Tapestry of Dark Souls

by Elaine Bergstrom

  In the kitchen, Dirca began pulling the last of the loaves from the oven. Where had the girl gone? This was her duty. If Dirca hadn’t happened to pause to take a cup of tea, the bread would’ve burned.

  Sondra was useless, a romantic fool with eyes so blurred by dreams she couldn’t concentrate on work. Dirca thought of her own lost girls. If they had lived, they wouldn’t have been so foolish. When the time came to marry, they would’ve taken their mother’s advice and not chosen someone as young and naïve as Jon.

  As for Jon, he had no experience with women. He could hardly be blamed for his choice.

  A sigh that might have been only her imagination drew her attention to the hidden door that led to the caverns. She cracked it open and listened.

  Though layers of rock lay between her and the couple, Dirca thought she heard their breathing, their heartbeats, the murmur of Jon’s voice as he spoke passionately of his love. Also hearing Andor’s boots heading for the kitchen, Dirca closed the passage door and ran to the wood stove. When Andor entered the kitchen, she was pouring tea.

  “Sondra told me Jon has returned,” Andor said. “She went to him. I came to check the loaves.”

  “They would’ve burned,” Dirca answered petulantly. “The baking is Sondra’s duty. She’s shirking her work.”

  Andor laughed. “Work! Dirca, the girl is in love! Don’t you remember how it was with you and me?” He cupped her chin and raised it, intending to kiss her.

  His words stung. He saw the hate in her eyes, the jealousy. “He isn’t a child, Dirca. He doesn’t belong to you. Remember that,” he said, his voice low and even as he struggled to resist slapping her. He hadn’t been this angry since he learned to control his lycanthropy. With the wolf’s pendant heavy around his neck, he turned and stalked from the suddenly stifling room.

  He didn’t dare join the others at the table, so he stood near the kitchen door. Ivar noticed his expression and joined him. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  Andor shook his head. “Just a quarrel with Dirca. Nothing serious, but you know my temper.” His hand brushed the pendant as the spoke the last words.

  At the table, Mishya’s voice rose above the whispers of the others. “I tell you, these deaths weren’t natural. Something more than beasties is involved, something new. We should spy on the strangers among us.”

  Andor bristled. “I’ll shut him up if you won’t,” he whispered to Ivar.

  “Anything you say will only make the rumors worse. Let Mishya talk. Everyone knows Jon took the girl he wanted. No one has taken him seriously.”

  “They do now,” Andor countered. He saw it in the grudging nods of the men at the table, felt it even in himself. He watched as Ivar went to the table and soothed the men’s fears with a few well-chosen words. Soon after, the men left. Only Mishya remained. Mishya sat uncomfortably at the table. “Bring me ale,” he called to Andor.

  Andor shook his head. “Not so early,” he responded.

  “You must have some work to do,” Ivar added.

  Mishya took a deep breath. “Not until I talk to you,” he told Ivar. “Come and sit with me … please.” Ivar reluctantly did, and Mishya plunged into his confession. “I’ve always loved your daughter. You knew it. How could you let her marry a stranger?”

  Ivar had endured enough of Mishya’s self-pity, enough of his gossip about Jon’s past. “If you loved her, you wouldn’t have struck her on festival night. If you loved her, you would’ve worked harder and saved for your family instead of spending everything on ale.”

  “Is that it? Because I’m poor?”

  “You call Jon a stranger, but remember, Sondra and I weren’t born here. We came from a harder land than this, Mishya. I know real poverty. I also know the kind you brought on yourself, and how you thought to end it. Even if Jon hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have let you marry her.”

  Mishya lurched to his feet, leaning toward Ivar, who sat so calmly across from him. “How dare you—”

  “Speak the truth? Because you asked.”

  With white-knuckled fists, Mishya slammed the table aside. Before he could strike, Andor moved behind him. “Touch him and you’ll never be allowed in this place again,” Andor whispered.

  Mishya turned and looked into Andor’s blue eyes, fixed evenly on him, then at Ivar, who hadn’t moved from his seat. Both men were smaller than he. This could’ve been a well-matched fight, but Andor seemed to be waiting for a chance to rip him apart, and Ivar displayed only curiosity. It was as if he had moved beyond the concerns of fragile flesh, as if he possessed a multitude of lethal powers to defend himself.

