Gallowglass

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “I won’t forget. I promise.” With that, we left the pub, and followed my brother and Sorcha out into the night.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Karina

  Robert and I trudged through the dark, chilly streets, following Chris and a woman who probably wasn’t a woman, presumably to save my brother’s life, and I wasn’t thinking about Chris at all. Instead, I was fixated on what Robert had said in the pub: As long as I wear this collar, I am naught more than a murderer.

  I’d always known that Robert was a warrior, but it turned out that he had been more of a killer. And a rather effective killer, at that. A man whose sole purpose these past three centuries had been to remove whatever—whomever—Nicnevin had desired removed. Based on all accounts, including my own eye witness experiences, he was exceedingly good at his job.

  How was this killer the same man who had held me as if I was dear to him, who had washed my hair, made pots of bad coffee with the best intentions, and defended me from the fuath on more than one occasion? Of course, when he had been defending me, he had been killing. The thing he was best at.

  After about ten minutes of walking, Chris and Sorcha stopped under a streetlight for an impromptu kissing session. Robert placed his hand on the small of my back, and drew me deep into the shadows, and we waited. And waited. You’d think they were going for the Guinness Book of World Records title in snogging.

  “Why did you refer to yourself a murderer?” I asked suddenly. “When you described what you did a few days ago, it sounded like you were more of a guard.” Robert sighed, and pulled me against his chest.

  “If she ordered me to kill, I killed,” he said. “I had no quarrel with any o’ them; they were merely me prey.”

  “Prey.” I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my forehead against his chest. “What if she told you to kill me?”

  Robert grabbed my chin and jerked my head upward. When I opened my eyes, I saw his blue eyes blazing into mine. “I would kill her instead. If I could no’ manage to kill her, I would fall on me sword and end it. Nothing—nothing—could make me harm ye, not even Nicnevin herself.” Robert swept his thumbs across my cheeks. I hadn’t realized I was crying. “Karina, love,” he murmured, “can ye no’ believe in me?”

  “I… I want to.” I stepped back, and rubbed my nose. “I really, really want to. More than anything. It’s just, when you called yourself a murderer it rattled me.”

  “I only spoke the truth,” Robert said, then he was distracted by something behind me. I looked over my shoulder; Chris and Sorcha had finally ended their snog beneath the street lamp, and were on the move again. “Come, love. They are once again afoot.”

  Robert laced his fingers with mine, and we resumed our pursuit. “You told me you love me,” I said, realization dawning, albeit a bit late. “In the pub, you told me you love me.”

  “Aye, that I do,” Robert replied. “Surely the words did no surprise ye.”

  “I guess they didn’t,” I said. “I just wish you’d said them before we started talking about all this killing stuff.”

  “Me as well, Karina love,” Robert said, “me as well.”

  We pursued Chris and Sorcha until they entered a rather innocent if grandiose looking apartment building. It was set far back from the street, and looked like it had one been a stately mansion, but had long ago been carved up into smaller apartment units. It was comprised of gray stone, which reminded me of the greywackes that made up Dob’s Linn. Surrounding the elegant mansion were similarly elegant grounds, so well cared for that not a leaf or blade of grass was out of place. An apple tree grew next to the main door of the building, its fruit-laden branches arching over the entrance. It would have been a postcard perfect scene, if not for the windows. Every one of them was filled with a cold blackness, so dark it seemed to swallow the sunlight.

  The building practically pulsed with darkness, like the haunted mansion in a horror film. And my brother was in there.

  Robert stalked across the front yard, and looked in one of the side lights alongside the door. “There are no rooms, no corridors inside,” he announced. “This home is a doorway to Elphame.”

  “A doorway?”

  “Some would call such a thing a portal,” Robert said. Huh. I guess we wouldn’t need the Ice Princess’s map after all.

  Robert turned to me, the streetlamp’s glare transforming his face into harsh planes. “Love, do ye trust me well enough to accompany me to that most terrible place? I will no’ lie to ye, Nicnevin’s portion o’ Elphame is filled wi’ naught but evil and monsters, but I swear on me very life I will no’ allow them to harm ye. If ye do no’ wish to make the journey, I will leave ye in safety with the wights and retrieve Christopher meself.”

