind.
“If Talan finds you, he will kill you,” Fiach had told her. “What good will you be to the child then?” When she refused to go, he added, “I won’t let anything happen to Angharad, I swear it.”
What could Fiach do in the face of the amassed army of Ys that waited outside the walls of Caer Emlyn? Connor knew that as soon as Lyleth was safely away, Fiach would hand over the king to his troops or suffer a siege he could not hope to win. What then? Talan would head straight for the Red Bog and the cromm. Whether it happened soon or in a week or two, it would happen. And Angharad would be there to work whatever magic she possessed for reasons none of them understood.
Connor didn’t have to ask Lyleth to know she intended to be there when it happened. What mother wouldn’t?
Lyleth had grudgingly agreed to Fiach’s plan, and now she led the way as they waded through shit toward the walls of the city. With a fistful of rushlights, spider webs sizzled in the flame as she led the way through the foul tunnel.
“How is it possible?” she wailed. “I cut clean through half his neck.”
Connor replied, “Coming from someone who resurrected a king?” The splashing of his feet echoed into darkness.
“People die,” Dylan declared. “That man is no man. He’s something else.”
“A zombie,” Connor said.
“A what?” Lyleth and Dylan said in unison.
“A rotting corpse that walks around looking for brains to eat.”
Lyleth glanced over her shoulder and gave Connor a disgusted look.
“If anyone’s rotten, it’s you,” Dylan said, and gave Connor’s shoulder a brotherly squeeze.
Connor hadn’t thought of himself quite like a zombie, but Dylan was right. The cut on his cheek looked as fresh as the day he'd gotten it, and in spite of Lyleth’s bandage job, the stab wound Talan had inflicted to his left arm was bleeding like a bastard. Zombies didn’t heal. They didn’t die either, and Connor had the feeling that this was where he differed from a zombie.
“And Nesta,” Lyleth fumed. “For the High Brehon to accept one such as her… it means the judges themselves are Sunless. We’ve got a fight before us that we could never imagine.”
It was hard to tell how far they’d gone in this narrow tunnel, but it came to an end at last. The only problem was the iron grate that sealed it was locked from the outside. By the moonlight, it appeared the foul water from the tunnel trickled into a muddy stream outside before vanishing down another hole.
Connor could see the city wall just a stone’s throw away. They must be near the market square, behind the weaver’s cottages. He could smell animal dung mixed in with the sewage smell. Maybe this world wasn’t all beauty and light after all.
“Fiach didn’t think about this?” Connor said with his fingers laced through the grate.
“He’ll send someone,” Lyleth said. She motioned for Connor to take a seat on the one boulder that was not submerged. She held the rushlight up to examine his arm. “You’re still bleeding.” He could feel the cool of the saturated bandage on his skin.
“The moon is almost full,” he pointed out as she poked around under the bandage.
“Aye, so ‘tis. I can tell you one thing about that soothblade. It won’t kill whatever’s inside Talan.”
“I could have told you that,” Connor scoffed. “After all, I watched an ice-born slice Talan’s head clean off six years ago.”
“That would have been good to know.”
“I didn’t know Talan and that headless man were the same person until I was standing right in front of him.”
“I know.” She gave him a soft pat on his wounded shoulder. “It was wise of you, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told Talan that Nechtan intended to lead an army through the open well.” She handed the rushlights to Dylan. “Hold this.”
“How do we know it’s not true?” Dylan leaned against the grate, the rushlights casting a golden glow over his face.
“Because Connor made it up. But if the judges are all Sunless like Nesta,” Lyleth said, wrapping a fresh length of linen around Connor’s arm and tying it tighter, “we’ll need Nechtan and anyone he can bring across.” She seemed to remember something suddenly, and said, “You told me that Nechtan is crippled. How could such a man lead an army?”
“You know him better than I do,” Connor said, “and you know he can still lead.”
Even by moonlight, Connor could see her smile.
**
It was dawn when Connor woke to Dylan’s jostling. “She’s coming,” Dylan said.
Connor roused from the muck to see the alewife waddling toward the grate. Before the town awoke, the woman led them to the stable behind the alehouse. The two horses they’d ridden from the bog were still there, and so was Brixia. Connor was surprised the alewife hadn’t sold them.
“This is a terrible hiding place,” Connor said.
“It’s just until we can get out of the city,” Lyleth said.
Brixia whinnied when she saw Connor, and he gave her a good scratch.
“The hayloft is warm enough,” the alewife said. “I’ll bring ye food—”
“And news,” Lyleth said. “Talan’s army lies outside these walls, and I expect they’ll be trying to get in shortly. In the meantime, I’ll need four more sheaves of arrows with bodkin points—”
“Demanding, aren’t we?”
“Fiach gave you gold. Spend some. And get a sword for him,” Lyleth nodded at Connor. As Dylan grew stronger, Connor had been only too happy to hand over the one rusty sword they possessed to him. It would certainly do Connor no good.
“I don’t think I need—”
“And you’ll draw no attention in the gathering of these goods,” Lyleth said.