  Andor opened the door.

  Mishya didn’t need a verbal dismissal. It took all his courage to keep from running.

  In the days that followed, Mishya made good use of his own small gifts. He started more gossip and watched it grow. Ivar was a stranger here. And Dirca. And Sondra. There were secrets in that inn, secrets from before Jonathan. The silver-haired man was the catalyst, the one who triggered the killings. Who else could it be? Who else was new to the town?

  Though business didn’t slacken at The Nocturne, many patrons came out of morbid curiosity. Instead of the usual banter between Andor and the townsmen, the men would sit at tables, speaking to one another in hushed tones. Though they still asked Jonathan to sing, they didn’t seem as moved by his voice as they had been before. Instead, they appeared to pass judgment on whether a youth so fair, with a voice so sweet, could be murderer.

  Though he had started the rumors about Jonathan, Mishya believed few of them. Ivar’s words had stung him all the harder for their truth, but now that he had revenge, he found little satisfaction in it. Every time he went to the inn, his attention strayed to the kitchen, hoping to catch some glimpse of Sondra. But she stayed out of sight unless Jonathan was singing. And Mishya found himself paying his rival to play just so Sondra would stand in the doorway to listen.

  Most of his friends had announced their betrothals. Their intentions would be formally sealed at the winter festival. He should stand beside them with Sondra, but another suitor would take his place.

  Mishya was poor, Ivar had told him. And indolent. The last wasn’t true. Mishya worked as hard as anyone, but he lived with his mother and little needed what he earned. They had a cottage, food, a warm hearth. True, they had few luxuries, but they hardly needed them. Besides, his mother never asked for anything.

  If it had been summer, he might have hunted more, might have proven his worth by selling beaver and fox pelts to the Nova Vaasan traders. In winter coin grew scarce. Coin! The thought of gold nagged him, driving out all other concerns.

  Money was his only hope for winning Sondra.

  Andor and Ivar had money, but no one else except Maeve. No one in Linde owned as much as she. Men took her gifts and drank wine she bought with gold!

  Gold!

  Mishya had never been inside her cottage, but he’d heard enough from those who had. They spoke of gems, jewels—a treasure that would easily satisfy Ivar. He could buy his love.

  Mishya spent days in the forest above her house, crouched in a concealing stand of trees, waiting for her to leave. On the third afternoon visit, he was lucky. With the hood of her black cloak pulled tightly around her face, Maeve began walking toward town. Mishya waited until she had disappeared among the distant cottages. Then, keeping to the shadows, he stole down the hill to her garden door. Lifting the broken latch, he moved easily inside the courtyard walls. He ripped the shutters from their casings, and crawled inside.

  The house was dark and empty, smelling of musky incense and exotic perfume. In the dim winter light that leaked through the broken shutters, he saw silk scarves hanging from hooks beside the door, crystal goblets on the table, a bottle of expensive cloudberry wine beside them.

  He drank it now, drank it right from the bottle, letting the sticky purple wine drip down his chin. Carrying the bottle in one hand, he began digging through the boxes on Maeve’s dressing table. Yes, t
here were coins among the jewelry. He dropped them into the sack he had brought, then gleefully took the jewelry as well.

  Wedding gifts, he thought, and laughed. As he lifted the bottle for a parting drink, a shadow covered his light. He turned and saw Maeve at the window.

  “Where did you think you could sell those things, thief?” she asked as she stepped inside. He started to answer, but she slammed him against the wall, shaking the cottage. The bottle shattered on the stone floor. Though she frightened him as much as Andor did, she was a woman and no match for his strength. With a growl of rage, he lunged, knocking her backward and landing with his body atop hers.

  His hands pounded her, but she fought fiercely back. He reached for the neck of the broken bottle and stabbed at her face, slicing one violet eye, ripping open her mouth. In response, she clawed him all the more ferociously. He slashed again, but her wounds healed behind the jagged glass. Though he kept up his attack, the very frenzy of it weakened him until, with a single heave of her body, Maeve tossed him off her.

