“You perhaps remember me, Sister Rozalia. I am Sir Tristan Hiregaard. How is your father? I trust the ban on your family is not making them suffer unduly.”
Rozalia’s eyes snapped fire, but her voice was calm. “My father died. I do not know how the rest of them fare. As I told you, I follow Sehkmaa now. You surely did not come here to discuss my family. What is your business with the Claws of Sehkmaa?”
Konstantin dead? Tristan began to express his condolences but knew Rozalia did not want them. Instead, he answered her question. “I’m looking for a boy named Garran Kalana. His parents were killed last night, and there was no sign of Garran at the murder site. I’m hoping he was frightened away, and turned up here.” He described the boy—six years old, stocky, dark haired, mischievous.
“Does he have a family waiting for him?”
Tristan shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. I haven’t come to take him away. I merely wish to question him, to see if he can give us any clues as to the identity of his parents’ murderers.”
Rozalia shook her head. “A tragic tale, Sir Tristan. We do have a child of that description here, but I don’t think he will be able to help you. Still, I will bring him to you if you will come inside and wait. Excuse me.”
She stepped aside and indicated that he enter. Then, with a rustle of gold cloth, she was gone. Tristan found himself alone in a hall that, while it did not compare with the opulence of his own Faerhaaven, was certainly impressive. Whatever furnishings had filled the place, however, had gone with their former owners, and the hall felt empty. It was, for an orphanage, strangely silent. In time Rozalia returned, climbing the stairs and leading a small boy.
Tristan didn’t remember much about Garran, but he did remember the boy’s intensity. That had disappeared. The child who stood before him now was pale and still, his eyes huge and unfocused with deep purple shadows beneath them. He stared fixedly, and Tristan felt a stab of apprehension.
“Is this the boy?” asked Rozalia.
Tristan nodded and knelt to the child’s eye level. “Hello, Garran. I’m Tristan. I have some questions.”
The boy remained silent, but Rozalia spoke in his stead. “He cannot answer you.”
Tristan rose and regarded her angrily. “What have you done to him?”
Rozalia smiled an almost crafty smile. “We gave him certain herbs to heal him when he came. He is still injured, and we still treat him. He’ll be fine when—”
“Injured? Let me see.” If the wound wasn’t healing cleanly, he would take the child with him back to Faerhaaven. More and more, he was growing suspicious of the Claws of Sehkmaa. He expected to see the long scar of a scimitar stroke or a cutlass swipe on the boy’s body. To his surprise, Rozalia placed a finger on Garran’s chin. He obediently opened his mouth. Tristan stared horrified at the pulpy mass that had been Garran’s tongue.
Rozalia’s strange smile widened. “We found him wandering, dazed and bleeding. Some horrible person had cut out his tongue.”
She again touched the boy’s chin, and he closed his mouth. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, you have upset poor Garran enough for one day.” Rozalia turned and ushered the boy back down the stairs.
Anger flared inside him—anger at the boy’s condition, anger at Rozalia’s arrogance. He had opened his mouth to call after her when he heard Ivaar’s voice coming from the front yard.
“Father!” Pleased, Ivaar hastened up to Tristan. “One of the Claws told me you were here. You should have let me know you were coming. I could have arranged a tour for you.”
“I don’t need a tour,” snapped Tristan. “I’ve seen enough. I need your help, son.” He kept his voice low and walked toward Kal. As he unwound the horse’s reins, he whispered, “I believe that one of the Claws is the signature killer. I also think they may be behind some other crimes that have taken place recently.”
Ivaar’s reaction was swift and unhesitating. “How dare you accuse my brethren of such a crime!” cried Ivaar, his green eyes flashing dangerously. Sensing its master’s ire, the cat at Ivaar’s feet arched its back and hissed at Tristan.
Tristan held up a placating hand. “I’m not incriminating the organization, just a few individuals. You yourself have told me many of the Claws come from poor origins—literally from the slums. Not everyone who lived there is a criminal, I know. But that kind of environment does breed crime. All I’m asking is if you know anyone who might be—”
“Sehkmaa would not choose anyone who would so disgrace the order!”
