Thief of Light

by Denise Rossetti

  When she would have moved forward, he held out an arm, barring her progress. “Not yet.”

  “Siblings preserve us!”

  Prue whirled around. Behind her stood three servants, their faces white as paper. A weather-beaten man with a spade over his shoulder and two girls carrying stout wicker baskets. Probably on their way to the kitchen garden.

  The man took a pace forward. “What are ye doin’ here? What the hell is that thing?”

  “Shit!” said Erik.

  Her stomach curdling with dread, Prue turned. The Necromancer was regrouping, steadying, his shadow spreading like a foul stain over the garden. “I am a god.” The sexless voice was bell-clear. “What makes you think you can kill me, boy?”

  Erik clenched his fists. “Someone has to.”

  One of the girls gave a stifled shriek. “Sister, it’s a demon!”

  Without moving her head, Prue said, “Run! If you value your life, run! Get help.”

  An empty basket bounced past her feet. The spade hit the path with a clang. Three sets of feet beat a hasty tattoo up the path.

  The Necromancer swelled horribly, pulsing. “I am Death,” he hissed, and this time, it sounded like simple truth rather than melodrama. “I am made of its emptiness, as near dead as makes no difference.” He swooped closer and Erik inhaled deeply, setting his feet and raising his hands again. The winds rose, shrieking. Then they reversed, creating a howling vortex.

  The Necromancer’s sibilant chuckle raised all the hairs on Prue’s body. “Forget it, wizard. You cannot pull the air from my lungs. There is none.”

  Prue wrapped her arms around the cedderwood and hung on with all her strength.

  The darkness drifted forward, inexorable as the slow advance of black ice down a mountain. Erik’s hands moved and a cloud of dirt and twigs and crushed flowers whirled all around him.

  Chuckling, the Necromancer surged straight through it. “At last,” he hissed. “All is accomplished. You are mine—mine!” Her eyes stretched wide with horror, Prue watched him inflate, expanding until he was twice Erik’s height and width.

  He swooped. Erik stumbled backward and fell.

  The Necromancer cried out, a high eldritch shriek of triumph and greed, but Erik roared.

  She’d never heard anyone make a noise remotely like it before—a dreadful, full-throated bellow of utter revulsion, terror and pain. The sound catapulted her into action. Before she knew it, Prue had seized the gardener’s abandoned spade and darted forward.

  She was too focused to waste her breath on a shout. With a grunt of effort, she set her feet and swung the spade like a scythe, straight down at the writhing form of the Necromancer. The edge of the implement sliced into his dark substance and connected with something both fleshy-soft and solid. Thunk!

  The Necromancer gave a choking cry. Prue growled her satisfaction and stepped forward for another swing. As she did so, her bare foot came into contact with the trailing edge of the Necromancer’s shadow.

  Completely without warning, Erik was wrestling on the grass with a plump little man with a fringe of white hair, his spectacles all askew.

  Prue’s jaw dropped. Time slowed, and stopped.

  The man turned his head, his faded blue eyes boring into her, burning with hatred. “Should have killed you, bitch.”

  Erik recovered almost immediately. Wrapping his big hands around the man’s throat, he got to his feet, hauling the small, limp figure with him. “Fuck!” he grunted, staring, “I know you.”

  His brow furrowed, he set the other man on his feet, looming over him, all muscle and power, his broad chest still heaving with exertion. “You’re, you’re . . .”

  The Queen’s Knowledge bared his teeth. “Death,” he said, snatching Erik’s blade from the scabbard at his waist. In a single swift motion, he shoved it hard under Erik’s ribs and wrenched it out with a cruel twist of the wrist.

  “No,” whispered Prue, light-headed with terror. “No.”

  The Knowledge laughed, high-pitched and breathy.

  Erik’s eyes went wide, then blank. He tried to speak, but blood bubbled on his lips. With an enormous effort, he turned his head toward Prue and half raised a hand.

  “Erik,” she said, but no sound came out.

  He swayed, steadied, then fell full length on the torn-up lawn.

  The Knowledge pounced, his elbow drawn back for another thrust.

  “No-ooo!” The spade struck him in the back of the head with a hideous, bone-cracking clang. “No!” shrieked Prue, advancing, berserk with rage and grief and terror.

