by David Waid
“For Ignacio,” she said out loud, lifting.
The contents, sheltered from lamplight, were indistinct. She began to reach in and pull items out, one piece at a time, placing them on the floor beside her. The first, largest and heaviest, was a sphere of solid mahogany on a stand, with intricate brass rings, marked with arcane notations, cleverly assembled to move around the sphere without touching. They hovered the barest fraction of space above the wood’s curve, anchored only at top and bottom.
Next came a wooden rod with letters of the Greek alphabet cut into it, a line of braided crimson cord, a square plate of brass with a pentagram inscribed on its surface, a tattered fabric scroll and a silver chalice with images of nude women and dancing satyrs circling the lip. Four books followed. Three of them looked brittle and frayed, hide bound covers crackling with age. The last was clearly of more recent make: a thin book, a quire of paper, no more, and bound in soft, supple leather. Opening this book, she found it filled with Ignacio’s careful handwriting in tiny lines. As Teresa examined the book, two heavy keys tumbled from between its pages and onto the floor. Keys and more keys, she thought.
Looking at these two cold, seemingly insignificant pieces of metal, Teresa wondered whether this was what Ignacio had meant her to see. She looked at the shelves and all the things her brother’s hands had shaped or played with. Alive or dead, Ignacio had spoken to her. For his sake, she would study what he had written and she would act. For his life or for his memory, it didn’t matter which.
Turning to the first of Ignacio’s writing, she paused, closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. Then she read.
9. Rituals
Leinster
In a room at the Inn of the Three Shrikes, six years of training warred with a lifetime of impatience. Sairshee had been told that even as a suckling babe she’d had a temper, squalling for the teat, tiny fists clenched, face mottled red and purple. Now, she made fists again, striking them against her leg.
Arra! Calm yourself.
Circling the chamber, she doused the candles so recently lit by the servant girl, all save one. She arranged the implements of her ritual on the floor: a brass bowl, a lock of hair, her bone-handled knife and a wand of delicately carved cherry wood. This — all of it — in service to Lodovicetti, her new master. Gritting her teeth, she once again struggled with anger. Soon she would recognize no authority but her own.
A hidden panel in the library of her old master, Cecht, had held scrolls with the forbidden and potentially deadly lore of a Harenin ritual. Nobody had known he possessed the writings, not even Sairshee, who’d thought she knew all the bent old man’s hoarded secrets. But the scrolls and their priceless knowledge had languished in his possession for years, to judge by the patina of dust they wore. Perhaps he had thought someday he’d find the courage to perform the rite. The scrolls, however, passed to her when she discovered them and Master Cecht lay dead by her hand.
Not such a wise scholar, he. At least not so much she couldn’t lead the old goat around by his withered loins.
Still, he taught her well, and faster, he confessed, than he thought prudent with a woman. At Sairshee’s whispered urging, he propelled her through his decades of accumulated knowledge and secrets ferreted from the libraries and sages of Europe and the Holy Land. And she had done her part. The best of students, quick and studious, a marvel to behold. So said Master Cecht at night in his bedchamber as he drank his aphrodisiac decoction of deer phallus and devil’s thorn.
Under Cecht’s tutelage, she achieved circles of mastery others only dreamed of. The eighth circle, the ninth: Cumiriel and Narabin. Tenth, Yophiel. Even Master Cecht’s own eleventh, Animitur, the last circle one could master without risking body, mind and soul.
Cecht was dead, but the scholar had left her with the scrolls, the keys to penetrating that twelfth and final circle, where the Maleficarum ruled. Though few in number, they possessed the power to compel their lesser brethren through abject fear, just as Lodovicetti compelled her now. This could change if only she found the courage that had failed Cecht. Sitting on the floor of her chamber at the inn, Sairshee turned her hand over, rubbed a finger across the smooth skin of her wrist. No. Later. For now, she must focus on the task set before her by the Maestro.
