The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  He sat up, swiftly and silently drawing his knife.

  “You felt it too, didn’t you,” Carys whispered, her earnest young face underlit by the dying embers of the fireplace.

  “Yes,” Durik murmured, standing and looking around the bedchamber. All was still and silent, but for the wind and the rain knocking at the window.

  “It happened just now?” Durik asked, noting how the hairs along his forearms had risen.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Durik was silent for a while, his eyes closed. There had still been no sign of Logan and Ulma. He could wait no longer. He had to act.

  “What do we do?” Carys asked.

  “You will do nothing.”

  “Are you going to leave?”

  “Perhaps.” He opened his eyes and walked over to the window. A storm had risen during the night. It was impossible to see anything beyond the sheeting rain that was battering at the window. Fallowhearth lay swallowed in darkness.

  “Something is out there,” Durik said, pondering the dark presence that had woken him. It had reeked of grief and remorse, shot through with a resolve Durik found chilling in its intensity. “And it’s coming this way.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Before

  Kathryn stood at the top of the stairs, the helm of her cloak rippling in the wind blowing in through the tower’s broken wall. Except for the bluecrest twittering in its cage across from her, the chamber seemed to be deserted. The breeze made the pages of the books and scrolls scattered around her rustle.

  She stepped fully inside the room and lowered her hood, smiling. The bluecrest trilled louder, fluttering its little wings. It was hungry. She picked up a bag of seed from the table and paced to the cage, her senses on edge the whole time. Where? Where was she? As she poured a small amount of seed into the cage, she felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rising. She could almost hear Dezra’s voice. Trust your instincts.

  She turned sharply and raised her right hand, speaking loudly and clearly as she did so.

  “Ostendum!”

  The wall near the crack in the tower’s shell seemed to flicker and shimmer, revealing a figure standing there with a smile on her face – Dezra.

  “Got you,” Kathryn said, snapping her fingers. Dezra laughed and paced over to her, the last of the illusion spell sloughing from her form.

  “Not bad,” the sorceress said, and kissed her. Kathryn placed a hand on her waist, savoring the moment before Dezra broke it off to continue. “You’re getting better.”

  “At the unmasking spells, or the kissing?” Kathryn asked with faux seriousness, gazing up into Dezra’s eyes. The sorceress laughed again and stepped away.

  “I’ll let you decide. You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you until sundown.”

  “I told Abelard I was going to visit the border markers. He knows better than to question me now. He doesn’t even demand I take a maid with me any more.”

  “So you’re learning how to impose your will,” Dezra said, looking down at Kathryn a moment more before pacing over to the broken wall to gaze out at the moorland. “I’m glad. And I’m sure your mother would be proud.”

  “I’m less sure of that,” Kathryn said, watching Dezra for a moment before walking over to the table, her gaze wandering across the jumble of texts and parchments heaped there, as though seeking inspiration. “There are so many duties I have to attend to. So many problems that needed fixing on the spot. Boundary disputes, tax avoidance, tithe relief, the northern tribes migrating. I can only get away from it all when I’m here. Every time I leave this place, all I think about is coming back.”

  “You have your duties,” Dezra said, turning from the view to look back at Kathryn. “You know you cannot escape them. I will always be here for you, but you cannot abandon your noble house. Or your mother.”

  “Perhaps I can just learn to disappear for a few minutes,” Kathryn said, her smile more cautious now as she laid a hand on a particularly heavy-looking tome. “Won’t you teach me that one? What’s the point in being able to sense it and dispel it if I can’t cast it in the first place?”

  “A cloaking spell like that takes years of practice,” Dezra said. “And besides, the only one I can teach you is a part of the darker arts, the elements of Umbros. I told you I wouldn’t show you anything beyond the simplest magics. And especially not the lessons of the Cadaveribus.” She looked pointed at the book Kathryn had her hand on. She raised it with a shrug.

  “But you will keep teaching me the basic incantations?” the baroness’s daughter pressed hopefully. Dezra smiled.

