by P. J. Fox
Tristan, revenant that he was, didn’t mind. He’d spent enough time in mausoleums and other domains of the dead that he’d grown used to them. Their smells, and their slow changes.
He could call Father Justin forth in whatever form he chose: as the man he’d been, before he was poisoned, or as a prisoner of his own rotting corpse. This time, the first time he’d summoned the priest, he chose the former. Not out of any generous impulse on his part, but because doing so served his purposes—for now.
And as Tristan opened his eyes, slowly, Father Justin materialized.
He was wearing the same blue robes that he’d been in when he died. He stood in the center of the circle, looking around and blinking as though not quite sure of where he was. His ring sat, unnoticed, between his slippers. The stone winked in the low light.
He held his hands up in front his face, turning them over as though scarcely able to believe what he saw. He took a breath and exhaled. And then, looking up, he saw Tristan. The relief drained from his face as he processed this unexpected development. He glanced about the room, his head moving like a bird’s. His jowls quivered, the sagging skin pendulous on his frame.
He stopped. He turned his head slowly, his eyes meeting Tristan’s. And, as the demon’s eyes bored back into his, his expression metamorphosed again. This time, from confusion into dread.
“Hello, priest,” Tristan rasped.
Father Justin licked his lips, his tongue darting in and out nervously.
When Father Justin died, Tristan had murmured an incantation. A very specific incantation, meant to do one thing: trap his consciousness, his soul to use the Southron church’s term, between planes. What the earl feared, thus—that Tristan, if allowed to interfere with Father Justin’s funeral, would work some sort of mischief—had already happened. All the earl had bought himself, with his dawdling, was a ruined creamery.
Trapped between planes…what came after? The church taught that human beings went to Heaven, or Hell. On other creatures it was silent. Demons believed that a being’s essence was reincarnated. No one knew for certain. And not for lack of asking.
Those who’d passed, truly passed, couldn’t be summoned in the strictest sense. Only a flesh memory, a sort of copy, would appear. And that copy, having the memories of the person, would be useful to an extent. But as the body degraded, deep within the bowels of the earth, so did it. As time passed they knew less and less and were pathetic, furrowing their brows and squinting at something they should remember, like the very old.
And those trapped between planes didn’t know, either, for the same reason. But Tristan suspected that even if they did, they couldn’t have told. Some rule that governed the universe would have prevented the transfer of such dangerous knowledge. There were things that even demons…weren’t meant to know.
“I’ve been—somewhere awful,” Father Justin panted, “for thousands of years.”
“Two moons,” Tristan corrected.
“No.” Father Justin shook his head. “Not possible. For years. And there are—there are terrible things out there. You don’t understand. Terrible things,” he whispered, his expression bleak. And he was, Tristan knew, correct. There were, indeed, terrible things in the void. Tristan had spent enough time there to know.
“Never fear,” Tristan replied. “You’ll wish yourself back there, soon enough.”
“No,” Father Justin said defiantly. “Never. There’s nothing you can do to me, here and now, that can possibly be as bad as that.” And then, “wait—you—you killed me. At dinner!” He pointed an accusing finger. “You’re…you’re everything they say. A murderer.”
“I’m more than that.”
“I have the power of the church on my side!”
“Where was your church,” Tristan inquired, “when I cursed you?”
Father Justin faltered. “What?”
“Oh, priest.”
He cracked entirely. “Oh, Gods.”
“Your Gods can’t help you now, priest. I own you.” Which was quite true; in more ways than the creature in front of him yet realized. “And I intend,” he continued in that same relentlessly calm tone, “that you and I shall become, ah, quite close in the coming winters.”
He intended, in fact, to make Father Justin pay for what he’d done to Isla. Pay for the fact that Isla startled, now, at the smallest unexpected movement. Pay for the fact that her innocence had been just that little bit eroded; that she’d had to learn, through Father Justin, of her own father’s true feelings. Or, rather, lack thereof. She’d never, however long she lived, feel completely secure in the world again.