  The Knowledge reeled back and scrambled to his feet. When he touched the back of his head, his fingers came away bloody.

  Another step. “No!” Clang!

  Holding his arms over his head, the Knowledge scrambled backward toward the low wall at the end of the garden. His mouth worked as if he were about to spit, but Prue was exalted by her fury. She gave him no respite.

  “Kill . . .” she panted. Clang! “Kill you!” Clang!

  His back to the wall, the queen’s minister made a last desperate grab for the shaft of the spade. One eye was purple, half-closed, and his glasses had disappeared. They glared at each other, nose to nose.

  The Necromancer’s gaze shifted to something over Prue’s shoulder. “Look, dear, he’s dying.” When he spat out a tooth, his bloody spittle sprayed Prue’s cheek.

  Her guts iced over. Oh gods, no, no, no . . .

  With shocking suddenness, the Necromancer strained against her. He was an old man, but he was a man nonetheless, ruthless and utterly desperate. He ripped the spade from her grasp, but before he could swing it, Prue struck upward, hitting him over the heart with the heel of her hand, bending her knees and putting the strength of hip, thigh and shoulder into the blow, the way Walker had taught her. The impact rang bright bells of pain all through her body, but the Knowledge staggered backward, his arms flying. The low wall caught him behind the knees and he wavered for an instant, before disappearing with a splash.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Prue thought she glimpsed blue forms cutting through the water, but she couldn’t care because she was sprinting across the grass, back to Erik.

  She reached him in a stumbling rush, falling to her knees at his side. “Erik, Erik!”

  Vaguely, she was aware of voices, the rapid thud of many feet approaching, but Erik’s pale face filled her whole world. He was blue to the lips, his eyes half-lidded and glassy with pain. “P-Prue.” It was no more than a whisper.

  Instead of wasting words, Prue lifted the blood-stained hand he’d clamped against his side and pressed the heels of both her hands against the wound.

  Someone crouched beside her. “Here.” Holding a bundled-up shirt, calloused hands joined hers, applying steady pressure.

  “Can’t . . . breathe,” rasped Erik.

  “Sshh,” said Prue. “Don’t talk.”

  The man at her side said, “A healer’s coming, Mistress. Hold on.”

  “N-no air,” said Erik. The ghost of a smile curved his lips and his bloody fingers fumbled for her wrist. “. . . funny.” His touch on her skin felt like ice.

  Prue leaned down until her breath stirred the matted blond lock that fell over his forehead. “You listen to me, Erik Thorensen. You will not die. Do you hear me? I. Will. Not. Permit. It.”

  “B- bossy .”

  “I will follow you to the depths of hell and drag you back. Got it?”

  Erik lay quietly, and she had the sense he was gathering himself for some final effort. She wanted to scream her rage and frustration into his face. No, no—a thousand times no! But she didn’t. Instead, she set her jaw and pressed the reddening shirt harder against his side.

  His eyes opened, intently blue on hers. “It’s not . . . so bad.” An otherworldly smile that chilled her blood. “Done . . . it . . . before.” He hissed, trembling under her hands. “Shit, it hurts.”

  Prue laid her cheek against his. “Shut up,” she whispered. “You’re
making it worse.”

  “Promised I’d . . . p-pay . . . my debt.” Slowly, so slowly, he lifted his fingertips to brush her jaw. “P-pretty Prue. So . . . s-sorry. Love . . . you.”

  His eyes glazed, then cleared, but his attention had shifted to someone behind her. “I’m here, Lord,” he said clearly.

  His eyelids fluttered, then fell shut. Something rattled in his throat. Relaxing beneath her, he went still, his hand falling to the grass at his side.

  “Mistress?” said the man.

  Prue ignored him.

  “Mistress, I’m sorry. He’s gone.”

  Gods, she was a terrier, his Prue. Snapping orders, having him carried into the palazzo of the Queen’s Money. All the time, she kept her small, strong hands shoved hard against him, staunching the wound.

  Refusing to let him go.

  You did well, said a huge voice in his ear. She loves you truly.