“Son,” continued Tristan, keeping a check on his impatience, “I’ve seen a lot in my time. A good faith doesn’t always make for good followers, and—”
“If you accuse my brethren, you accuse me.”
Tristan glared at Ivaar. All the old arguments they had had over the last several years came back to him. They had all ended like this—Tristan angry and frustrated, Ivaar hurt and feeling wronged. There was no getting through to him, after all. “At least do this for me,” Tristan said. “Keep your own counsel on this.”
Ivaar snorted. “Gladly. I would never repeat such a terrible rumor. Good-bye, Father.”
Tristan felt a sensation of terrible, inexplicable finality as he watched his son stride away, the strange vestments of his priesthood billowing about his small frame. He did not know how they would ever repair the damage they had done to each other this time.
Tristan’s mood was black as he closed himself up inside his sorcery chamber. He lit the candles with a wave of his fingers and a single word, then sat down before his obdurate and unpredictable mirror. He stared into it for a moment, examining his own chiseled, tanned features, the deep blue eyes with the lines that surrounded them, the mouth that didn’t seem to smile much anymore. His hair, too, had more gray in it than Tristan recalled seeing there before. He had slept well last night, for a change, and had eaten a full breakfast. Still, working with the mirror tired him, and he expected to be exhausted long before he had his questions answered. He drummed his fingers on the table, then resigned himself to beginning.
First, the most important question, the one he had asked the mirror so many times before with no result. “Show me the signature killer.” The mirror did not change. “Show me Sehkmaa.” Now, as it had before, the mirror crawled with a sluggishly swirling mist. “Show me Ivaar Hiregaard.” The mist continued to churn in the mirror.
Tristan rubbed his temples. His head was beginning to hurt. What could he ask to determine just how maladjusted the mirror was? A macabre idea occurred to him, and he grimaced. “Show me the most recent murder victim.”
The fog cleared, revealing a prone drunkard in an alley. Another man rummaged through his pockets. Tristan shook his head sadly. Murder did not always carry with it the high drama of the signature killer; it was sometimes tragically mundane.
Another thought came to him. “Show me the next murder victim,” he asked. The mirror fogged over. It wouldn’t predict the future—could it shed light on the past? If he could see the murder, he could see the murderer. “Show me—” what? “—show me who killed Amasa the Vistana and my guard Perryn,” he ordered.
Excitement rose in him as the fog cleared, shimmered. The next instant Tristan stifled a desire to smash the cursed thing into a thousand pieces. It revealed the portrait of his wife Ailsa.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked angrily. The mirror continued to show Ailsa’s smiling face.
It was then that he noticed that the room grew suddenly colder. The candles flickered as if from a breeze, but there could be none. Alert, eyes narrowing, Tristan watched the candles in the mirror’s sconces. They wavered for a few seconds, then steadied. Now, they burned not orange but deep, cool blue.
Tristan recalled a superstition that would explain the candles’ unusual change. Even as his logical mind rejected it, his imagination cringed. Slowly, he rose and went to his bookcase. His hands caressed the tooled leather bindings of the old books until they paused on the one Tristan wanted. He hes
itated, feeling a cold finger of fear trace its languid way up his spine. Would it be, in the end, better to be unsure?
He shook his head and pulled down the book. Turning the old pages carefully lest they disintegrate, he found the spell he wanted. He read the ingredients needed and calmly retrieved them, aware that his hands were shaking slightly. A sprinkle of talc, a bit of ground silver atop it … He chanted the proper magical words as he gently blended the ingredients with his forefinger. Then, with his back pressed to the door, Tristan faced the room. He took a deep breath, passed his hand over the mixture, then blew the powder into the air.
As if a gentle wind had taken the powder, it flew farther than nature would have permitted it. The talc swirled, floating to the ceiling, then descended in a small shower. As it fell, it outlined a form that, like a drowned corpse floating up from the depths of a dark river, gradually became more visible. Tristan gasped in shock and pain. His heart spasmed painfully, as if gripped by an invisible hand. His hand flew to his chest, and his trembling legs very nearly gave way.
