Death cackled in the horse’s dying screams. It frosted the eyes and lips of the men falling all around him, the common soldiers cut down by weapons wielded from horseback. Agony struck through Elisha as if he felt every blow. He whimpered.
Not far off, Duke Randall’s voice rang out over the battle: “Come out and fight me, Hugh, you cowardly bastard!” But any answer was lost in the driving wail of death that beat at Elisha’s ears.
Another man tripped over Elisha’s huddled form, giving his opponent the advantage, giving Elisha another spatter of blood that turned cold too soon.
Elisha forced himself to move, shaking off the soldiers. He lurched toward the door by the vestry, and fell through into a silence that stunned him more than any sound.
Blinking, wiping blood from his face, he pushed himself up. He lay on the grassy slope behind the altar of the ruined church. Flowers trodden by the feet of waiting soldiers already sprang back into the sunshine of spring. The grass trembled in a warm breeze, and a butterfly landed on a broken bench, its wings closing once, twice, resting before daring again to touch the sky. In here, the world lay at peace, becalmed beneath the glorious day. Life surrounded and enfolded him, taking over the fallen stone of this god’s house. A place of power indeed.
Breathing heavily, his muscles shaking, Elisha crept to the altar. Soft moss and new grass cushioned his aching palms as he went. Fragrant earth touched his knees with moisture. The sun warmed his bruised back, inviting him to lie down and rest. But he found he could hear the battle. He could hear the men and horses tramping one way and another in their one-sided fight. What was missing was the terrible sound of death that sapped his strength and cleaved from him all awareness of life. Yes, men were falling, wounded or dying, some already dead, but all was not lost, not yet. And he had come to what he needed.
Even before he began, the dissonance of what lay there chimed a false note in the quiet hum of life. Digging in his fingers, Elisha pulled back the roots he had packed in place. He scraped away the dirt, and drew forth the grubby metal pot, its lid firmly sealed with wax. As he set his fingers on it, they stuck, frozen, and he lifted the thing awkwardly into his lap, breathing moisture onto it to free himself.
Gleaming dully in the sun, the thing looked darker than ever, as if the dirt had covered it for centuries, concealing its malevolent power. Oh, yes, he could feel it now. Not just the brush of death’s cold hands, but the aching injustice of the child who had never known life, and the tearing anguish of its parents, bewildered in their grief and Elisha’s own pain, knowing it might have been prevented if he had not betrayed his brother’s trust. Layers and veils of emotion wrapped around him.
The death he held tried to break free, a wild lashing of panic sprang through his skin. He bit his tongue to stifle a scream as the ice took hold. But he must control it. He must overpower Death once more and bring it to heel. Only then could he send it hurtling forth against his enemies.
Elisha knew Death now, as he had not when first they met through this talisman. For so long, he had struggled against it, without ever understanding what he fought. Now, he recognized its terrible laughter, the sharp bite of its wind when it flung away another man. Now he knew the evil edge of cold that cut a wounded man and the ripping sensation as it tried to tear him from the world. And he knew the grip of its talons at his own throat, squeezing out his breath, and its howl of rage when he was snatched away by other hands.
Fighting down his fear, Elisha invited Death to join him.
He raised his hands and summoned it, calling out the madness and the pain. Death stole in through his flesh. It wrapped fell mists around him. It creaked along his spine and shivered his lungs so that he could not breathe. Death insinuated itself in every taut muscle and drop of blood. It crept through his bowels, and set its stealthy hands upon his heart. It sang within him, a humming so intense he vibrated to its rhythm, his body shaking as he took it in.
Elisha invited Death, and it accepted, curling up inside him like the serpent in the apple tree, lurking, waiting for its chance to strike. It sang to him with subtle voices, a song of strength and power, of an end to time and tyranny.
No longer weak, Elisha rose.
No longer giddy with spell-struck lunacy, Elisha laughed.
He held the talisman close to his heart, the metal sliding easily in his cold, cold grasp.