  How bittersweet, how appropriate, to be so intensely conscious of the transience of life now, in its very last moments. “Yes,” said Erik sadly, “she does. I was lucky.” He squared his shoulders, even though he couldn’t bear to look into the bright nimbus that was the Horned Lord. “But in all else, I failed You.”

  The sense of another presence. Star-dappled fingers stroked his filthy hair. How so? asked the Lady.

  Watching a flood of tears wash Prue’s aquamarine eyes with brilliance, Erik flinched. The room below was a huge kitchen. The household staff had laid him out on the scrubbed wooden table like a corpse.

  “I didn’t save the city,” he said. “And I was so blind and stupid I didn’t see the entirety of your gift until the air Magick slapped me in the face. As for Inga . . .” He choked. “I tried so hard not to think of what I did, not to dwell . . . But in my heart, I’ve always known what You would require of me.” He couldn’t bear to look at Prue, to acknowledge her grief or his own. He wanted to throw his head back and howl. “My death is the price of atonement, and I will pay it.”

  Bah! said the Lady, and Her dark velvet voice rolled like thunder. A fine opinion you have of divine love, let alone divine justice.

  So fucking what? he thought savagely. What does it matter to You what I think?

  Screwing up his eyes, he caught Her gaze deliberately, falling into an infinity of cold, starry space. “Great Lady, You gave me the Voice,” he said, every word falling diamond hard into a tingling silence. “A power no living being should have over another, a burden only a god is strong enough to carry. The rest of the Magick, I could learn to handle, but that . . . Hell, I’m”—he caught himself—“was—only human.”

  Clenching his fists, he waited for the final obliteration, his gaze filled with Prue. His last sight as a living man. She was bedraggled and blood-stained, her eyes puffy and her nose red, the tied-on garment hiked up over one smooth thigh. A dark-robed healer was busy at the site of the wound, which left Prue free to clutch the horn talisman in one small fist. With her other hand, she grasped Erik’s chin. “Hold on,” she was muttering, over and over, her voice low and urgent, “hold on to me. I’m here. I won’t let you go.”

  Erik has You there, My love. Unexpectedly, the Horned Lord laughed. In the sound was the bubbling of a mountain brook, the whisper of green grass in the wind, the screeching cry of a bird of prey. Though I grant You, his songs were well worth the hearing.

  The Dark Lady growled Her displeasure, and despite himself, Er ik’s bones turned to water, dropping him hard to his knees.

  But in all else, Erik, you are mistaken, the Lord went on. Look.

  Erik stared down the long, bright tunnel as the kitchen door banged back and a new crowd of people surged in to join the dozen or so already there. Foremost among them was the Queen’s Money, clad in a brocade dressing gown, his face stiff with outrage. Erik strained to hear, but sounds were growing muffled, far away. When Prue spoke a few crisp sentences, the Money’s expression changed, at first blank with shock, then intent and worried. Gripping his gnarled hands together, the gardener nodded in emphatic agreement to whatever Prue had said.

  The Queen’s Money turned to a couple of hard-eyed men wearing short swords. Erik caught only a couple of words. “Fetch Rhiomard and his guards . . . Search . . . palazzo . . . Careful . . . basement.”

  The evidence is there, murmured the Horned Lord. They will find it. The Money is nothing if not efficient. The City is less so, but nonetheless, he will organize divers. Caracole will be saved, the Leaf of Nobility healed in time.

  The Lady’s breath blew over Erik in a sweet gust. Her hand closed over the nape of his neck. The kit you freed will grow to be a patriarch of seelies. His progeny will be legion.

  “I knew You’d like them,” he murmured, his brain gone all muzzy with the comfort of Her touch. Death wasn’t so bad. Smiling, he closed his eyes, feeling his soul begin to drift, the moorings loosen . . .

  No, that wasn’t right . . . was it?

  Something small and persistent tugged at him, relentless as a biteme. Mumbling his irritation, he tried to brush it away, but it refused to be dismissed. “I am here,” it said, hanging on grimly. “I won’t let you go.”

  Erik forced his eyes open. His view of the kitchen had shrunk, no more than a keyhole through which he saw Prue pick up his limp hand, wrap his fingers around the Lord’s horn and hold them closed with her own.

  Very gently, the Lady said, You have paid your debt for Inga, Erik, paid it in years of buried, festering guilt. You are free. All that is left is to beg Prue’s forgiveness. Only then will you heal.