Standing before him, rendered visible by the spell, was a translucent, pale blue and silver image of his wife Ailsa. She looked exactly as Tristan remembered her. Her hair was loose, falling in a white cascade down her back. She was dressed in the beautiful brocade gown they had buried her in, and she wore the brooch he had given her so many decades ago when they were young and in love and the world housed infinite possibilities. The gown became less defined as it passed her hips, trailing off into mist as she hovered a full foot from the floor.
“Tristan, my beloved,” said Ailsa’s ghost in a breathy voice. “I have waited so long for this moment!” She glided toward him, arms outstretched for an embrace.
“No!” Tristan cried, averting his eyes and thrusting his hands ahead of him.
The spirit seemed hurt. “Tristan, love, I have waited for your call all these years! You speak so sweetly to my portrait, but when I appear you reject me!”
Somehow, Tristan managed to contain his horror. Now he knew what the mirror meant—Ailsa had indeed slain the unfortunate young trespasser and his guard. They had died of fright when she materialized. But then, why didn’t her very presence destroy him now?
“You killed the Vistana boy and his guard, didn’t you?” His voice shook, badly, but Ailsa didn’t seem to notice. She nodded yes in answer to his question. “But … why? What had they done?”
“I am sorry for the guard,” she admitted in her dulcet voice, “but the Vistana was a trespasser. He could have hurt you, Tristan, and I could never let anyone hurt you.” Smiling, she floated toward him, and he flinched back into the door. She paused, frowning slightly.
“How—how long have you been here?”
“Why, Tris,” she said, her voice teasing now, “I have never left your side for a single day since we were married! I’ve been waiting for you to notice me. As for everyone else—” She shrugged her incorporeal shoulders. “They were happy with the flowers and made beds. They didn’t need to see me.”
Again, she moved toward him, and this time Tristan steeled himself for—what? Her hand brushed his cheek. He felt a coldness, as of a damp draft, but nothing more. Ailsa’s hand had passed right through him. She frowned as if confused and reached out again, with the same result. Floating backward, she stared, annoyed, at her disobedient hand, then smiled coquettishly. “Are you playing tricks with your magic again, Tristan?”
The question stabbed Tristan like a knife. He had indeed played harmless tricks on his beloved, tricks that both would laugh about afterward. He missed those days terribly, and the memory of his living wife was torturous. This was no trick. His wife was dead, and her ghost could not find rest.
“What must I do to help you?” he asked.
Again, she looked puzzled. “Help me with what?”
“Help you—pass on,” he finished awkwardly. When her pale blue brow remained furrowed with confusion, he continued, “You are not resting in your grave at peace, as you deserve. What can I do to—”
He broke off. The confusion on the phantom’s face was bleeding slowly into anger. “I am not dead,” she hissed. “How cruel, to pretend that I’m dead!”
Tristan’s jaw dropped. His wife’s ghost was exactly the way Ailsa had been when she died—beautiful and insane. Even as the thought occurred to him, Ailsa’s lovely if spectral features twisted, as if they were made of rubber. Her mouth opened wide, wider, until it seemed as though her head would split in half. A chilling shriek of denial issued forth, its tones shrill and keening. The long white hair lifted until it stood out straight from her skull. Ailsa’s hands became bestial claws, and the gruesome image turned Tristan’s blood to ice. The unnatural creature charged at him. A deep, bone cold shuddered though him, and he cried aloud, fear crackling along his nerves in a horrified rush. As he fell to the stone floor, his eyes clenched shut in vain denial of what he was seeing, Tristan’s one thought was, So this is how Amasa and Perryn died.
A heartbeat later, it was over. The fear faded and died, and he cautiously opened his eyes. He became aware of a sharp pain in his forehead, and guessed he had hit the table as he fell. Tristan probed the injury with tentative fingers, wincing. Blood trickled down his face. Groaning a little, he got to his feet. There was no sign of Ailsa. He eased himself into his chair before the mirror, using it as he would any ordinary looking glass to examine his forehead.