  The piece of bottle fell from Mishya’s hand. He landed hard and lay panting, watching the woman stand and stagger toward him, the last cuts he made vanishing from her face as she reached him.

  “Rob me? I should have known you would be useless for anything but prey. It’s been a harsh winter. The goblins will welcome my leavings.” Her voice was so musical that her threat sounded like singing.

  He could say nothing, lying propped on his elbows, catching his breath, his eyes fixed on the inexplicable perfection of her face.

  “My slaves tell me of your gossip, of the foolish things you say about the people at the inn. Perhaps Ivar will even let me enter there again, when he hears how I dealt with you.”

  She gripped him under the arms and pulled him effortlessly to his feet. “Did anyone see you come?”

  He shook his head fearfully. With a husky laugh, she pointed to a chair. “Sit,” she said, as if to a dog.

  Mishya did as she asked, certain any attempt to escape would mean his death.

  “Do you know what I am, Mishya?”

  The question was one Mishya dared not consider. He shook his head.

  “Soon I will show you.”

  He looked dully at her, expecting some revelation. Instead, she moistened a cloth and began cleaning the drops of blood from her face. Then she sat, facing him, her expression savage and ravenous.

  When the gleam in her eyes grew too intense, he finally spoke. “What are we doing?”

  “Waiting for night,” she replied and ran one delicate fingertip down his trembling arm.

  He tried to smile. “That’s hours away,” he said. “Is there any wine?”

  “On the floor.” She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and began picking up the shards of broken glass. He kicked, catching her in the chin. As she fell backward, Mishya bolted frantically for the door. Her hand closed around his ankle and he fell heavily. The neck of the bottle pressed against the side of his face.

  “Go back to your seat, Mishya. Try to escape again and I’ll take out your eyes.”

  He obeyed, watching the small square of daylight from the window fade, and his hopes with it. At last, she lit a lamp. The wakening light showed that she held an hourglass in one hand and a knife in the other. “We will play a game, Mishya. You will leave here, running not toward town, but away from it. When the sands have run through the glass, I will follow.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “This is my hunt, Mishya. You play, or die now, painfully. The moon later tonight will give you light. If you run well and fast and do as I ask, I’ll kill you quickly. You might even escape, though I doubt it.”

  She turned the glass, opened the door and held out the knife, handle first. Mishya grabbed it and bolted out the door. Maeve stood in her doorway and watched him run. He reached the Timori Road, hesitated, then turned and headed straight toward town.

  Maeve expected as much. She laughed with delight, threw back her head and gave a low, mournful howl, a howl answered a moment later by two of her pack. Her bargain with Mishya was off. She lifted her hands to her face and inhaled his scent, pungent with fear. The torture will be pleasant, she thought as she disrobed.

  She had first noticed Mishya watching the cottage days ago. Though she knew a word whispered to him at the right moment would have sent him off to seek an easier target for his avarice, she’d let him come. The winter had been long and lonely, and her desire for the taste of human flesh had grown. It had been so long since she had dared to hunt a man that even the hags couldn’t deny her this one night of sport.

  The sand stopped flowing. Moments later, a huge silver fox padded from the house and sniffed the air.

  Though Mishya often braved walking by himself through Linde at night, he had never been alone in the thick woods after dark. All the lies he had told to scare children returned and added to his terror as he fled Maeve’s cottage. He glimpsed shadows beside him, in front of him. Only when they stopped did he see two huge wolves, their teeth bared, ready to attack.

  He tried to skirt around them, but they cut him off again. His mother’s tiny cottage was in sight, the inn lights bright in his eyes. His opened his mouth to scream. As he did, the wolves moved closer. With a cry of terror, he turned and fled into the hills east of town. The wolves flanked him at a distance.

  He had expected tribes of goblins to find him before Maeve. Instead the woods were strangely silent as if every creature knew of the hunt and had decided to stay away. Still, he had his knife—if Maeve caught him, the blade would make him a good match for her. He refused to wonder what form she would take when she caught him. In any form, she was only a woman—powerful, but only a woman.