  “I will. It helps give me a purpose. Focus is something I haven’t known for years. What would you learn of tonight? And don’t say a cloaking spell!”

  “Well, do you have something that can convince Abelard to stop worrying about the northern tribes,” Kathryn asked, clearly only half joking. Dezra scoffed.

  “Is he still complaining about them?”

  “Constantly. I need something to take my mind off his constant worrying. Tell me one of your stories. One of the tales from your days as an adventurer.” Dezra tutted, moving behind Kathryn and helping her out of her traveling cloak.

  “I think you’ve heard all the best ones already,” she said as she did so. Kathryn shook her head, sitting down on the edge of the table.

  “What about Sudanya?” she asked. “You never finished that one. How does it all end?”

  Now

  Ariad moved languidly across the web, her head and limbs twitching. Logan noticed that the threads vibrated whenever he or Ulma struggled, or whenever the arachyura moved close by, but the spider queen’s motions seemed to do nothing to disturb the slender weave.

  “You won’t take Durik,” Ulma said to her as she prowled around them. “He speared you once and he’ll do it again.”

  Ariad hissed, moving closer to the dwarf.

  “His pet, the girl. It will distract. Why else do you think I allowed her to stay? I will have both. She will be a tasty treat for my younglings.”

  The surrounding arachyura chirred in apparent excitement.

  “And you think you can lure Dezra down here using Kathryn?” Ulma demanded. “You would be a fool to do so. She’s far more powerful than she was in Sudanya. More powerful than you.”

  The arachyura clacked their pincers aggressively. Ariad clutched the web binding Ulma.

  “You know nothing of power, Dunwarr. I have tricked the masters of this land. I have hidden before their very eyes. My nests are many. My children breed and multiply in places far and near.”

  “It must have taken you years,” Logan said, trying to take some of the spider queen’s attention off Ulma. How typical, to be the one having to talk her out of a scrape. Ariad’s mask turned towards him and he immediately wished he hadn’t spoken.

  “My kind are patient,” she clicked, crawling slowly over to him. “If a web is made with care, it lasts. Long enough for prey to wander by. Wander in.”

  “Well, I do love a lady who can hold a grudge,” Logan said, forcing himself not to flinch as she loomed over him.

  “Shame none love you, Logan Lashley,” she hissed. “Grudge or not.”

  She clamped a hand down over his mouth, almost crushing his jaw. The web beneath him went into spasms as both he and Ulma began struggling, the dwarf crying out. The pressure on his skull caused tears to well up in his eyes. That wasn’t the worst thing though – in front of him, the webbing that bound Ariad’s hand began to come away, peeling down and extending from her fingers to his mouth. In just a few moments his lips were bound shut again, his jaw sealed. Ariad released him.

  “Your strength is words,” she said, turning away from him. “So you speak no more. Do not fear though. When the time comes, I will make sure you can still scream.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rain. She felt
rain on her skin, stinging and cold. Wind too, snatching at her clothes. It woke something in her, refreshed thoughts that had lain smothered and suffocated for too long.

  Her head ached. Her throat was dry. She felt weak. It was dark – she was used to that – but it was a different sort of darkness. Something far removed from the hot, stony depths she had known. There was cold mud oozing beneath her feet. A banging sound, loose shutters. A creaking noise, like an old ship at sea.

  She stumbled, her hand going out and finding a wall. Wattle. A sturdy doorframe and windows. She looked around as the rain fell, trying to better discern her surroundings in the dark.

  She was standing in a street, an open street. She knew this place. Fallowhearth. She had come to it… when? How long ago? A few weeks, she thought. Mother had sent her. It was her duty to go to Fallowhearth, to assume her duties as the future ruler of Forthyn, to show that she had the capacity to lead, to command – the skills she had so admired in her mother. She was a great woman, truly. She had told her that when she had seen her last, just recently.

  Her mother was in Fallowhearth, she was sure. She had to find her. And if not, well, the witch would help her.