As his eyes met those of his reflection, a new, reluctant knowledge crept into Tristan’s heart. The mirror had given him the truth when he had asked about Amasa’s death. It had shown him Ailsa. What about his other questions? Leave them, a part of him warned. Leave them unanswered, only half guessed at. But Tristan could do no such thing. The idea had come, and as he had done with Ailsa, to his pain, so must he now gain answers to these questions.
He swallowed hard. In a voice that shook, he again asked the mirror, “Show me the signature killer.” It remained unchanged, showing him his strained, pale and bloodied visage. Tristan licked his lips and closed his eyes, gathering strength. “Show me … show me what other faces the killer wears.”
At once the mirror shimmered.
A monstrous thing stared back into Tristan’s eyes.
That it was, or had been, or might some day become human was undeniable. There was a humanoid symmetry to the placement of eyes and ears and mouth, and shaggy brown hair covered the creature’s skull. The eyes, too, were human, but filled with a burning, angry malice and a sense of shock. What passed for its mouth was a rubbery slit crammed full of sharp white teeth. One side of its face was distorted, as if it had been made of clay and a careless child had clutched it too hard. The other half was a welter of partially healed scars. Boils oozed pus on its forehead. Its ears tapered to a point, incongruously graceful features in so hideous a visage.
“You!” shrieked the being, furious.
“Me,” whispered Tristan. He jumped back as the thing in the mirror yowled angrily and lunged for him.
The creature, however, slammed against an invisible wall. It pounded on its side of the mirror angrily. “You’ve closed it!” it shrieked. “Damn you, you’ve closed it!”
Tristan stared in shock at the monstrous thing in the mirror as it raged furiously, hurling epithets and obscenities. Spittle gathered at the corners of its lips and sprayed the air. But Tristan was not listening.
He himself was the killer! Somehow, he, Tristan Hiregaard, had managed to slay—what was the number now? Eight? Nine?—innocent women, without even being aware of the crimes! The thing continued to rant. Tristan moaned softly as the revelation hit him, and covered his ears to shut out the filthy diatribe. No, he could not have committed all those murders, that was impossible. He wasn’t capable of such atrocities. Besides, there was an entity, right here, trapped in the mirror. And if the quirky mirror was to be trusted—and Tristan realized he had no choice but to trust it—this monster, this raving brute was the face the killer wore.
No, that wasn’t
right. According to the way he had framed the question, the mirror creature was merely the other face the killer wears. For the sake of his sanity, Tristan grasped at the hope that the beast who slavered at him now was the true killer, and was somehow using Tristan to commit his heinous acts. He had to believe that. It gave him a chance.
With that slim comfort, rationality returned to the knight. It was the beast that was responsible. And right now, Tristan apparently had him trapped.
“Yes,” said Tristan suddenly, composing his features. “I have closed your—” he hazarded a guess “—doorway.” It was a bluff, the only play he had.
The being in the mirror sneered. “I have others, idiot.” He whirled around, scanning what seemed a wall of gray mist. An instant later, the brutal face turned back to his adversary. “You’ve closed them all!”
Elation flooded Tristan. He had no idea what he had done or if he would be able to do it again.
“What is your name?” Tristan pressed. The being hurled an epithet at him. “What is your name?” More swearing. “If you don’t tell me who you are, I can only call you Monster. You are the ugliest thing I—”
“I am not ugly!”
Tristan was so startled at the violence of the creature’s reaction that he stepped back without thinking. He had heard the thing’s anger; now it seemed somehow pained. It covered its grotesque visage with gnarled, clawed hands as if to hide it.
“Malken,” it spat. “You will call me Malken.”
Tristan kept his features even, but inside his triumph grew. Malken. The mysterious leader of the Claws of Sehkmaa. Malken was the signature killer. He had linked himself with the biggest cult that had ever descended upon Nova Vaasa. Tristan thought of little Garran, tongue cut out to prevent him from revealing his parents’ killers, and anger mixed with his triumph.
“What sort of creature are you? Man, spirit?”
The Enemy Within Page 14