Chapter 36
Bearing his pot of Death, Elisha turned to the door. He heard nothing now, though a wounded man stumbled inside and fell at his feet. The mouth gaped with words, but they could not penetrate the soothing hum of Death inside him.
Stepping over him, Elisha walked to the churchyard. He surveyed the fight, seeing the little knot of horsemen, hemmed all about by the king’s knights and soldiers. They looked so weak and fragile, their bones struggling against their flesh. He imagined it putrid, falling from the crumpling bones in strips, these men who thought themselves bold dissolving into rot and dust and foulness. He searched for someone, but did not see him.
A figure loomed up before him, calling out, the face contorted with anger.
Elisha gazed around the soldier, cool mist enveloping him.
Raising his axe, the man charged, his teeth showing in an open roar that issued no sound.
Lifting his hand, Elisha caught the axe haft.
Brittle, dry and ancient, it splintered in his grasp, the axehead dropping to bury itself.
Waving his arms before him, the man stumbled back, then turned and fled.
As well he should run, for Death stalked this field.
Ignoring the fighting knot of men, Elisha walked into the courtyard, still seeking. He sniffed the air and found that Death had gone before him. In his steps, the grass browned and withered. Flower petals fell from the dandelions. Their naked stalks rotted where they stood. A small darting bird swooped through his shadow, and its wings trembled, then it fell from the sky.
Elisha strolled forward. He remembered hurrying, as if there were some race on, and he must win it. It didn’t matter now. Whatever he had been after, he would find it in time, or it would come to him.
Another man sprang up to challenge him, waving a sword.
With a casual sweep of his hand, Elisha knocked the man aside. At his touch, the flesh shivered and grew cold, darkening to leather. Something trembled through his fingers, a disturbing something that wanted to distract him, to make him falter. Withdrawing his hand, Elisha frowned, but the sensation was gone, and he relaxed.
Two broken bodies lay at the base of the tower, soldiers still bound needlessly. Again that distraction arose, but he pushed it away.
Across the yard, beyond the stone cistern, he saw the man he had been looking for, the man with the crown on his helmet. Framed in the empty arch near the bridge, he stood in a ring of his own men. Holding a long sword before him, the man circled with a shorter, stocky figure. The crowned man laughed and sneered, twisting his bearded face.
The stocky man stood between Elisha and his goal, the sword in his grip shaking a little as he stood.
Beyond the wall, someone died. A rush of power flowed through the earth, up through Elisha’s feet and legs, taking root in his breast. The heady scent of it filled him, tingling through his senses. Elisha grinned, then laughed.
Heads turned among those who watched the duel. Three ran forward, more fell back, tripping over their own feet.
Elisha’s walk took on a suggestion of purpose. He stepped in a narrow channel, frost racing out from his ankle as he crossed over. The water froze and cracked and thawed again under the distant glitter of the sun.
Another familiar figure slunk along the wall, using the distraction of Elisha to make for the tower. Elisha laughed again. In time, all in time.
Another death rippled through the earth to him. He reached out and caught it, taking it over his hand like a ferret in a lady’s sleeve, sleek and sharp. He played it over his fingers in a dark coil. More like a snake than a ferret—nothing so soft, something
slick and darting, tasting the air, hungry for more.
As the crowned one attacked, the stocky man fell aside and his sword flew from his grasp. Elisha stepped over him. Intent on his quarry, Elisha felt only the hint of the cold wound as he passed by.
Drawing back, the crowned man shouted.
Elisha stepped on, shriveling a clump of weeds.
The ring of guards, shattered by Elisha’s approach, tried to rally to their king. Elisha glared upon them and watched them sink to their knees, tears tracking their faces, hands begging for the gift he could not offer.
The king retreated, his sword thrust out before him, his lips gibbering with useless sound.
Inevitable and unmovable, Elisha walked toward him.
With a cry, the king slipped. He slithered down the bank on his belly, his feet splashing into the water.
Elisha did not fall. He knelt down at the riverbank and held out his hand. Performing this final baptism, he placed his palm on the king’s crown.
Blue eyes widened. The head shook, the lips turned pleading.