“Who do ye think I am?”
“You’re in the service of your lord, Fiach. And he’s paid you for your troubles.”
With a scowl, she pointed out a basket of food and the ladder up to the loft and went on her way, saying, “I’ll have the goods by nightfall.”
Daylight shone on Connor’s wound, allowing Lyleth to examine it more thoroughly. The bleeding hadn’t slowed. It was like he was a hemophiliac or something. While Connor struggled to remain conscious, she sent Dylan into town for a long list of healer-type supplies. By noon she had packed the gash with a foul-smelling concoction and stitched the skin closed over it. Connor screamed into the fabric of his cloak as she sewed. He was pretty sure zombies didn’t feel pain, so it was reassuring in a masochistic way that he could feel every stab of the needle. When she’d finished with the torture, it appeared the bleeding had slowed, but not stopped.
“The dead don’t heal, I suppose,” Dylan observed.
“You’re a genius,” Connor managed to say.
He slept through the afternoon and the night and was awakened by Brixia’s high whinny. It was morning again, and Lyleth and Dylan had gone off somewhere, maybe in search of more weapons
. How could they have gone and left him?
He crawled to the edge of the loft and looked down at Brixia. She had escaped her stall, or someone had let her out. She was gazing fixedly up at the loft and pacing. “If you keep this up,” he told her, “everyone in town will know I’m here. Where are they anyway?”
He inspected the bandage and saw a moderate blotch of red. Certainly not like it was before. He’d have to quiet Brixia somehow.
The ladder had an elastic bounce to it and threatened to dump him. When he finally reached the bottom, he removed the ladder and hid it in one of the stalls. Then he followed Brixia into her enclosure and shut the gate. She had some fresh straw there, and if he pressed his back to the wattle wall, he was out of sight if someone were to walk in.
Which they did, not minutes later.
He heard men’s voices and thought at first it was the alewife’s son. But no, he knew those voices. The men he’d met up with in the tavern, the ones who were looking for Lyl.
One of them had found the ladder and hoisted it up to the loft. He carried that long dinner knife, and when he reached the top rung, he looked down into Brixia’s stall. Connor looked back up at him.
“Well now—” was all he managed to say before an arrow thumped and burst through his chest. He fell in slow motion, crashing through the gate of Brixia’s stall. Horses reared and cried and charged about.
By the time Connor got to his feet, Dylan had blocked the door and faced the second guy, the big one with the body odor. He’d have to get past Dylan and his sword to get away, but Connor wondered if Dylan could even swing the thing. He’d been stabbed less than two weeks earlier.
From behind Dylan, Lyl drew her bow again and aimed at the man. “Who sent you?” she asked him.
When he failed to answer, she said, “Is it worth dying to protect who hired you?”
When he failed to answer again, Dylan cracked him in the face with the hilt of his sword. The guy doubled over and went to his knees.
“All right,” he cried, holding his nose. “She didn’t pay me enough to die. I’ll say if you let me go.”
“Who?” Lyl asked again.
“A woman with weird eyes. One o’each color. And a necklace made of claws.”
“Get out,” Lyleth said.
The man wasted no time. He left the barn holding his bloody nose. His friend hadn’t died yet, so Lyleth propped him up against the wall and left him to it.
“And now we need to go,” Dylan said, sheathing his sword.
**
With Fiach’s money, Lyl managed to buy a two-wheeled pony trap with a short bed and high plank sides. The wheels looked like they were about to fall off, but the contraption was big enough to stash their weapons and still have enough room for Connor to curl up inside under a tarp. Though Brixia was free, he knew she would be following right behind them. People who had seen them enter the city would undoubtedly recognize the pony. Getting out the gate without anyone recognizing them might require some Jedi mind tricks.
His wish was granted when the guard asked them no questions but ordered them to go on their way. Lyl told Connor later that the guards were clearly under order to let her pass. He even checked the tattoo on her arm to be sure. It appeared Fiach had thought of everything.
Connor couldn’t see what was going on out there, but after they had exited the gate, the cart took a sharp left, and the horses moved into a trot. He imagined the sea of soldiers outside the gate, Talan’s army. Wouldn’t they stop the cart and ask questions?
But the horses never slowed, and Connor was bumped and jostled against the sides of the cart as if they moved over a rough road.
When they finally stopped, Connor climbed out from under the tarp to see they were at the edge of a forest. “Where are we?”
“We can hide here,” Lyleth said. “Until we know what will happen next. These woods extend over the hills all the way to the sea.”
“What if we were followed?”
“Why would anyone follow a farmer and his load?”
Connor climbed from the wagon and looked down the road. The town and the fortress looked like models from here, and Talan’s army clustered around fires arranged in an arc outside the city walls. They clearly kept a distance that would keep them out of bowshot from the walls of the city.
Connor’s thoughts turned to war. If Fiach chose to hold Talan prisoner, he could only hold out as long as his walls held. But Lyleth had sent someone north with news of her hive’s destruction and Talan’s madness. Would they come?
