Coldfall Wood

by Steven Savile

  She approached the bier slowly, realizing that a body had been laid out on top of it.

  “I don’t like this,” Julie said, beside her.

  “Can’t say I’m all that fond of it myself,” she agreed, seeing the sword resting on the dead man’s chest. He was dressed in the armor of a king, and might have been sleeping, so perfectly preserved was his corpse.

  Runes chased along the blade, shimmering in the gray light of this timeless place. The dead man’s hands were clasped around the leather-wrapped hilt.

  He had shoulder-length black hair shot through with a single lock of white and a day-old shadow of stubble on his hollow cheeks that accentuated the bones. His eyes were closed, but it was obvious that he was not sleeping.

  There was something familiar about him, she realized, but until Julie said what, she never would have guessed. “He looks like the old man, doesn’t he? Gideon Lockwood.” And he was right; there was an almost familial similarity to the bone structure. It was uncanny.

  “Coincidence,” she said, but knew there was no such thing in this life.

  She reached down to take the sword and was absolutely sure the grip of the hands on the hilt tightened. The sudden movement scared the hell out of her. Alex backed up two steps, shaking and half-hysterically laughing at herself for doing that.

  “What’s wrong?” Julie asked.

  “Nothing. I just thought he moved,” but when she looked back there was nothing to indicate the dead man had made any attempt to protect the blade.

  She stepped forward again, and again the hand clenched around the hilt. They all saw it that time.

  “Okay, that’s just freaky,” Ellie said as Alex tried and failed to claim the sword. Ellie tried, and this time the ancient corpse whispered, “It is not for you,” in a dry, dusty voice and refused to relinquish the weapon to the Speaker for the Dead.

  “Only the worthy may draw the sword,” Sister Mazoe said, explaining the dead man’s denial. She didn’t seem at all perturbed that the corpse of her fallen hero had spoken in the presence of these strangers. None of them had heard her approach. “Or so the legend goes. I have seen many try down the ages of men; strangers who have come to Murias looking for the ancient blade, believing it is their destiny to wield it against whatever threat they faced, but none have proved themselves worthy of Manannan mac Lir’s blade, or the burden that goes with wielding it. As he said, it is not for you. Do not feel slighted, it is a rare soul that has earned the right to draw the weapon.” She walked down the aisle, a ghost bride clad all in white, to stand beside the deceased hero. She laid a hand on his heart, her fingers only inches from the weapon. Glyphs the length of the blade shimmered as gray-tinged moonlight chased through the sweeps and curls of their ancient enchantment. “Perhaps you are the one?” she said to Julie. The policeman didn’t look convinced.

  “I’m nobody’s hero,” he said, sure she was mocking him and his failures. Alex knew exactly what he meant with that. He’d confided in her, shared his grief over his partner, Taff Carter, and how he’d failed him when he needed him the most, but he’d been there with Josh at the end; he’d made amends. He hadn’t run. He hadn’t turned Josh over to Seth and his monsters; he’d stood with her brother against them. So, yes, in some ways he was at least one person’s hero, and she told him as much.

  “Try,” she told him, “Arawn marked you for a reason. He knew you.”

  Julie stood beside the funeral bier and looked down at the dead man. Now that Ellie was no longer touching his ageless flesh, Manannan no longer spoke. His eyes were open and glassy. Sightless. There was no spirit or soul or whatever you wanted to call it in there anymore. Julie looked down at an empty vessel. He breathed in deeply, slowly, holding the air in his lungs for a few seconds, until his head started to swoon, then leaned in, and reached out with his right hand for the ancient blade of the last man who had earned the title Godslayer.

  And the hand holding it relinquished its grasp.

  A soft flame of blue flared within the runes, chasing along the length of the blade and up through the hilt into his hand. The flame blossomed into an aura that enclosed his hand, which then singed away the fine hairs along his forearm as it spread, shrouding him with its ghostly glow.

  Sister Mazoe threw herself onto her knees, pressing her forehead down against the weed-riddled cracks in the chapel floor.

  On the funeral bier, a fissure appeared in the handsome face, splitting it from cheek to brow. A second crack opened up, stretching the corpse’s blue lips in an impossibly wide smile. A third crack and the jaw crumbled, collapsing in on itself, and fourth saw the curve of cheekbone dip, becoming a hollow and finally a dark space in the side of the dead man’s skull as, his last task finally fulfilled, entropy claimed the fallen warrior.

  Julie stared at the blade in his hand, trembling violently.

  “I’m nobody’s hero,” he repeated, his denial useless in the face of what had just happened.

  In the distance the singing stopped and an eerie silence descended upon the Isle of Apples.

  And then, grasping what the silence meant, Alex started to scream.

  47

  Josh was sitting up in bed when they found him, very much alive.

  The Sisters tended to his wounds. They had stopped festering, and with their nourishing salves had begun to smell of the sweet fragrances of the Orchard.

  Sister Glitonea was on her knees at his feet, washing the dried blood from his skin. Beside her Sister Thiten worked unguent into his hands. Her fingers lingered over the nub that was all that remained of his little finger. “Would you like us to make you whole again?” she asked.