Using the basin of water from her bedside table, Sairshee doused the room’s little peat fire and a rush of steam clouded the air. She stirred the ashes, killing the few stubborn embers. Though the sun still shone outside, her chamber was dark and gloomy, the shutters sealed. Through them came the touch of cold and soon enough, she knew, the chamber would be freezing.
Yanking blankets from the bed and pulling them around her shoulders, she placed the candle on the floor. From a saddlebag, Sairshee drew a latched ebony coffer, intricately carved with ivy vines. The design went deep, cutting all the way through in places to create a lattice from which came the squeakings of a mouse she’d caught earlier.
Picking up the lock of hair, she rubbed it between forefinger and thumb. Strands fell loose, landing in and around the bowl. When she had sifted almost all the hairs, she took three, twisted them together and held them in the candle flame where they withered, releasing their stench. Fanning the fumes toward her face, she breathed deep.
The mouse had gone silent. With one hand, Sairshee unlatched and lifted the lid. Her other hand darted in, seizing the creature. Its head peeked out at one end of her fist, unable to bite. From the bottom, its tail jerked. Tense, wriggling, its tiny heart pittered against her palm. She narrowed her eyes and whispered soothing words, rubbing a fingernail over the fur of its head. Soon, the tail ceased to move and the black eyes glistened like onyx chips, though its heart continued to race.
Sairshee lifted the animal’s jaw with the flat of her knife blade. Then, careful not to nick her hand, she pushed the tip into its neck. The creature convulsed, but made no sound. When the red tip of the little knife poked through the other side, she flicked it sideways, almost severing the neck entirely. Upending the dead mouse, she watched spatters of its blood fall in the bowl, mingling with the hair. The main run of blood finished quickly and she squeezed the carcass, tossing it aside.
She closed her eyes, but thoughts of the Harenin nagged at her. No, that wasn’t it. It was the memory of failure that harried her concentration. So many failures. She could recall in excrutiating detail every time she’d set out with shaking hands to perform the rite. Every ingredient at hand, every implement placed just so. Yet each time — at the last possible instant — she pulled back, heart hammering like the mouse in its box.
Because she knew what came next.
Focus, curse you.
She breathed long and slow through her nose, at last succeeding in clearing away thoughts of the scrolls and of Lodovicetti. Folding her hands together, Sairshee spoke the first words of ritual to the cardinal directions of the earth.
Sen estaht etaan
Sen estaht lahteen
Sen estaht pohjoiseen
Sen estaht etelassa
Reaching forward, she dipped a finger in the bowl, the wetness growing cold as she brought it to her lips. The tip of her tongue flicked, tasting the blood: a thin, metallic flavor. She passed the wand over the bowl several times, then repeated with the candle, closing her eyes and watching the rose glow on the back of her lids. The summoning of her five senses complete, Sairshee’s ruddy lips opened to speak the final verse.
Anna minun henkeni menna
Anna sen tulla puertin kuin kometta taivankasi
Antakaa minule tama lahja suuri, Gammorh
Yes, she thought, let my spirit wander like stars blown across a pool of night. With the final word of incantation, Sairshee’s mind achieved Claritatem, the perfect state of awareness, and she had that momentary, startling sensation of falling. It was as if her soul went slack, like the four corners of a tent had come un-pegged. The room shifted a fraction and her awareness came unwoven from the chamber beneath the gabled roof.
The candle we
nt out. The room fell to darkness. The witch, her consciousness flown, collapsed. A vision unfolded for Sairshee that was blinding after so much dark, yet she exulted. In front of her lay that which she had wished to see.
Mountains, sky, snow, blood.
The brigand captain, Cahill na Coppal, stood with a sword in his chapped, red hand while restless winds buffeted wisps of black smoke between houses. The streets were a freezing muck of mud, churned snow and blood. He spun, sweeping his gaze across dilapidated hovels and shattered doors hanging from broken hinges. Flames leapt skyward from thatched rooftops. His lads had finally brought down the village.