  I looked at him for long moments, this man that I hardly knew, yet felt closer to than anyone I’d ever met. Was I still terrified of him? Absolutely. But he loved me, and I loved him back, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him go to that place of horrors and nightmares without me.

  “I have to go,” I said. “What if Nicnevin tries to capture you again? You need someone to watch your back.”

  Robert raised an eyebrow. “Will ye challenge her for me?”

  “You’re mine. She can’t have you.” I stepped up to his side, and pushed open the heavy oak door. Just as Robert had said, the interior was devoid of floors and walls, and was nothing more than a gaping black hole, winds and debris swirling within. I swallowed, and said, “So let’s go already.”

  Robert wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close as he pressed his lips to mine. “Aye, I am yours. Until the end o’ forever, I am yours.” He draped my arms around his neck, then he gripped my waist. “Hold on to me with all your might, Karina me love. These passages are no’ for the faint o’ heart.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Karina

  He hadn’t been kidding with that faint of heart comment.

  Robert and I had stood together under the apple tree for a few heartbeats longer, our arms wrapped around each other, a moment’s reprieve before we plunged headlong into who knows what. After we’d shared a few good luck kisses, we tightened our hold on one another, and stepped over the threshold and into the darkness.

  Remember that movie about tornadoes that had been popular a few years back, the one that had the cow caught up in the funnel cloud and flying helter-skelter across the countryside? And back again? As soon as we’d stepped inside the apartment building that wasn’t an apartment building, I knew exactly how that cow had felt. We were spinning, and twisting, and flying across— Well, I have no idea what. My feet weren’t on the ground, or anything else for that matter; leathery wings beat perilously close to my ears, and, thanks to all the debris whipping around us I couldn’t open my eyes. Although, I probably didn’t want a good look at the scenery in this place.

  Throughout it all, the howling winds and strange noises and the unseen creatures, Robert held on to me. I had my fingers hooked into his shirt, one of my hands on his shoulder and the other on his waist, clenched so tightly I worried I’d claw right through the fabric and score his skin. He didn’t complain, or even try to shift my hold on him. Instead, he kept his hands firm on my waist, all the while whispering in my ear. I had no idea what he was saying, his voice having been lost to the maelstrom, but his warm breath and the vibration of his voice comforted me. Robert was my constant, my talisman in that dark, windy hell.

  All at once, the wind and noises stopped, and I was aware of standing upon something solid. Even better, my feet were fairly convinced that this something solid was real, actual ground. Slowly, I raised my head and opened my eyes, but I did not relax my hold on Robert. After that hellish ride, I doubted I’d ever let go of him.

  “Are we…here?” I asked as I took in my surroundings. If this was Elphame, the legendary Fairy Realm, it looked pretty ordinary. We were standing in a meadow, a rather lovely one at that, filled with wildflowers. The sun shone brightly overhead, and there were rolling hills of
f in the distance. “It looks just like Scotland.”

  “We are here, all right,” Robert declared. “And Scotland is a fair sight lovelier than this wretched place.”

  “I’m sorry you had to come back,” I said. “Chris’ll be sorry too, once he understands.” I ran my finger along Robert’s silver collar. “Will she know you’re here?”

  “Aye,” Robert replied. “Like as no’ she already does.”

  That chilled me. I rested my forehead on Robert’s chest, wondering how we could possibly retrieve Chris while staying out of Nicnevin’s way. I burrowed into his arms, grateful for his warm solidity.

  “I love it when you hold me,” I murmured. “I feel so safe in your arms.”

  “No’ like you’re bein’ held by a murderer?” he asked.

  I peeked upward, and was glad to see him smiling. “From now on, let’s call you a warrior instead of a murderer.”

  “Agreed.” Robert kissed my forehead, then we untangled ourselves from one another. “Walk with me, Karina love. Let us find your fool brother, and take him forever away from this place.”

