Blood Magic

by Matthew Cook

  Ato falls silent, staring into the coals, his mind elsewhere. Perhaps he is thinking of his long-ago home. I watch Lia's eyes slowly close, hear her breathing deepen in sleep.

  Not long after, I uncurl and rise smoothly, silently, to my feet. The fire has died down to bare embers. The sullen red glow illuminates Lia's sleeping face. Behind her, his back to the stone cliff, Brother Ato sits, mouth open in a gentle snore, arms cradling his crosier.

  I ghost away from the camp, taking a careful hour to check the trail. Fitful moonlight dapples through the clouds racing overhead. The smell of rain is in the air. It will come soon, perhaps before dawn.

  Satisfied that nothing follows us, I lay a tripline across the obvious trail leading up to our shelter, securing one end to a propped-up log. Anything stumbling into the line and pulling out the support will make sufficient racket to wake the dead.

  Only then do I feel comforted enough to sleep. My eyes are closed moments after resting my head on my pack.

  The sound of The log, falling through the rustling leaves, is loud in the pre-dawn black. I spring to my feet, hand on my knife, eyes uselessly sweeping back and forth in the clouded darkness. Behind me, I hear Brother Ato give a sleepy exclamation. Lia's gentle snores do not even falter.

  "Wha...?” Ato says thickly.

  "Something's down there. Moving up the path,” I whisper.

  Whatever it is, there is more than one. They are not even trying to be quiet. In the darkness, it is impossible to gauge their size, but they do not sound large.

  "Perhaps it is pigs? Or deer?” Ato asks.

  I shake my head, forgetting that he cannot see the gesture. Wild animals would have fled at the sound of the falling log; would not be moving relentlessly up the trail into the scent of our humanity and our fire.

  "Wake Lia. Gently. Be ready to flee, if I command it."

  I grip my knife. I could run down the back trail to safety. I am almost certain that, in the darkness, I could escape. But doing so would doom Lia to whatever fate approaches us. Once more, I am trapped.

  There is no place to run. Footfalls scrape across stone as whatever has followed us ascends.

  Chapter Eight

  I lingered over Karl's body for hours, tenderly washing at the grime and dirt, as well as the more recent traces of blood, then carefully bandaging the ruin I had made of his poor throat. I knew all of the rituals for the dead from my mistress's books, but I did not choose to follow them, instead making those preparations that pleased me in the moment. I knew that the young man's spirit still lingered, had not been called down into some dark pit to answer for his crimes.

  Not yet, anyway. Perhaps he was innocent of the taint that had so infected the likes of Mick and Barrett, but it was too late to contemplate such things now. That he would accompany such men was crime enough for me. Perhaps, when I went looking, his shade would be gone, but I did not think so.

  When the body was cleansed and wrapped in my spare blanket, I waited for the stiffness of death to fade from his shapely limbs. I knew the process would take two days, three at the outside, time enough for the others’ remains to draw unwelcome scavengers.

  I disposed of the other bodies, dragging them unceremoniously to a stony gorge the river had carved and throwing them in. Let the water be their grave, I thought. I hoped their spirits would find no comfort, forever wandering, forever searching for their final resting place.The first day, returning from my errand, I gathered herbs, then ground them into a paste, boiling it down into a sweet-smelling balm. I rubbed this into Karl's skin, pushing back the scent of decay that had already begun to blossom in his flesh.

  On the second, I massaged and kneaded his muscles, helping to break free the rigor that had settled there. I knew that doing so would ease his rebirth, making him more agile, better able to do my bidding. I took care to shoo away the flies that circled him, lest he become the home of unwelcome, destructive visitors.

  The third day dawned, and I prepared myself, washing in the icy stream until my skin was numb. My fingernails were a pale shade of shell blue when I reached for my clothes. My hands trembled.

  Such cleansing was not required, for the art my mistress had taught me relied not on recited ritual, like the prayers of the priests, nor on invocations and adjurations, such as the elemental mages were said to employ. Rather, it was an act of sheer will. Still, the ceremony set my restless mind at ease, calming my fears.

  After I had eaten and my strength was at its peak, I calmed my last, restless thoughts and settled myself. I closed my eyes and, with a breath, I opened my secret, inner eye. Immediately, the darkness behind my eyelids was shot through with traceries of fire. Every tree, every leaf, twig and root, was limned with the light of life. I opened my fleshly eyes, and the traceries remained, glowing faintly.

  Amongst this brightness, a dark shadow drifted. As I suspected, Karl's shade was still present, still lingering. He turned his milk-white eyes to me at my command, locking his gaze to my own black orbs. I could feel his struggles, like a fly cupped in my palms, a restless, desperate buzzing, inconsequential and ineffectual. Wordlessly, I commanded him to lie in his discarded shell, and the ghost obeyed.

  What rose was not the pale, shining body of the boy I had slain. He did not twitch, then stir, like a man coming awake from a deep sleep, but rather he convulsed, as if the process inflamed his dead nerves, as if I somehow brought him pain.

  He flopped onto his stomach, his shriveled eyes opening, weeping pus, spine arching like a cat's, impossibly hunched. Adry rattle escaped Karl's cold, gaping mouth as trapped gas was pushed out like breath from the force of his exertions. His skin split with the sound of tearing silk, parting to reveal crimson bands of muscle and the white knobs of his spine, before what was inside of him ripped itself lose.