No living peasant could be found, although Cahill hadn’t yet spotted the old man in the thick of the dead. Earlier, that one had been seen here and there among the townsfolk, giving encouragement. Cahill almost believed the rumor flying among his men that this was the village priest, but he’d had his own encounter with the man and knew him as something more.
“Devil” was more like it. The man fought like a soldier and dressed in a knight’s mail with a shield on one arm and, in the other, a broad sword. Old the man might be, yet he’d organized a deadly resistance. If Cahill hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have laughed at the idea. Now his laughter curdled in his throat. The band Cahill had built, the tool of his dreams and ambition, was shattered.
Worse yet, a reckoning was inevitable with his personal sovereign and leash-holder, the damned witch, Sairshee. He knew with stomach-churning certainty that she would be coming for him because of today’s failure. How she would accomplish the trick or what she would do when she came, he couldn’t guess. He knew little about her, only enough to make him sick with fear.
In fury, he thought of the covenant he’d agreed to on one particularly black, intoxicated night, as he lay tangled in her pale limbs. Test the children and find the boy, she’d said. Leave no witnesses. The pact bound him to her side, its price paid out in the lives of children.
But what now? What would happen when Sairshee learned all the children were gone and all he had left was the tattered remnants of his band? What would she do when she found out he had both failed and become useless, all in a day?
This was not how he’d thought this day would end. There had been no alarms in the beginning, and no one to spot them. The brigands sauntered boldly up the village road, cocky and smiling, flush with the success of their plan. Then the silence became eerie.
Screams they might have expected from the people, flight and panic certainly, but not this emptiness. The thinnest of doubts assailed first one and then another of the men until, by the time they neared the commons, they no longer walked quietly. Some were openly muttering while Cahill looked around with a baleful eye. The doors of houses hung open. Cahill motioned a man towards one of them. The brigand drew a long dagger, spat into the trampled snow and entered. Emptiness and abandonment were all he found.
Cahill was a wary animal, yet even he let his weapon drop as he surveyed the buildings. He almost missed movement on the roof, but some small flash caused his head to snap back. An old man in a suit of ill-fitting chain mail rose to his feet above the village’s filthy tavern and said the word, “Loose.” Bowstrings thrummed and arrows punched into men all around him. Many of Cahill’s fellows dropped in that first deadly hail.
From that time to this had been chaos. The men of his company dealt bloody death when they caught up with villagers, but the peasants refused to fight. They ran. And each time the brigands gave chase they were led into yet another trap or ambush. The lads became frustrated, enraged, losing all discipline.
He’d tried to keep his men together, only they were too angry, too far gone, and finally he gave up and joined them. One pursuit led Cahill and three others into a hovel. The villager ran out the back, closing and wedging the door. Someone else slammed the door shut behind them and in the darkness they smelled oil and pitch. Moments later, the place went up like a tinderbox. Two of his fellows had died there, bodies flaming like torches before he and Sean Tunney were able to kick a door open.
Only once in the fighting had he come close to the priest, and he counted himself lucky to survive. He’d rounded the corner between two huts with Tunney in tow and ended up facing a makeshift barricade. The knight, or priest or whatever he was, walked in behind them, blocking their retreat.
Beyond the old man, Cahill saw some of his boys go pelting past without stopping to look. He wanted to call for help, but they were gone. A mob of peasants carrying cudgels, mattocks and hoes followed on their heels. Standing next to him, Sean muttered, “Oh, sodding shite.”
The old man moved into a shoulder-wide stance with his left side facing them. He held his sword arm directly behind him at an angle, the blade’s tip pointed to the ground. His shield arm fell limp to expose his side, a weakness or a challenge.
Cahill knew nothing of the man other than he was murderous with a sword and this was just another trap. Sean didn’t see it that way. Or his nerves got the better of him. Before Cahill could say a word, Sean Tunney lifted his weapon overhead with both hands and charged for the opening, a high-pitched scream on his lips. Cahill shouted at him to stop, but too late.