Elisha’s icy grip shattered the metal, tumbling the helmet in pieces into the water. His fingers combed the tousled hair.
The king’s mouth broke into a horrible wail as death poured over him. His eyes sank and shriveled, his tongue twitched and lashed as he spoke ice crystals into the sunlight of April.
His hands flew up from the freezing water, grappling with Elisha’s arm. For a moment they stuck, his skin frosting over. He tugged and twisted and could not break free until he tore his skin. The fingertips ripped away like dried-up mushrooms, his flesh powdering the surface of the ice. His cheeks withered. His powerful shoulders arched and wrenched, then sagged into his chest. His heart gave a final desperate pound and froze like a lump of stone within him.
Death raced up Elisha’s fingers, kneading itself into his arm, crowing the victory.
He lifted his hand, and the king fell, his desiccated corpse breaking on the already-melting ice.
A familiar word echoed suddenly through the mist, and Elisha rose, frowning. Again, it came, like a breath of history, long dead. Elisha smiled and turned. The word meant nothing now, just another fleeting thing to fall and be consumed. All the words of the world meant nothing.
People ran at him, people without weapons, save one. They stumbled to a halt beside the crumpled form of the stocky man.
Elisha tilted his head, seeing them through a sort of prism, their faces magnified in horror. A tall one caught up a smaller one in his arms and backed away. A short, hairy one held up his hands before him, gesturing wildly. The one with the sword grabbed the red-haired one.
You are all mine, Elisha thought. You all belong to me, however much you struggle to avoid me. He laughed, and even his own sounds were unable to reach him.
The one with the sword advanced, pushing aside the red-haired one. Its mouth flapped, its hand waved in a gentle rhythm.
Recognition dawned in Elisha’s cold mind. Oh, he remembered this one. He remembered those keen, blue eyes, and the moment of hesitation when he might have been Elisha’s savior. This one had held the power to set him free, and had not done it. This one possessed something he longed for. What was it? What could he ever have wanted that he could not now take of his own will?
Gathering the mist around him, Elisha strode out to meet it. He rolled death into his fingers, squeezing it like a child’s toy, a plaything only he could enjoy.
Before he could get there, the man fell under a sudden deluge, tumbling away to one side, floundering. The red-haired one let the water she had summoned fall back.
Elisha felt a twinge, and he shook it away.
Running, the red-haired one stood suddenly before him.
He raised an arm, but her hand snuck past him, her fingers brushing his face.
Shocked, Elisha froze. A fistful of death held close and ready, but she did not darken or fall, and the touch of her hand crashed through him like a wave of sudden sound. Around him, people screamed and prayed. The tall man—Ruari—called down his god of vengeance on a witch. Beside him, Lisbet cowered beneath his arm. Madoc intoned the words of an antique language, one they spoke here long ago, the rhythm of his hands trying to ward off evil. The prince dragged himself free of whatever entangled him and broke into a run.
The woman before him held out her hand. Her fingers indeed had darkened.
His cheek twitched with warmth, and Elisha shook his head to clear it, to maintain his focus. But the touch went too deep. It twined inside him, hot and growing hotter by the second, flaming through the veils of mist. Her touch dashed away the darkness in his eyes. It spread through his skin and radiated into every finger.
Elisha trembled and gasped. He struggled to keep his contact.
Then her eyes gleamed into his, and she spoke again that single, familiar word. “Elisha,” she said on a breath of fire.
The heat seared a pathway into his heart, casting off the icy grip that lodged there, and he screamed.
The pot tumbled from his spasming fingers.
Something snapped inside him. Elisha collapsed, and darkness took hold.
Chapter 37
Elisha’s eyes flew open. A woman shrieked and something clattered. He jerked upright, flung off the bedcovers, and leapt to his feet, looking around wildly. He remembered cold. A cold so deep it coursed through his veins and shot from his fingers.
On the tiled floor, a strange woman scrambled to her feet, her hair in disarray, a basket of stitchery overturned around her. “Don’t hurt me!” she wailed. Getting her feet beneath her, she crossed herself.