  “The witch,” Kathryn said aloud, wiping long, wet hair from her eyes. Who was the witch? It felt important. Why was she so confused? Her headache made thinking difficult. It pounded like a drum between her temples, making her stumble slightly as she tried to take a few more paces.

  There was the creaking noise again, and a rattle she took to be a latch. One of the doors facing out onto the street had opened and a figure was emerging, sluggish and slow. Kathryn walked towards it, calling out.

  “Hello?”

  The figure turned and Kathryn came to an abrupt halt. Though still indistinct in darkness, she caught an impression of a hideously disfigured face, and a torso that had been dealt a grievous wound. The figure, a dire shape in the dark, let out a low moan.

  “Oh, great Kellos,” Kathryn exclaimed, stumbling back. She heard footfalls in the mud behind her and turned sharply. Two more figures were shuffling towards her, a man and a woman. The man was missing his jaw, and the woman half her skull. The nearest walking corpse reached out, slowly, shakily.

  Kathryn struck the hand away with a shriek and ran, thrusting past the undead. There were more ahead, emerging from the houses out onto the street, their groaning filling the air. She had done this, she was sure. Just as the witch had warned her. Terror gripped her heart.

  Overhead, with a great crash, the storm’s fury broke.

  • • •

  Low mist coiled across the street, seemingly unaffected by the wind and rain pelting Fallowhearth. To Dezra it was like walking in a dream – she was weightless, immaterial and numb. All around she could feel the nightmares of the townspeople in their beds, raw, bloody and dark. She could feel too the sharp jolts as they awoke, sweating and panting and crying. Fallowhearth was riddled with fear tonight.

  She had never gone this far with her powers before. She had felt as though she was about to throw up when she had first materialized in the shrine to Nordros, and the gravekeeper had found her. Something had happened since then, though – she had pushed through the draining discomfort that spellwork always brought on, finding an inner core of strength, a reservoir of power that wasn’t yet showing signs of running out.

  The magic took its toll in other ways, though. Right now it seemed as though Dezra’s fears and doubts were manifesting in the minds of Fallowhearth’s remaining townspeople. Some stumbled from their homes, half-dressed, drawn out by the unknowable forces at play. Dezra heard shouts and the wet slap of running feet in the mud. She was invisible to them, though, her presence passing around and through shivering bodies as she made her way through the black streets towards Fallowhearth castle, and the light that shone in the single window near the top of its tallest tower.

  Just short of the gate she heard more voices, this time raised in anger rather than fear or confusion. Bodies stumbled past, indistinct in the dark. A flame flickered ahead as a torch was struck. For a second her consciousness wandered, her mind forming an impression of a gathering of people, townsfolk, pointing and shouting among themselves. One broke free from the press and ran from them with a shriek. Shouting, they pursued. Dezra’s heart seemed to stop and her enchantment unraveled as she saw that one fleeing figure, clad in a traveling cloak that seemed to be covered in strands of gossamer thread.

  It was Kathryn.

  “No,” Dezra shouted, her shock manifesting in the word as it ripped through the nightmares of everyone still asleep in Fallowhearth, dragging them screaming into wakefulness. The fog that was prowling the streets turned an ugly, angry black, whipping together with the rising wind, taking on shape and form. Dezra materialized in front of Kathryn, snatching her slender body and holding her firm as she tried to break free.

  “It’s me,” she said, a desperate edge to the soothing tone. “Kathryn, it’s Dezra!” She dragged back her hood, looking desperately into Kathryn’s eyes. A foul, golden light, visible only to Dezra’s witch sight, was suffusing her, but she saw recognition in her eyes. Kathryn stopped struggling.

  “Oh gods,” Kathryn said, and collapsed into Dezra’s arms, burying her face in her shoulder.

  “It’s alright.” Dezra hugged her fiercely. A part of her was exultant, triumphant. She’d been right not to give up hope. All the fear and misery of the past month had fallen away. “I’m with you now.”

  “The undead,” Kathryn said, looking up at her with panic in her eyes. “The corpses are coming! The town is overrun! What have I done?”

