by Lee Savino
“You did well, commander,” Gaul’s voice snaked around me. “Now run along, back to your post.”
The king’s sentinel stood behind me with two large Berserkers. I recognized them, but they were not my own. The madness had taken their minds long ago, but they obeyed Gaul.
I wondered how many in my own ranks were like these dumb servants, and how long it would take to fight them.
“Did you hear me, commander? You’re dismissed.”
I stared at him for a moment. I could not explain that I had to wait to see if the woman I loved would return. But I would not be driven from my post like a dog.
“Your duty to the king is over,” he said, and it was. I served the king no longer.
I served Yseult.
“Commander?” Magnus rumbled at my back. He and Ivar and Lars waited for my orders. They would fight alongside me. They loved our lady as much as I did.
“Come. I wish to speak to you,” I said and started to march away. Gaul snickered as I passed.
I turned and drove my fist into his face. He snapped back, bouncing off the impassive Berserker slaves, and fell to the ground. I left him there and led my men to the shadows.
“Well done,” Lars grinned. “I have wanted to do that for a long time.”
Magnus chuckled, but Ivar looked worried.
“Tristan… Commander, have care. There are many who follow him.”
“How many?” I asked. “Can you find out?”
Eyes wide with surprise, Ivar nodded.
“The wind is turning,” I murmured. “We must be ready.”
“We will be,” Magnus said. “It will be our pleasure to serve our lady.” He put his fist to his chest in salute. Ivar and Lars followed suit.
“Our lady,” I echoed, and did the same. We would fight for her. We would die for her.
“You will watch, and watch, and heed my command,” I cautioned.
“Commander,” they agreed. Ivar and Lars left. Magnus and I turned to wait for our lady’s return.
I hoped she pleased the king, so she would not die. But more than that I wished to claim her as my own.
If she survived, I would send her away. To the corners of the earth, or beyond. I would not let her stay.
Even if it cost my life.
18
Yseult
He’s charming, Tristan had said. Truth be told, I’d never met a more beautiful man. Sharp patrician features. Skin smooth as polished stone, pale and stretched over the fine bones of his face. A face that would turn heads in a market square, even without the aura of power that cloaked the massive figure.
I was used to the strange beauty magic bestowed on its long-time users. After many years my own face took on the otherworldly polish, growing almost inhumanly attractive. I’d forgotten what my own face looked like until I woke up this morning in a field, and looked in the water cup at my old, youthful face.
I expected the Corpse King’s charm. I braced for it. What I did not expect was for him to look so like Tristan. The commander was right. Whatever the berserker warriors were now, they’d been sired one way or another by the king they served.
“Will you sit, my dear?” the king asked, his long fingers wrapping around a chair’s high back.
With a jerky nod, I crossed the rest of the way, twitching my body into place like it was a puppet and I held the strings.
Up close, the Corpse King was even more striking. His lips held a bit of a smile, as if he knew how dazzled I was. I turned. Fortunately, I’d met Tristan, and could cling to that resemblance. Beside the mage, the commander would look homely, raw boned and rough. But Tristan’s earthy beauty was real. The king’s charm was all magic made. Breath-taking, but as alien as a star.
“Are you hungry?” the king asked.
“A little, my lord,” I lied.
He waved a hand and a feast appeared.
I startled as if I’d never seen a spell before. The scent of roast boar hit me, making my stomach churn.
I felt he was smirking at me. With all my gaping and trembling, I must seem a very foolish maiden indeed. Perhaps he would think me simple and I would get through this unscathed.
“Eat then,” He gestured to the table. “No need to keep to ceremony. It is only us.” The king crossed to the other end of the table and sat down.
As he passed, I caught the scent of something putrid, rotten under the cloying scent of myrrh. As if I’d walked past an open tomb. The stench made me blink, and then it was gone.
I tasted its memory at odds with his seductive voice and glittering good looks.