  In time, he could no longer hear the wolves follow him. He even began to convince himself he had escaped. Then he heard the sound of a single pursuer. If it were Maeve, he didn’t want to be winded when he faced her. He turned and, with his back to a pile of boulders, waited for her to attack.

  A fox padded through the shadows. Just a fox. It sat below him on the hillside, its head cocked, its expression intelligent. Mishya let out a relieved sigh and took a closer look at the magnificent animal. What a price that silver pelt would bring. Perhaps enough …

  His heart pounded faster than it had through all the hours of his flight. The fox’s claws were red in the moonlight, and as he watched the paws lengthened and curved into red-nailed human hands!

  “Maeve?” he whispered.

  She attacked, ripping the knife from his hand, sinking her still-canine teeth once into his wrist, then backing off. She let him run until, out of breath, he stopped to make another stand.

  The quarter moon rose to its zenith and began to set before Maeve wearied of the game. One of Mishya’s wrists was broken and bleeding, three fingers were missing from his other hand. When he fell on the ice, as he did often, he would shriek with pain, scramble to his feet, and run a few yards before, dizzied by fear and loss of blood, he would fall again.

  In an exposed, moon-drenched clearing, she faced him and rose to her hind feet. The shape of her limbs shifted into something almost human, though her face remained a fox’s face; her body clothed in silver fur. He didn’t struggle as she came to him and lifted his bleeding hands above his head. Her long, pointed muzzle pushed beneath his chin. Her hot breath brushed his neck.

  “Maeve, let me live. Let me serve you.”

  In response, her teeth cut into his neck and he fell backward with her above him.

  A pale mist in the woods covered the face of the moon, distracting her for a moment from the kill. She raised her head and saw the mist coalesce in a glowing funnel beside her, one that slowly solidified into human form. As it did, Maeve felt her own power drain. Though she didn’t will it, her vixen shape faded until she crouched naked and shivering in the biting wind.

  Silver hair, pale eyes glowing silver in the light. “Jonathan?” she asked, though she knew this creature was too mature to be the youth.
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  “I felt his fear and his pain. You have need of the flesh, I of the life. We will share,” the silver man said, kneeling beside Mishya, who lay with his eyes wide, his mouth a small circle of fear. His hands covered Mishya’s eyes. “Feast,” he told her and pressed his lips against Mishya’s forehead.

  Maeve’s power returned as quickly as it had faded.

  Her shape changed once more. She straddled her prey, her human hands pushing up the front of his tunic, her vixen teeth ripping into the soft flesh of his belly.

  She didn’t need to be told to kill slowly, to inflict pain as she devoured her enemy. The Silverlord was sampling her handiwork and, for the first time in years, she wished to do whatever she could to please another. She didn’t question the reason; his power was reason enough.

  The body grew cold beneath her. She raised her head and moved away, watching the apparition claim the final shreds of Mishya’s life.

  She expected praise, but the man—if this were his true form—only raised his head, glanced coldly at her, and whispered, “Take the body where it will be found.”

  “And then …?” she asked, but the Silverlord had already begun to melt, and in a moment he dissipated into the moonlit night.

  Maeve sniffed the air and detected a sweet, cloying smell that was strong on Mishya’s forehead. If the apparition had a scent, it was no bodiless spectre, but a physical creature with a power beyond any in Tepest save, perhaps, the hags. She would find and charm him. It would be difficult on one so powerful, she knew, but her tricks had never failed her before.

  But first there was work to be done. Lifting the body’s feet, Maeve dragged it down the hills and dropped it near the front door of the inn.

  The moon scarcely touched the trees. Maeve had hours until dawn and decided to avoid letting the Silverlord’s trail grow old. With one last look at the body, she departed, bounding up the hill to the place where she had seen the man.

  In the shelter his son had provided, Morgoth sat, his body tingling with life, savoring the evening’s discovery. This land held powers, powers he could twist to his own ends. The woman was only the first of many he would find and use as minions until the souls on the cloth were released. What a find the vixen had been! Beautiful. Intelligent. Filled with a ravenous thirst for lifeblood almost equal to his own. She would come to him tonight, he knew that much. And, as he waited, he thought of all the ways she would serve him.