Sean ran in and the priest moved, quick as a cat. He swung his front foot behind him, carrying his body away from Sean and turning so that he now faced the two brigands over his right shoulder. As he pivoted, the old man whipped his torso and shoulders around and put all the power of that twist into the sword that had been behind him. The blade swung up and over. Down it came like God’s finger.
The first four inches of the priest’s blade split Sean Tunney, chin to sternum, its wicked edge laying him open like a gutted fish while Cahill watched in horror. Before Tunney hit the ground, the priest had rounded on Cahill.
Then the old man faltered. His shield fell and Cahill saw a chance. Of course, such a chance had killed Tunney. Gritting his teeth, he rejected the bait. When Cahill didn’t charge, he expected the priest to abandon the trick. Instead, the shield dropped further.
And further.
The priest stumbled to one knee and Cahill didn’t know what to make of it. He feinted for the old man’s hip, eliciting a feeble parry. Pretended a jab at the man’s leg, no response at all. Looking at the priest and the open street behind him, Cahill gauged his odds to get by at a sprint.
Real pain shone in the old man’s eyes. He squirmed and held his chest. This was no trick, but some malady of the heart! Cahill hungered for the kill, yet it would be disastrous to get caught again in this dead-end trap: his luck never came in pairs. He heard another mob approaching. His lot or the village rabble?
Shite. The old man would be dead soon enough by the look of things. Cursing, Cahill ran for it.
Without their bloody priest, the villagers fell apart, were hunted down and butchered. When it was done, Cahill gathered the eight remaining members of what had been his band of thirty-six. Eight. Of those, only three could still stand and fight: Aiden, Corc and Mabon.
He was thankful for Aiden, by God. The man was smart and ruthless. The other two were a mismatched pair, if ever there was: Mabon, the slow-witted hulk, and Corc, no more than sixteen, dressed like a poor man’s peacock and eager for blood.
His men stared at him like he’d gone mad. Aiden, he realized, had been talking.
“The Devil!” Cahill said. “Slow down and say it again.”
“Most of the women and children’ve run west for Ballysmutton. A great mob of ‘em from the looks of it.”
“Ye said ‘most.’ What’s that mean, then?”
“One wagon run east from the church, down t’ other way. Tried to hide their marks, but not enough.”
Cahill ran both hands through his graying brown hair. Everything about this day was wrong. Someone else, he suspected, knew the object of the hunt. Someone smart. With enough men, he’d have split them, but he no longer had the numbers. He had to choose.
“That wagon’s our meat, lads.”
“What?
That’s shite,” said Corc. “Better pickins’ll be with the mob!”
“We done the hard part of the chase, fer sure,” said Aiden. “It’d be poor work to let the stag limp away.”
“Nah. Nah. Think, boys.” Cahill thumped Corc on the chest. “In every pig-swiving village, there’s only the priests that get fat. Wherever the church things went is where the real work’s at.”
Aiden considered, then nodded. “A’right. I’m yer man.”
Corc looked between the two older men, his eyes a-squint while Mabon gazed up at the sky, mouth half open. Finally, the boy nodded.
Cahill wanted to search for the old man’s corpse, just to be sure. Yet night would fall and what held his band together ran thinner than soup. The wounded they left behind to strip the dead, forage food and return to their camp in the woods.
As things fell out, they didn’t need to look for the priest. He came to them, staggering into the open and kneeling in the snow as they guided their horses past the church. The man was weaponless and without shield, clutching his left arm, looking small in his blood spattered tabard and coat of chain. Bringing their horses to a standstill, the brigands gaped. Did the priest actually expect to be given quarter?
Cahill peered in each direction, expecting an ambush, but there was no one else.
“I’m right glad to see ye,” he said. Throwing a leg over his saddle, he slid down the horse’s side. The others dismounted, as well, placing themselves around the priest in a half circle, swords drawn.
The man’s head was bowed and one hand lay limp in his lap while he massaged his shoulder with the other. He swayed like a drunkard. Aiden swaggered close, leaning in till he was on a level with the old man’s eyes. “Ye’ve a lot to answer for, man.”