I took a small loaf of bread off a platter and toyed with it. All the while watching the king without looking at his face like a rabbit waiting for a snake to strike. Just because it pleases the snake to act as if it will not attack, doesn’t mean the prey can let down its guard.
“Have my men treated you well?” His voice made me jump.
“Yes, my lord. Well enough.”
“Did they question you?”
“Yes. But realized I was harmless.”
“Not many maidens stray close to my home. I have a reputation. Plenty of women are sent by their villages to curry favor. I suppose that is why you have come.” He paused. “You are not eating.”
I picked up the bread and nibbled at it. I half expected it to be a magical food that seduced my senses same as the Corpse King’s looks, but it tasted like real bread, even as it turned to dust in my nervous mouth.
He gestured to his empty plate. “I am not hungry, but I have a terrible thirst.”
A clinking sound made me twist in my seat. A pedestal with a glass carafe and large, bejeweled cup had appeared. My spine prickled.
“Shall I serve you, my lord?” Tremors had begun to run up my legs. Something wasn’t right.
“No need.” As I watched, the carafe lifted as if by unseen hands. Thick red liquid poured into the gem encrusted goblet.
The rubies flashed among the dull gold as it passed through the air, drifting by me on its way to the king. I caught another flash of the awful stench.
“Forgive me. I’ve forgotten my manners. Are you thirsty? Would you like a sip?”
I shook my head. Something told me whatever was in that cup, it was more than red wine. It should not pass my lips.
And then I saw them, lying in wait in the shadows beyond the throne. Woman. Hordes of them, lovely and silent, dressed in robes that left their arms bare. Their hair up in elaborate coiffures, their garments those of a queen.
They were all watching me. One rested her hands on her large belly, as if she was still pregnant.
Any appetite I had fled.
“Did my men explain to you what an honor it is to be my consort?”
Not taking my eyes from the ghost women, I answered. “They said you have your pick of women. You require the villages to send any eligible maidens, and you keep many of them as wives.”
“Only the most beautiful.” His smile turned my stomach.
“Where are they?” I asked, even though I knew.
“They all die young. Tragic.”
The watching ghosts moved then, a ripple through their ranks.
“All of them?” I whispered.
“Some soon after bearing my children. Others linger but catch a wasting disease. Sooner or later, they all succumb.” he shrugged. “And so I am left all alone.”
“And your children?”
“All sons. Some live to adulthood. More die like their mothers.”
“That’s horrible,” I rasped.
“Yes.”
“And so I am left alone.” Alone, alone, alone, his voice echoed, a shivering wind running through the hall. The ghost women didn’t move. Some looked at their king with contempt.
“So you see, Yseult,” his voice wrapped around my body, winding like a chain. “I am searching for the one woman who can withstand my power. Who can stay healthy and well. She will rule beside me as queen. Forever.”
A fire burned in
his eyes, but I could see nothing but the silent ranks of women. Their eyes gave warning. Run, get away while you still can.
My chest struggled to rise under the weight of whatever spell the Corpse King had wrapped around me. Even now the voice kept chanting in my ear. So beautiful, so young. Taste the power. You will be a queen. The thoughts filled my head.
No. I will not. I am... In a panic, I realized I could not remember my name.
Tristan, I cried silently. Lars, Ivar. Magnus. I recalled their faces both dark and fair, bearded and clean shaven. These men were real. So rough, so wild, so hungry for love. How could I tell them who I was? How could I be with them when I was leaving on the morn?
“Yseult,” the Corpse King said. My head jerked up, he was standing over me, the shadows lay in the hollows of his face. He looked suddenly like a skeleton. All his beauty fell away. He was a monster, something called up from the grave.
I looked for the ghost of his wives, but they were gone. Banished. The silence screamed where they’d been.
“You are more than what you seem,” the Corpse King’s voice reached my ears without his lips moving.
“I… don’t know what you mean,” I whispered.