Elisha swallowed hard. His mouth felt dry as sand. His throat convulsed with pain, and he brought his hands up, feeling a bandage wrapped over a remembered injury. He did remember that, didn’t he? But it, too, had been cold.
As his hands fell, he stared. Something was wrong there. Elisha wriggled his fingers, turning his palms up and down. No, not his hand. Mordecai—the name sprang to his memory, and a rush of others followed: Ruari and Lisbet, falling in love in his absence; Madoc and Collum and all of his men; Benedict sinking cold from his arms. The prince, whose name he should remember, and Brigit, whom they both loved. Brigit who had melted the ice from his heart.
Elisha clapped his hand over his mouth, reeling with memory. Taking a few paces, he dropped to his knees before the terrified woman. “Did I kill the duke? Tell me! Did I kill him?”
Shrinking away, the woman swayed.
As she fainted, Elisha caught her and lay her on the ground. He leaned back on his heels.
“Elisha.”
He jerked as if someone had struck him, pulling himself half up as he turned.
Even as he did so, the air in the room grew warmer, somehow comforting, as if he drew a breath of lavender. The fallen maid stirred and sprang up to make her escape.
With a twisted smile, Mordecai bent down to him, holding out his hand. “Shouldn’t’ve left you. Sorry.”
Touching the bracelet of pale markings, Elisha grasped the offered hand. Comfort flowed through the contact, and he drank it in, letting out a shuddering breath as he shut his eyes. “Thank God,” he breathed. “Thank God.”
For a moment, Mordecai waited, and Elisha raised his head at last, letting himself be drawn up from the floor. Nausea swept through him, threatening to topple him once again, but Elisha clung to Mordecai’s hand, and the feeling receded.
Wearing a new cap, and a robe of practical brown, Mordecai studied him. “It’s been three days, Elisha, you are entitled to some weakness, yet.”
“Three days? But it seems—” he broke off. How could it be so, when the memory of cold still chilled his mind?
“It requires terrible strength to stop a war, and terrible weakness is bound to follow.”
Nodding, Elisha released his hand. “Terrible indeed. What have I done?” he murmured. As he stared at his hand, he remembered more than cold. He felt again the leaping joy of death flooding through him. So much power in th
is hand.
Mordecai closed the distance in a step, and set his hands on Elisha’s shoulders, gazing steadily up at him. “You have taken one life to save many others. Yes, you might have done much worse, you have held what no man should, and you have borne what no man should. Elisha Magus, you struggled with death on my behalf, and won. Death fought with you and might have taken you, but still you have won. In spite of all, you are a man of flesh and blood.” He smiled then, and the warmth of it banished the last of Elisha’s shivers. “Blessed and cursed, as we all must be.”
“Only one life? Can it be?” Relief set him to trembling inside, and he sat back onto the bed.
Mordecai stood before him, his touch more gentle now. “It was the king’s life, Elisha, and there will be a reckoning for that.”
A reckoning indeed. The king had been wicked, of this Elisha had no doubt, but a king nonetheless. Elisha hardly knew how vast a thing his death might be.
“You touched a guard,” Mordecai went on, “and might have killed him, but instead merely delivered an injury even the learned physician cannot account for.”
“What about the duke? He fell before me—I can’t see it clearly.”
As Mordecai parted his lips to answer, Elisha felt the ripple of someone approaching. “You will.” He stepped away, breaking the contact.
Tapping on the door left open in the nursemaid’s wake, Duke Randall strolled in. His arm was in a sling, and his eyes were still rimmed with darkness, but he walked confidently enough. “I heard a scream, and assumed you must have woken.” He nodded to Mordecai, who bowed slightly. “Are you still demonic?” he asked lightly, his lips curving a little.
“No, Your Grace, I think not.” He considered rising to bow, but decided against it as his vision wavered yet again.
“Glad to hear it. Welcome to my home.” It was the duke who bowed, his neck once again exposed to Elisha’s potential.
Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle Page 31