He knew, though, that that same frailty was part of what had driven her into his arms. That without Father Justin, she might never have let her guard down and allowed herself to feel what she felt. Which, in a man, might have touched some soft spot. Might have made him forgive. But Tristan was not a man.
And he would not—could not—tolerate any manner of being, man or beast, encroaching on what he’d claimed for his own.
Father Justin seemed to realize his predicament. “There’s nothing,” he repeated, as if to assure himself, “nothing you could do to me that could possibly be worse than—than that place.” That place being Tristan’s former home. He was fighting back now, like a cornered rat. Fighting himself as much as Tristan. Tristan suspected that, the firm set of his mouth aside, the fat fool wanted to piss himself from pure terror.
That was, if he could have pissed himself. Father Justin didn’t know this yet—spirits were notoriously slow, as regarded certain aspects of their own existence—but he was a gathering of dust motes only. His robes, his jowls, the spittle that flew from his lips as he cursed his captor, held together by Tristan’s will only.
But still capable, for all that, of feeling…pain.
Tristan’s smile was small and unpleasant. “That’s what you think.”
FORTY-ONE
Isla stared up at the mountains ringing them. Looming peaks on all sides, glaring down as shadows lengthened. She felt, at the bottom of this mountain valley, like she’d fallen into some enormous creature’s mouth. The flat ground beneath her feet was its tongue and the peaks, its teeth. Any minute now, they’d snap closed and swallow her whole.
This sense of…waiting had been pressing on her now for days. Her nerves were as tense as bowstrings. Everyone else’s were, too. Even Hart had been snapping more than usual, and he the most easygoing of them all. The stress of the journey had begun to wear on all of them. Some time ago, if truth be told. The symptoms had simply become, at—very—long last, impossible to ignore.
And now they were here.
Which, instead of easing the tension as she’d though it would, had made Isla ten times as nervous. The knowledge that she was mere hours from setting eyes on her betrothed was simply overwhelming. She hadn’t seen him now in almost two months; true winter was almost upon them. The past few mornings, when she’d risen, she’d done so to a hard, crunching frost on the ground and air so cold it seared her lungs.
Even by midday, the strangely pale sun did little to warm their caravan. Isla rode in silence next to Eir, her new cloak wrapped around her. She’d had to begin wearing several of the items from her trousseau, even though its contents were technically for the use of a married woman in her new life. None of Isla’s old clothes were warm enough; her old cloak certainly wasn’t. The thin, slightly moth-eaten wool had been re-cut from a hand-me-down.
Making matters worse, she hadn’t been able to bathe in a week. The water was simply too cold, even for her. She’d crawled down to a small ravine, brambles raking her frigid skin, and discovered that the water was so clear that the scattering of leaves on its surface appeared to be floating on air. And that was when, studying the surface, she saw that what she’d first taken for foam along the banks were, in fact, formations of ice.
She smelled bad and her hair, coated in grease, wanted to walk off her head. All the perfume in the world couldn’t cover the stench
of human being. As several of her more memorable nights at table with Hart could attest. Always, around Tristan, Isla had taken care of her appearance—and still felt inadequate. He was so beautiful, himself; she’d always known that. Even when she’d hated him, she’d still been drawn to him—even if she couldn’t admit as much, at the time.
The perfection of his features was exquisite, like a statue’s. Yes. But Hart was good looking, too. So was Callas. So were lots of men. And, with most men, their appeal either grew or faded as one got to know them better. Rudolph had become less and less attractive, in Isla’s eyes, as time wore on. He was simply too ridiculous. Other men, too…like the man her friend had married, twice her age and with two daughters. He’d grown far more handsome, with time, his weak chin and failing eyesight eclipsed by his soft heart.