“You please me.” His long, bony fingers came to my face and it took all my self-control not to flinch away. “I have not met a woman like you… in a long, long time.”
His eyes burned into me and suddenly I could not draw breath.
My lungs screamed for air. As if remembering, he snapped his fingers, and the chain around my chest loosened. I gasped, sagging.
“I will summon you again, tonight. You will come and obey me.”
I nodded, mute. What else could I do?
His fingers drifted back towards my face. Had I ever thought him beautiful, he was no more than a skeleton and burning eyes, the skin stretched over his skull. His fingers carried the stench from the cup he drank, a sharp iron smell, mixed with spices used to purify graves.
“So young,” he crooned, his deep voice a caress. “So lovely.”
As bony fingers squeezed my shoulders, I struggled not to pull away. A sharp squeeze his hand at my neck. His touch burned like cold fire.
His lips found my ear.
“Tonight, wear the garment I sent you.”
And he disappeared.
Wrenching myself out of my seat, I flew down the dais steps, past the place where the ghosts had gathered, and fled from the hall.
Soft mocking laughter echoed around me, but other than that, the only sound was my frantic footsteps and harsh breathing.
I had a moment of panic as I struggled to open the large, heavy doors
“No,” I gasped. “Let me out.”
I fought to heave them open a crack and struggled through to the other side, staggering in my haste to get away.
The two silent guards stood on either side, not moving to help me. I stumbled and righted myself, taking flight once more. The air was different on this side of the doors, fresh and inviting. I’d been kept in a tomb and set free.
Rushing, I clutched a pillar to keep from falling, and retched what little I’d eaten on the floor. Still the guards did not move, but I ran in case they called me back.
“Yseult?”
I did not stop even when a large armored figure stepped out in front of me.
“Yseult?”
Tristan caught me in his arms. I fought him, thrashing.
“Yseult, it’s me,” he carried me away from the throne room, into the shadows beyond the massive columns.
His worried face flashed before my eyes. Reminding me of the women I’d seen. The familiar faces. Oh Goddess, I’d seen the wives. The ghosts.
“Get me away from here,” I shrieked.
“It’s all right, you’re safe,” Tristan crooned. He smelled like the outdoors, the grasses and trees and everything real.
I was crying.
“We’re leaving. Come.” The further he carried me, the more I saw through the cobwebs the mage’s spell had wound around my mind. The king had almost enthralled me but let me go to toy with me. I was not strong enough to face him, and I was to return.
What was I to do?
“No, shhh, lady,” Tristan soothed, and I realized I was crying. He set me down. I clung to him, but he kept me in his lap, sliding one large hand up and down my back. “Please don’t cry,” he murmured, like a mother with child.
Goddess, all those murdered women. The mage took them to wife, and then drained their powers. If he had his way, I’d be next.
“Tristan,” I whispered. The warrior locked his arms around me, his warmth seeping into my numb limbs. I clung to him.
I’d been blasted back in time to learn the secrets of defeating the mage. But without my magic, I was as helpless as the ghosts of the Corpse King’s wives. I could no longer go on alone.
“Tristan,” I tipped back my head to search his face, and as I did the heat flared between us. Whatever it was, he felt it too. He cupped my cheeks and kissed me.
The floodgates opened. A lifetime of suppressing all emotion, all my strict training swept away. I pressed myself against Tristan’s hard chest, my hands frantically tugging him closer, as if he were a rock I clung to in the storm.
At last, I broke away with a moan. My body was full of molten desire, no longer my own.
“Do not ask me to take you to him again,” Tristan said fiercely against my lips. “I will not. I cannot.”
A cool wind blew around us, whispers rising in the dark. I remembered myself, where I was, and pushed him away. “I must,” I whispered. “The king wishes me to come to him again.”
Tristan cursed. “When?”
“Tonight.”