  Josh shook his head. “No,” he said. It was the first word he’d said in a long time. He saw Alex in the doorway, but his gaze went past her to Julie Gennaro and the sword in his hand. Julie looked different. He couldn’t say why, exactly, but there was definitely something about him that this place had changed. “Sis,” he said, seeing her stumble and grab for the door’s frame at the sight of him.

  “You bastard,” she said as she straightened. She was laughing and crying at once, unable to cope with the flood of emotions the sight of him stirred. She didn’t come any closer to the bed, as though she feared that stepping over the threshold would shatter the illusion her mind had conjured and leave him back on the bare mattress, hair matted to his scalp, chest still.

  Josh shrugged, and winced at the pain the moment brought, earning concerned tuts from the women working on his wounds. “Looks like I’m not dead after all,” he said.

  “How?” she asked, shaking her head. “I saw you … you were gone.”

  “Not quite,” the old woman who had led the procession to the tower told them. “Would that we had longer to sing away his ailments, but your brother is quite insistent that you must leave this place. Talk to him, he isn’t strong enough to travel.”

  “I’m fine,” Josh objected.

  “You are anything but,” Alex told him, but Josh wasn’t listening.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Ruined,” the Sister explained as Thiten worked more of the sweet-smelling unguent into the charred skin around the worst of the knife wounds. The flesh, raw and pink beneath the dark scabs, had already begun to knit. “When we have finished bathing you, we will bring you fresh clothes, fear not.”

  Josh nodded. “Tell me,” he said. “This place; the tower. Is it protected?”

  That caused the Sister to tilt her head ever so slightly, seeming to consider her answer thoughtfully before she countered with a question of her own, “In what way? Murias is not built to survive another war, if that is what you mean.”

  He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I need to talk to my friend, but need to be sure no one, no matter how powerful can overhear us. It is important.”

  “We can sing an aura of obfuscation around the chamber,” the Sister assured him.

  “And that will work?”

  The elderly Sister nodded. “I
believe so.”

  It was as close as he was going to get to a yes. He turned to Alex and Ellie. “Would you give us a couple of minutes, Sis? I need to talk to Julie about something.”

  She didn’t look happy about it, but she left the pair of them alone in the room.

  Josh didn’t say a word until he heard the Sisters’ song. He looked out of the window and saw that they had joined hands in a ring around the ancient tower, and had their faces turned to the sky as they sang their hearts out.

  He turned back to Julie.

  “I need you to promise me something. You’re not going to want to do it, but I need you to promise me you won’t let Lexy change your mind.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that, mate.”

  “I’m going to need you to kill me.”

  Silence.

  The policeman looked at him; no flicker of emotion on his face.

  “I know I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “It’s the only way we win,” Josh said. He looked up toward the ceiling, as though he expected to see Arawn’s naturalistic features melded into the stone, watching them. There was nothing up there.

  “You know I can’t do that. Alex would never forgive me.”

  “If you don’t, she’ll die,” he said, and the way he said it made it abundantly clear he wasn’t lying. “So will you, the kids, and if what he showed me is true, everyone else.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Arawn is not the enemy, or at least not the sum of the evil we face. He came to me when I was dying. He showed me what was coming. The end. There’s no other way of describing what I saw. Everything would be destroyed in the war to end all wars. He is just one facet of the conflict the land faces. What you need to understand is that he loves our world like no other.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Josh nodded. “I do. Because of the other stuff he said. He could have lied, but chose to tell me the uncomfortable truth instead.”

  “So, what do we have to do?”

  “Not we, me. I must become the host to his spirit so that he can stand against the greater evil. There will be an hour or two, not much longer, I’m sure, in which we will both be in here,” he tapped his temple, “and in that time I’ll be blessed with the might and magic of the gods,” he offered a smile at the thought. “But after that, as he takes possession of my flesh I’ll slowly be lost until finally nothing remains. But we win. We can save ourselves, and you guys get to live happily ever after.”

  “That’s fucked, mate. I still don’t think I can do it.”

  “Don’t make me beg.” He looked down at his hands, or more accurately the stub where his missing finger had been. “And then comes the most important part, and this is where I need you to stay true, my friend. Do you trust me?”

  “Based on what you just said? Not at all.”

  Josh laughed at that.

  “It’s something Damiola said. It got me thinking. He said my fate was in my own hand. Not in my own hands. It’s a little thing, but I’m not all here.”

  Julie smiled. “I won’t argue with that.”

  “Arawn is going to consume me, but there’s going to be a little piece of me he can’t reach,” he wiggled the nonexistent finger. “I’m counting on you to find it, and find a way to bring me back with it,” Josh said, realizing just how insane it sounded once he said it aloud. “The problem is once he’s inside me I won’t be able to hide my plan from him. That’s why you’re going to need to kill me, because if you don’t, he’ll kill you to save himself.”

  “Good to know.”