Tristan, however, exuded a magnetism that both drew and repelled. Love him or hate him, he was impossible to ignore. He dominated every room he entered, seemingly without even trying—or even being aware that he was doing so. Unlike Rudolph who, Isla suspected, practiced his compliments for the ladies ahead of time and who laughed at his own poor jokes, Tristan rarely spoke. When he did, it was often to issue a cutting barb. But the ladies—the men, too—responded to Tristan in a way that they never would to Rudolph.
Isla’s own brother was more than a little in love with him. He rode just ahead of her, deep in conversation with Callas. Those two were as thick as thieves, had been now for some time. Hart seemed to have shed his Highland skin with the journey north, like a molting snake. Every day, he seemed more like a native of their new home and less like the brother she’d known. He’d even begun adopting their mannerisms, their way of speaking.
And the other night, Isla had watched in silence as Hart followed Callas into the woods.
For what? Not a romantic assignation, surely. Callas didn’t seem the type and she knew Hart wasn’t. Isla knew, from her conversations with Tristan, that the northerners worshipped their gods outside. Under the stars. Had Hart begun worshipping as Tristan did?
She wondered, and not for the first time, if she’d lost Hart like she’d lost everyone else.
As they approached the city gates, they slowed. There were tolls to be paid, and heads to be counted. Rowena halted her mare a little apart, between Apple and the baggage train. Mica, still confined to his wicker cage, howled. Only now, his howls competed with the shouts of men and livestock who were also entering the capital.
Barghast. Even the name sounded intimidating. In western legends, the Barghast was a headless creature that could vanish at will in a spontaneous eruption of flame. She wondered what the word meant in the northern tongue. If it meant anything.
Most of Barghast was built on and into an enormous mountain that had been carved and built out into a series of stepped platforms. The main thoroughfare was a wide road paved with cobblestones that curled around and around in one long ribbon. Where they were now, at the main gate, was the bottom of a broad valley spotted with farms. Meticulously hoed fields divided the grassland into a checkerboard of differing squares.
Callas, dismounting, tossed his reins to a groom and strode forward to speak with the guard.
Barghast was no lazy hamlet; the entire city was surrounded by thick, sloping walls that dwarfed those gathered beneath. There were several entrances, at differing points along the wall. A place this size needed more than one. Isla and her party had come to what was known as the North Gate; the busiest gate, the entrance to the capital from the main road leading south. This was where all of the merchant traffic came through. Isla supposed that the other gates must be for farmers bringing their goods to market; residents of Darkling Reach itself, coming west or east—or even down from further north—to transact their business. People who’d never been to Eamont, the southern capital. Who’d probably never even heard of it.
She looked up, studying the gate. Its doors were thrown open, admitting a steady stream in both directions: men, pigs. Cattle. Carts. Those on horseback, or driving carts, stopped to pay a toll. Isla watched as someone tried to sneak through by hiding himself in a particularly pressing crush of humanity and was startled to see a guard step forward and pull him off his horse. He did so casually, cuffing him before letting him fall onto the cobblestones. Disoriented and chagrined, the man staggered to his feet and brushed himself off.
Isla shivered.
Trying to regain her equilibrium, she concentrated on her surroundings. Her first impression of Barghast, now that she consciously endeavored to form one, was of a place both solid and inhuman. Everything was stone: the walls, the road. What she could see of the buildings beyond, both through the gate and above the crenellated walkways where guards paced.
The gate itself was enormous: at least three times the height of a tall man and twice as wide again. Carts passed by each other easily. Most of the traffic were locals, or those used to their surroundings at least; because no one seemed to be the least bit intimidated by the guardhouse towers bracketing the gate or of the men glaring down at them from above. Events like what had happened with the would-be toll evader seemed a matter of course.
The guard towers were each as massive as some keeps she’d seen, in the Highlands. Except instead of the walls being squared off to each other, forming four crisp corners, these towers were round. And, like the wall they guarded, they sloped slightly inward. Gazing down the line, Isla saw that there were several more such towers, spaced at regular intervals—whether there was a gate or no.
“Round towers are more resistant to siege machines.”