  ***

  As Robert and I traversed the green fields of Elphame, the glamour that had been placed on our beautiful surroundings peeled off like cheap wallpaper. First, the hills in the distance shimmered like heat waves rising from asphalt, their edges smudging as if touched by a pencil eraser before they faded away. After the hills had faded from view, the wildflowers scattered throughout the grass withered and died, one by one.

  Far worse, however, than the departure of the hills or flowers was what happened to the trees. Before our eyes the stately columns transformed from green-leafed and healthy into gray, hulking beasts, with hollowed out trunks scarred by blackened scorch marks. By the time Robert and I had reached the edge of the forest, our surroundings resembled nothing so much as a burnt out battlefield. The birdsong in the distance went from chirrups to wails, a dirge for the loss of their homes.

  “Why is everything changing? Isn’t the point of putting a glamour that we don’t know about it?” I murmured. “Why even use a glamour in the first place? It must take up so much energy.”

  “Nicnevin has no concerns for wastin’ the efforts of others,” Robert replied. “She only wishes to amuse herself. At the moment, it would seem that she is quite pleased at the sight o’ you and I crossin’ the plains o’ hell.”

  I shuddered. “I don’t know how you endured all of this.”

  “Faith,” Robert said.

  “You must be the most God fearing man that has ever lived,” I mumbled, making a mental note to name our firstborn Faith, provided that said firstborn was female, and that we survived long enough to even have a firstborn. Or a second or third born, for that matter.

  A bird—at least, I think it was a bird; for all I knew it was a fricken’ pteranodon—alighted on the tree next to me. Its deep brown feathers reminded me of an eagle, but it had a vulture’s bald, wrinkly head. It stared at us for a few heartbeats, then it let out a horrible, rattling scream, and it was all I could do not to turn and run. Then, the bird-pteranodon-monster spoke.

  It fricken’ spoke.

  “She will not let you leave again,” the creature rumbled.

  “Who said anything about leavin’?” Robert countered. “We only just got here.”

  The creature let out another series of caws, then it flung itself into the air. As I watched it circle overhead, I asked Robert, “Friend of yours?”

  “Merely one o’ Nicnevin’s watchers,” he replied. The creature was soon joined by two other, equally monstrous friends, and they circled high above us. “It seems that we shall be dealin’ with her gloriousness, after all.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled. “Awesome.”

  “Faith will see us through,” Robert reminded me. That’s it, our firstborn is getting named Rebecca.

  We walked on in silence, save for the screams emanating from the bird-pteranodon-monsters above, picking our way among the boulders and diseased trees scattered across the field. After a time the debris thinned out, and a large rusty gray castle loomed in the distance.

  This castle was eerily similar to the ruins of Tantallon Castle, mostly because the castle before us was in ruins itself. The battlements were crumbling away, and the open portcullis was littered with stone blocks that at one time had been part of the surrounding walls. Dry leaves and grasses had gathered in the corners, and what was left of the towers bore ugly black stains. But this castle wasn’t situated on a cliff overlooking the sea, so if we encountered the White Lady, or any other monsters, at least we wouldn’t almost drown like we had at Tantallon. I supposed that was something.

  “Should we go inside?” I asked. As much as I wanted to turn tail and run, something was pulling me toward the castle. It was as if an invisible lasso had been looped around my waist.

  “No. We should run as far away as we can, and ne’er speak o’ it again,” was Robert’s frank reply.

  “This is her home, isn’t it?” I asked. “Nicnevin’s.”

  “Aye, that it is.”

  “Why is it falling apart?” I wondered. I would have thought that a fairy queen would have a nice castle, or at least one that wasn’t collapsing into dust.

  “The abode mirrors its mistress,” Robert replied. “A home needs a heart, and Nicnevin is altogether devoid of one. Wi’ out a heart, the body crumbles away, ye ken.”

  I swallowed. “Is Chris is in there?”

  “Yes, me love, I am certain of it.”