Still cursing, he ran his hand through his thick hair. He’d brought me back to the women’s chambers. We were seated on a low couch. Rising, he paced to a table and brought back a cup of something.
“Drink this.”
It was water, and I blessed its cool comfort. Tristan settled his great body beside mine. We weren’t touching but his heat enveloped me the same.
“You must tell me everything. What happened? What did you see?”
“I saw the mage, the king.”
“He was there? He did not just speak from the air?”
“At first he did. Then he showed himself to me.”
I stared at my cup, remembering the ghosts. Even now I felt them rustling about their old chambers. Until I knew their intent, I dare not speak of them, and call them further into this realm from their own.
“I’m sorry I didn't warn you more.”
“Tristan,” I raised my eyes to his. “I have to tell you something.” He was the king’s commander. If I confessed treason, his duty was to run me through.
But he’d kissed me. More than flirtation. More than the games I’d played with Lars. Tristan’s kiss had cleared my mind.
“I am more than what I seem—” I began, when men’s voices echoed through the room.
“It’s all right,” Tristan soothed when I startled. “It’s just Ivar and Lars.”
And Magnus, though he stayed by the door, lingering in the shadows with weapon drawn. He stood a head taller than all the rest.
“Lady,” Lars came to me, his face lit with eagerness. “We are glad of your return. We have something to show you.”
At Tristan’s nod, he took my hands and helped me up, then led me to the courtyard, where I was struck dumb. There were white blooms everywhere I looked, bundles of them placed around the fountain, petals floating in the water.
“We wished to honor you,” Tristan murmured.
I smiled through my tears.
“We found them by the north wall.” Lars plucked a bloom and gave it to me. “Moonflower. They bloom in darkness.”
“They’re beautiful. You must have picked them all.”
“I hadn’t noticed them before today. They appeared near our sparring field soon after you walked the castle wall, and bloomed soon after dusk,” Ivar said. “They
only bloom one night.”
“My mother used to say, ‘There can be good in the world if flowers can still bloom,’” Lars added.
“Thank you.” I could barely speak. Somehow, someway, these men cared for me.
And even if they did not, I could keep my secrets no longer. Better to tell them and risk their wrath then have the Corpse King enthrall me in his power.
“I have something to tell you. All of you.”
“Not here,” Tristan said. Taking my arm, he guided me back to the inner room, where he sat on the couch with me. The other three men arranged themselves about the room.
“I was a witch once. In a time and place far from here. A thousand years to be exact.” I gave them a moment to absorb this. “I was born with powers, natural magic, the gift from the Goddess. But I chose another path.” I glanced around at the waiting faces. “All magic requires sacrifice. Small spells, a small sacrifice. A bit of blood or bone. Larger spells require greater sacrifice. Over my lifetime, I have sacrificed much for power.”
“What did you sacrifice?” Magnus’ voice boomed in the dark.
“Nothing like the mage. No. I am not a murderer. Sorcery is an abomination.” The ghost’s whispers swirled around me. A breeze tugged the edge of my shift. “I gave up my natural abilities and trained with the witches. We sacrificed animals—mice, goats, doves. Their pain and death grew my powers. I became strong, stronger than any of my witch sisters. That is why I was chosen to face the mage.
“In our time, he was bound by a spell that made him sleep a thousand years, but now he is free, and threatens us all. I was sent to find a way to defeat them. I must learn the secrets of the binding spell and return to my sisters in my own time. That is why I am here.” Slowly I raised my eyes to them. Four men, so different and so alike. Warriors all, pledged to the king, but perhaps... perhaps… the help the Goddess had sent to me.
Or not. If I had misread, they would either deliver me to the mage or strike a blow to end me.
“How will you find the spell?
“I don’t know,” I said in a choked voice. “When I arrived, something—the Corpse King’s defenses or my sister’s spell—stripped me of all my powers. I cannot use magic to defend myself or to hide. That is how you caught me so easily,” I said to Ivar, and he nodded.