  “As long as we never mention this outside of this room—don’t even think about it—we’ve got a chance that this betrayal might just work. It’s vital he doesn’t suspect what we’ve got in mind; otherwise he’ll go after Seth first. And if he does that, I’m fucked. That little piece of me is my only chance of coming out of this—” he was about to say in one piece. “He’s going to be weak for a while. I don’t know how long. He said a few hours, but it might only be minutes.”

  “Or seconds,” Julie said.

  “Or seconds,” Josh agreed. “I’m hoping you’ll have a few hours when I can still help you, but I don’t know if that’s reasonable. He promised me time, but I’m trying not to pin my hopes on everything he said being truthful.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to be honest with you. He’ll be expecting me to try and fight him, so I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll try with every bone in my body—”

  “Every bone but one,” Julie said, and damn him, but the other man was smiling. It wouldn’t last, that smile, but it was good to see.

  “Every bone but one,” Josh agreed. “After that window has closed I don’t know if you’ll be able to go up against him.”

  “Well, then we better not find out.”

  Josh nodded. “Just don’t fuck about; take my head off my shoulders with that sword of yours.” It was weird talking about his own murder so matter-of-factly, but it needed to be said. They couldn’t afford any mistakes. “I know Lexy’s going to freak out, but you can’t tell her what we’re planning. Promise me.”

  Julie shook his head slowly, but said, “I promise. She’s going to kill me.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re lucky you’ll already be dead.”

  “Some people might not consider that lucky.”

  “They don’t know your sister like I do. Do I want to know where your missing finger is?”

  “I gave it to Seth,” Josh said, which was technically true, if force-feeding the gangster with it counted as giving.

  It took a moment, but Julie caught up with him, realizing what giving it to Seth entailed in terms of getting it back from Seth. “Hold on a fucking second, mate. You expect me to what, get banished into the mirror world and go looking for that bastard? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “You’ve got a magic sword,” Josh said, wryly. “And by the time you find him you’ll have killed a god. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to pose much of a challenge.”

  “Famous last words.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Always.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Joshua Raines. And just supposing I do somehow recover your finger, or the knuckle bones at least, how exactly am I supposed to use it to bring you back?”

  “No idea,” Josh said.

  Julie let out a slow exasperated sigh. “Well, I can’t pretend life isn’t interesting around you, mate. But I kinda miss the good old days when the only time someone gave me the finger was when I was trying to arrest them.”

  48

  “I will show you the way, Swordbearer, it will be my honor,” Sister Mazoe said. “There is a weakness in the veil at Gorias. I believe that is where you will find your way home.”

  Julie turned his back on the ruin, and stepped into the shadow of the great tower, which stretched all the way down to the beach in the long sun. Without thinking, he reached up and plucked one of the shiny red apples from the branches overhead and took a bite. The fruit was sweeter than any apple he had tasted back home, and so succulent the juice dribbled down his chin. It was heady. Intoxicating. The natural sugars flooded his bloodstream, making his heart beat faster and his head swim. Two bites were enough. The transformation was dizzying. He felt suddenly invincible. Invulnerable. “What is this stuff?” he asked the Sister. “Because it sure isn’t a Granny Smith.”

  She didn’t look like she understood the joke. “We call them apples,” she said, seriously.

  It took Julie a second to realize it wasn’t the fruit itself that was different, it was the soil nourishing the tree that was, and that here there was still earth magic in the loam. This was what all the fruit must have tasted like before. The difference in taste and the vitality of the apple was incredible.

  “You need to taste this,” he sai
d, offering the apple to Alex to take a bite. She looked doubtful, but after a first bite quickly swallowed a second. Her expression changed to one of bliss as the juices spilled down her throat.

  “Oh, my God, that’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Incredible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s nuts. It’s just an apple. Here,” she handed the rapidly diminishing core to her brother. “Try it.”

  He did, again taking two bites as he chewed around the seeds of the core. “This is what we’re fighting for,” Josh said, offering up the remains of the apple. It was a ridiculous thing to say, but in so many ways it was true. It wasn’t about the apple or any other piece of fruit in the Orchard, it was about the essence of what had been lost.

  They walked on, in silence; each wrapped up in their own thoughts.

  Sister Mazoe nimbly negotiated a causeway of octagonal stones that seemed to have been laid by giants, as the waves crashed up against them. This time looking out over the water Julie saw a roiling, churning sea filled with whitecaps being whipped up by the oncoming storm.

  The boatman waited half a dozen steps beyond the shore, his vessel bobbing in the choppy surf. He did not raise his head as they approached.

  Julie followed the Sister as she splashed into the water, impervious to the shock of icy cold as the water closed around her calves and soaked up through her white dress. She clambered easily into the flat-bottomed boat.

  Julie boarded after her, holding out a hand to help Alex and then Ellie board behind him. Josh was the last of them to take up his seat. He was still moving gingerly, favoring his side where the knife had plunged into it. Julie had caught him wincing a couple of times as some ill-thought-out movement pulled at his wounds, threatening to open them again. Each one served as a reminder that, despite the miracle the Sisters had wrought, he was a long way from healed. That made this rush to be home and surrender himself up to Arawn all the more ridiculous. He wasn’t in any condition to fight.