“What if that woodsman did take your message to the northern tribes?” Connor asked her.
“Then perhaps we stand some chance here. But Nesta may have seen to him, cut his throat not minutes after I left his holding.”
“The Old Blood might take up our banner,” Dylan added.
“What banner?” Lyleth turned and headed for the wall of trees. “We’re alone in this. We serve no lord.”
“Not if Nechtan comes with the Old Blood,” Connor called after her.
“The moon is full tonight,” Lyleth declared. “We’ll see if your friend Merryn spoke the truth. And we’ll learn what there is to learn in these blades we carry. Now, what is it we need to do?”
Connor listed the herbs and woods that Merryn had told him must be placed in the fire as the full moon rises. He had always wondered why she’d been so adamant that he memorize these things. Did she know this day would come? That Connor would be here with Lyleth, both of them holding soothblades?
“Something called bryony,” Connor told Lyleth, “and rowan and aspen and, of course, blackthorn wood.” The blackthorn tree was always associated with dark magic in Celtic myth. It made him wonder if what they prepared to do was on that end of the magic spectrum. At this point, he didn’t really care. He went on, “Deadnettle, cuckoo flower and hellebore…”
It took Lyleth and Dylan the better part of the day to find and collect the required flora. As the sun began to set, the stacks of green wood and herbs beside Connor had begun to wilt. He watched the sun travel the sky from the shade of a dense grove of ash. He felt Merryn in the woods. He searched the trees for an oak sapling that might be the one that bore her soul across the Void to this world. Would he know her if he saw her?
The trees whispered with the breath of wind that wandered from the plain below. Connor could hear their voices and understand their speech. What was it they said? He struggled to hang on to their words, struggled to hear Merryn’s voice among them.
Then he awoke.
Brixia stood over him like a sentinel. The wind dandled the leaves above him, and the trees laughed. He knew deep inside that he would never know the peace of this moment ever again.
Lyleth was staring at him. “We’re ready,” she said.
**
The forest was the perfect place to bleed to death. Connor had grown weaker throughout the day.
As the sun set, driving bright rays of red light through the trees, Lyleth struck a flint to light the pile of leaves and blooms and twigs as the last of the light faded.
The smell of the smoke was like incense. Not that cheap incense that comes in sticks, but the expensive stuff. Connor even felt like it made him a little high. It was either the smoke or loss of blood, or both.
As the moon rose on the opposite horizon from the setting sun, the fire was blazing and dropping a bed of hot coals.
“Now we put the blades into the coals,” Connor instructed, hearing Merryn in his head tell him there had to be coals.
The climb of the moon through the trees was quick, but Connor’s blade began to glow like green phosphor, and Lyleth’s did the same beside his.
“Now what?” she asked.
Together, they gripped the hot bone hilts of their blades and brought them out of the coals. “Hold it before your eyes, to the moonlight,” Connor said.
As he did, he could feel the heat radiate from it, the dark fractures in the world inside the stone pulsed and spidered outward. A be
am of green pain pierced his eyes, and he was standing inside the green, in the middle of a stream, and each time he reached into the water, he picked up a green stone. Each stone opened like a flower, and when he looked into it, he stepped into a different life, into a different memory, complete and hyperreal. It became painfully clear… this wasn’t Merryn’s life he watched. It was his own. With every stone he touched, the canvas of his soul took on shape and color, the color of blood, and domination, and regret.
The keening of countless mothers met his ears as the king passed the cup of blood to Connor.
He took it and dipped his fingers into the warm stickiness, he measured the infinite potential of shaping the primordial essence that sundered the living from the dying, the sleeping from the waking, the twisted from the straight.
He called forth a new order.
And set his fingers to the canvas of flesh before him to reshape a life.
Chapter 21
Leaving Bronwyn on the sofa, Dish closed the distance between the drawing room and the front door as quickly as he could. Mr. Peavey stood at the door with Connor’s rucksack in his hand. It was clear that he had hidden it from Inspector Trewin and his officers, but why? Iris was frozen with one hand on the door and one hand pushing her hair back.
“Well, fuck!” she cried, backing away from the man.
“Thank you, Mr. Peavey,” Dish said, taking the offered bag as he reached the door. “Please excuse Iris, she’s been under some stress—”
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Iris said to Peavey. “I was with Connor that day at the hot tub. The day you took him across to find Dish.” She pointed at Dish.
“I’d best get to work,” Peavey said, with a touch of his cap.
“Oh, no, no,” Iris insisted, moving to take Peavey’s arm, but then stepping away again, taking Dish’s arm instead. “Dish, this guy is not a guy. He’s a guardian. The guardian that set you up. The one from the well on the beach, and the one that was at the hot tub.”
“What are you talking about, Iris? Mr. Peavey has worked for Merryn for ye—”
“Worked for her!” Iris cried. “Of course! He was working for her even then. Ned. That’s his name. Or at least, it was. And he demanded that Connor give him the book before he would take him across. The book, Dish!” She tried to indicate the book he had hidden under his bum.