  Without further conversation, Robert placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me amongst the rubble and into the Fairy Queen’s home. The interior was just as run down and squalid as the exterior, with once-colorful tapestries rotting off the walls, rats scuttling in the corners, and layer upon layer of cobwebs and dust blanketing every surface. I wanted to ask Robert why any queen, even a heartless one like Nicnevin, would live in such filth, but I was so terrified I couldn’t speak.

  The corridor was endlessly long, and silent save for our footsteps and the occasional ratlike creature scurrying by. Eventually, we spied light at the end of the corridor, and followed it to a room large enough to be an auditorium. It was just as dilapidated as the rest of the place, but at least the floor had been swept somewhat recently. The room was crowded, packed with every sort of creature imaginable, and a few I had never, ever wanted to consider, not now or ever again.

  The mass of them parted as Robert and I entered, creating a living corridor that led to a dais carpeted in frayed and faded red. Sprawled across the steps lay my brother.

  “Chris!” Heedless of the nightmares that crowded around me, I ran forward and crouched before my brother. He was breathing, but was in some sort of stupor. I wondered if he had been drugged. “Chris, can you hear me?”

  “The correct question is, does he want to hear you?”

  I looked up, and saw Sorcha sitting on a throne upholstered in dusty purple velvet, the bright gilding flaking off the edges to reveal the wood beneath. Beyond the dais, I spied Morag, the disappearing tour guide from Tantallon, as well as the White Lady and a few of the child-stealing fey. Behind them grinned Ms. Haggis. I’d been positive she was evil, I just hadn’t known what sort of evil.

  “Of course he wants to hear me, I’m his sister,” I shouted, but Sorcha shook her head.

  “You see,” Sorcha explained, “I have offered our dear Christopher his heart’s desire, and he readily accepted. Rest assured, that desire was not for his sister.” Sorcha swept her arm to the side, and Olivia melted out of the crowd.

  “You bitch!” I shrieked, leaping to my feet and charging at my almost sister in law. “You just love ruining Chris’s life, don’t you? Are you some kind of succubus, or something?”

  Olivia shrugged. “Or something. Our queen desires creative minds. It was my task to locate the best and brightest for her, and bring her their essence.”

  “Queen?” I repeated, my gaze returning to Sorcha. Before my eyes, Sorcha’s
dark hair transformed into a fiery red, and her blue eyes grew larger, slanting upward at the tips. Her body’s feminine curves went from attractive into something altogether decadent. While Sorcha had certainly been striking, the woman that now stood before me was nearly perfect, her unearthly beauty shining so bright she cast the White Lady of Tantallon in shadow.

  “Nicnevin,” Robert growled, coming to stand beside me. “I had hoped to ne’er again set eyes upon ye terrible form.”

  “Oh, but surely you missed our games, Robert my dear?” Nicnevin purred. “Truly, while I very much crave the young scholar at my feet, it was your loss that stung me to my core.”

  “Wait, what?” I said. “I thought you sent Olivia for Chris.”

  “Yes, I did,” Nicnevin allowed. “But when she shared with me how brilliant our Christopher truly is, I just had to see him in the flesh. First we ruined his career, a simple thing, that, and used your foolish ideas about counting rocks and such to bring him here, to my island.”

  I blinked, wondering what geology had to do with this nutcase, when the last piece fell into place: my research grant. Every one of my fellow grad students had found it odd that a heretofore unknown grant for furthering the study of supernatural occurrences and their correlation with the surrounding bedrock in the UK had just appeared practically out of thin air. What’s more, the grant had also arranged the Spiritual Sights of the UK tour, and rented us the cottage in Fife that had come stocked with a garden chock full of wights. While it seemed that Chris and I had been manipulated by monsters from the get go, it didn’t mean that I was going to back down from Nicnevin.

  “Why did you let me free Robert?” I demanded.

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Nicnevin snapped. “You stole my gallowglass all on your own, foul girl. Luckily, your brother’s presence in my home more than makes up for his loss.” Nicnevin descended the dais, then she knelt beside Chris and ran her fingers through his blond hair. “This one is so free with his affections. Others at my court were beginning to wonder if Robert had been made eunuch, or if he’d perhaps been born without.”