  Erik’s head rolled. “No, that can’t be right. What I did—”

  Is forgiven, rumbled the Horned Lord. Do not presume to question.

  “Why not?” said Erik, with a tired grin. “It’s not as though You’re going to kill me—again.”

  The Lord’s chuckle reverberated around the inside of his skull, rattling Erik’s brains as though they were dice. Incorrigible, said the god, shaking His great horned head. Stubborn and brave. Which is why you must choose once more. There is work still for you to do, Erik Thorensen—if you wish it.

  Choose? Fuck, he was so weary. Why wouldn’t They leave him be?

  “Stay with me, Erik.” Prue’s biteme voice, right in his ear. “I’ve got you. Darling, darling—” She broke off on a gulping sob like a child’s.

  Erik stirred. “Not without her.”

  Of course. Was the Lady laughing at him? There is a place in the Pattern even for a skeptic like a null witch.

  A null—? Never mind, he’d worry about it later.

  His heart banged painfully behind his ribs. “And the Magick?”

  That was Our gift, said the Lord. As was the Voice. They are yours.

  A slow tide of compressed agony washed over the left side of Erik’s chest, bringing with it a deathly chill. “T-tell me what You want me to do,” he said, his teeth chattering.

  No, said the Lady softly. If We touch the Pattern directly, We alter it.

  The Lord’s horn was a glowing ember under his fingers, Prue’s frantic grip cold in comparison. With a supreme effort, Erik rallied his forces. “I have a price,” he said between his teeth.

  You dare to bargain with the gods? The Lord’s voice dropped so deep it went beyond the threshold of hearing. Erik felt it only as a vibration in his bones, his skull.

  “Take the Voice from me.”

  Silence.

  “I beg You. Take it.”

  At last, the Lady said, The curse and the blessing are one, Erik. No more music. Are you sure?

  Erik’s chuckle turned to a rasping cough. “Great Lord, long ago, You told me . . . everything has a . . . cost.” He fought for breath. “I cannot afford . . . the Voice.”

  Another silence. Constellations wheeled past while the gods considered, stars lived and died, planets settled in their orbits.

  Done, said the Lord, like a great bell.

  Close your eyes, little one, whispered the Dark Lady. Huge, slender fingers stroked over his eyelids,
his nose, his lips. Something hot and wet plopped onto his temple and rolled into his hair. Erik’s breath stopped. A tear?

  An enormous force collided with his chest, hammering him into the kitchen table like a body slam from an angry mountain. The agony was all-encompassing, red-hot fists squeezing his lungs until he couldn’t find the breath to scream. Shit, shit, shit.

  He fought. “Nngh.”

  “Erik?”

  Levering one eye half-open, he grunted.

  Prue’s shriek of joy was so loud he would have winced if the fists of pain buried deep in his chest had permitted it. As it was, he dared not move a muscle, but he pressed her fingers with his own. Small though the action was, the effort left him exhausted.

  “Told you!” she said, turning her head.

  Purist Bartelm came into view, accompanied by another Purist, a middle-aged woman. “So you did,” he said, but he smiled at Prue. “Now you need to move well away and let me work, Mistress.”

  Shaking water from his hands, the old wizard dried them on the spotless cloth the woman handed him. “Roll him onto his side,” he said to someone out of Erik’s line of sight. “And stretch that arm over his head.”

  His features tightened. “This is going to hurt.” He picked up a small, flexible tube and a slim, shiny knife from a metal tray. “Your lung’s collapsed and your chest cavity is full of air you don’t want.”

  “Nngh,” said Erik. He didn’t see how anything could be more painful than what he was enduring now.

  Unfortunately, he was wrong.

  40

  Several centuries and a world of pain later, Erik surfaced, fighting his way out of the murk by slow degrees. His recollections were confused—being stuck with that godsbedamned tube, the astonishing hiss of the air escaping, Prue kissing his cheek, prizing his fingers away from the talisman so she could wash his chest with warm water, a long black period of terrible cold that had him moaning and shuddering, though he clenched his teeth against it.

  But none of his memories included the tall, slim woman with the swathes of blazing red hair at her temples who sat placidly by his bed, reading.