Isla jumped, surprised. Hart was right beside her, speaking almost directly into her ear. She hadn’t been paying attention; hadn’t even seen him move.
“The round front,” he continued, “is more resistant to impact than the straight side of a square tower—just as a load-bearing arch is more resistant to crumbling than is its squared-off cousin.” He gestured to the arched top of the gate. “This principle was understood in antiquity, and then lost—at least to us Southron fools.” He flashed her a small grin.
“I suppose Callas taught you that,” she snapped back, surprised at how shrewish she sounded. She hadn’t meant to sound shrewish at all; hadn’t realized until she spoke that she was that upset.
Hart arched his eyebrow, but said nothing. That was a new mannerism, for him. “You don’t like him,” he said flatly. Flatly, but not unkindly.
“No,” she admitted, “I don’t. There’s something…off about him.”
“Isla,” Hart said slowly, “I’m still your friend. And I’m still your brother.”
She didn’t respond. Instead she found herself studying, not the walls this time but the other members of her party. She wondered what was taking Callas so long, and why he was speaking for them anyway. She supposed, rationally, that someone must have to arrange for a runner to be sent ahead. So the castle would know they were coming.
And she supposed, bridal party or no, that there might be a toll.
Eir was nowhere to be seen. For her supposed protector, Isla thought with chagrin, the gnome certainly made free with her own schedule. Isla should be especially careful not to need assistance at mealtimes, or times like this when she was paused in the middle of the road, or any other time when anyone might conceivably have something better to do.
Although, she conceded to herself, Eir had seemed alert enough in Hardland.
Perhaps she felt that, now that she was home, there was no more cause for alarm.
The earl was asleep, pitched forward in his saddle with his sagging face pressed against his horse’s neck. A small trickle of drool had escaped the pouched corner of his lips. Apple had dismounted and was striding back and forth with her arms crossed, a sour expression on her face. And Rowena…Rowena’s eyes were red-rimmed and staring, as they’d been for most of the past fortnight. They only came into focus when she thought no one was watching, narrowing with a suspicion that Isla hadn’t seen there before.
Callas strod
e back to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. A fine destrier, a stallion, chestnut brown with a white flame on his forehead. He must have cost a great deal. Isla wondered again where Callas was from—really from.
He gave some sort of signal to his men and they began to move forward. He didn’t speak directly to Isla; he almost always never did. He ignored her, in fact, like she was a piece of furniture and that was part of her issue with him. Did he honestly not see women as people, much like her own father? Not worthy of updating, let alone conferring with?
She spared a sidelong glance at Hart, whose expression was inscrutable.
Rowena had disappeared back into the caravan. She’d avoided Isla since—for lack of a better term Isla had taken to thinking of that wretched afternoon as the incident—and Isla should have been pleased. Instead she was only worried. This silence, this—this subterfuge was even less like her sister than the hateful comments had been. At least, the sister Isla had thought she’d known. Had come to know. She thought, again, that Hart shouldn’t have burned that book. She couldn’t articulate her reasoning, not if someone held a sword to her throat, but she felt like in doing so her brother had unleashed something.
Something bad.
She approached the gate. Piper shied, unwilling to enter the shadowed tunnel before them. Isla saw now that the walls were thick indeed, far thicker than she’d imagined them. The other side, represented only by a bright square of light, seemed very far away.
Piper was a normally placid animal; Isla wondered for a split second if Piper knew something she didn’t. And dismissed the thought as insane, and unworthy. There was nothing wrong with this gate, with this place; Piper was just unused to cities.
“It’s called a barbican,” Hart said, gesturing to the gate.
Digging her knees into the mare’s sides, she urged her forward. Grudgingly, Piper went. She—it wasn’t that she ignored Hart, precisely. She just had no response for him. And no response to his newfound interest in academia. Where was her brother, who rolled with pigs? She tried to dismiss the unworthy thought. He was still her brother, and he was here. Talking to her, now. Unlike a few other people she could name.