  “There are no undead,” Dezra tried to reassure her. Now she had her back, nothing was going to separate them again. She was surrounded by danger and threat, but all of those things she could fight. The uncertainty was gone. “You’ve been hexed. I need to get you somewhere safe, where I can break it. Then everything will become clearer.”

  “Who in Kellos’s name are you?” shouted a gruff voice. Dezra looked up to see the townsfolk who had been pursuing Kathryn gathering around them. They were an ugly, vicious-looking group in the light of their torches, half afraid, half angry, made sick by the fear they had been enduring for so many weeks. Dezra had seen that look too many times before.

  “She’s the witch,” one woman cried out. “Just look at her! She’s driven the Lady Kathryn mad!”

  There was no time for explanation, even less for negotiation. Dezra had long ago given up trying either when faced with the ignorance and prejudice of the people of Terrinoth. She hissed a curse-phrase, and the townsfolk that had started to surround her let up a wail as their most primal fears intruded abruptly onto their consciousness, momentarily breaking their grasp on reality.

  Holding Kathryn by the hand, Dezra steered her free of the screaming mob. The girl was weeping with sheer terror, whatever hex had infected her mind clearly convincing her that everyone in the town she encountered was a rotting, reanimated corpse. Dezra had never known magic like it. Seeing Kathryn driven on by such fear made her angry, the emotion counteracted by more rational fears of her own – what being could have done this to her?

  She led her to the Shrine of Nordros. She needed somewhere to break the hex, and quickly, or it could tighten its grip on Kathryn, and Dezra might never get her out of Fallowhearth. Rain was sheeting down now, churning the streets into a stream of muck. Kathryn was soaked through. Dezra kept her hand in hers, right up the steps to the shrine’s main doors.

  The tomb-keeper was still there, kneeling before the idol of Nordros. He started when they entered and Dezra’s balefire lit the braziers around the walls, his eyes darting from the cloaked sorceress to the dazed and terrified woman in her grasp.

  “Bar the door,” Dezra snarled. The man hurried to obey as she gently took Kathryn to one of the pews, making her sit.

  “It’s all gone wrong, Dezra,” she mumbled, her eyes g
lazed. “Please forgive me! Please!”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Dezra said, placing her hand on the side of Kathryn’s head and planting a soft kiss on her brow, trying to bring calm and clarity to her. “I told you, you’ve been hexed. Try and clear your mind, while I unbind you from it.”

  She knelt before her and closed her eyes, gently taking both of Kathryn’s hands in hers as she sought the words that would break the curse. Almost as soon as she began, she felt the resistance – the incantation came only slowly, each utterance forced. Whoever had placed the spell on Kathryn had been immensely powerful. Breaking it could be painful, for both of them. For a second Dezra quailed at the thought of hurting her, but she knew she had no choice. She continued to chant.

  Kathryn began to groan and tried to rise back to her feet. Dezra eased her back down, breaking the recital for a moment to snap at the tomb-keeper as he finished sealing the shrine’s doors.

  “Get over here and help me with her!”

  The man ran to her side and gripped Kathryn by her shoulders, partially pinning her in place as Dezra began to chant once more.

  Kathryn began to scream and struggle. Dezra couldn’t tell whether it was because she thought the tomb-keeper holding her down was a decaying undead, or because removing the hex was causing her pain. She suspected it was both, and the realization caused her to falter. Seeing Kathryn like this was almost unbearable. Dezra forced herself to continue, chanting louder and faster as she rose and placed a hand on Kathryn’s sweat-streaked brow.

  “Syath nex rath,” she hissed, then gasped as a shock traveled through her body. Golden light flowed from Kathryn’s eyes, then faded as she stopped struggling and slumped back against the pew. Dezra knelt before her again, her limbs trembling with the aftereffect of the spell, taking Kathryn’s hands in hers as the tomb-keeper took an uncertain step back. She looked up at Kathryn, her heart racing, searching desperately for lucidity in her eyes, for any sign that the hex was broken.