  It stood there, swaying on its taloned feet, limbs trailing the crimson shreds of its birth cocoon, its gaping, fanged mouth opening, tasting the breeze. Its eyes were opals, shining with iridescent gleams of blue and red and fiery amethyst in the sunlight. Its half-skinned body was all hornlike spurs and leathery muscle, sliding with a gentle sigh under the parchment-like skin. One arm was larger than the other, tipped not with a hand, but with a jagged, hooked blade of bone.

  Seeing it, I felt an answering heat in my belly, a force of primal creation that surged upwards, like a bolt of ice and fire, straight to my head. My eyes watered with tears of helpless joy as I looked upon it. My child, the only fruit my womb would ever bear, something at once unique and precious. He had a face only a mother could love, perfect in its imperfection, sublime in its deformity.

  My lovely one; my sweetling.

  I did not know then, nor did I ever learn, why the same gift that my mistress used to awaken the intact bodies of the dead instead granted me the means to create my dark children. All I knew was that seeing my precious, beloved child struggling free of its cold womb, like a chick breaking through the shell that separates it from the outside world, filled me with such satisfaction as I have never known.

  Even my sister, who had known the joys and pains of childbirth, cooed and delighted at my sweetling's arrival, and I beamed at her approval. This would be both our child.

  I soon discovered that my beloved's construction made him unsuited to the domestic, everyday tasks that I had hoped he would be able to accomplish. My mistress's servants could be trusted to fetch water, or sweep, after a fashion, or to carry heavy burdens from one place to another. But my sweetling could do no such things; its taloned paw and blade-like arm were too clumsy to hold a broom or a bucket handle, and its mismatched limbs made carrying bundles of firewood or stones from the riverbed problematic.

  Finally, after watching it drop a bundle of kindling for the dozenth time, I cried out in frustration, “What good to me are you, wretched thing? Did I not call you to me to be my helper, my companion?"

  It paused, listening to my words, cocking its gruesome head at me in a way unlike any of my mistress's dim-witted servants had. Co
uld it hear me? Understand me?

  A rustling reached me from the woods, the sound of a deer or a pig, moving through the undergrowth. I recalled the taste and smell of roasting meat, felt the squirt of saliva in my mouth at the memory.

  The sweetling took off like a shot, markedly faster than I had ever seen my mistress's servants move, headed like a crossbow bolt towards the noise. Its quarry gave a frightened squeal, followed close by a frightful clamor as the concealing bushes were rent asunder. I hurried forth, curious to see what was happening.

  By the time I arrived, it was over, the pig twitching with its last feeble death spasms. It was a boar, a male, two hundred pounds of rock-hard muscle and spine-like fur, snout bristling with ivory tusks that gleamed like sabers. It must have turned to fight, a not uncommon reaction from this erstwhile lord of the forest; not many things in the woods could have hoped to overcome it. I certainly could not have.

  The boar lay, its throat torn out, its lifeblood pulsing across the fallen leaves. It had left its mark on my sweetling, the tusks gouging out hideous, gaping wounds from its belly and side, wounds that my dark child ignored. The pig should have run.

  That night, I feasted, juices running down my chin as I gorged myself on the sweet, sweet meat. My sweetling watched from the edge of the firelight.

  Belly full for the first time in recent memory, I lay on my pallet, indulging in pleasant fantasies of faceless, pale-skinned youths, eager and anxious to attend my every desire. My hands called forth bittersweet joy, moving with increasing urgency until my body finally responded. The release, when it finally arrived, was heralded by my cries.

  I turned on my side, sated and drowsy, eyes closing as sleep claimed me. My last sight was of my sweetling, gazing at me from its place in the shadows. It had never stopped watching me. Its opal eyes, full of unconditional love and approval, never left me. I knew that, no matter what, it would never turn on me. Never belittle or humiliate me. Would be my champion, my defender. My silent confidant and supporter.

  It loved me.

  I slipped into the deep, untroubled sleep of the blessed.

  Chapter Nine

  Lia gives a tiny gasp, and Brother Ato whispers urgently for her to be still. My eyes flick back and forth, searching in vain for any hint of movement. The night is as black as a mine shaft.

  The soft footfalls scrape across stone. Whatever they are, they are near. They must hear us. I hear Ato scrabbling at our meager pile of firewood.

  Then the light flares as he throws a handful of tinder and pine needles onto the fitful coals. Faces loom out of the darkness, fanged visages with opaline eyes and weeping, broken flesh.

  I scream and throw myself forward, even as Ato begins a chant, calling forth the power of his goddess.

  "No!” I say. “They do not wish us harm!"

  Brother Ato's chant falters, its thread broken. I stand before my sweetlings, arms spread wide, sheltering them with my own body. In the dancing light, I see Ato's eyes go wide with horror. Behind him, Lia struggles to her feet, her arms tangled in her cloak.

  "Blessed Lady, it cannot be,” the priest breathes. He brandishes his crosier at me, his other hand forming the sign of the Eye, fingers rigid, forefinger and thumb circled. Award against evil. I have seen it so many times before.

  "What's going on?” Lia demands, freeing herself. “Kirin, who is that...?” She squints through the uncertain light, then falters when she sees what is behind me.

  "They will not harm you, I swear it,” I say, striving to keep my voice calm. Images of the Mor, lying broken and charred, come to me. “They followed me. Some must have been trapped beneath the falling wall. We ... I left them there."

  Three of my dark children have come after me. Their bodies are damaged, their leathery skin ripped and shredded, caked with masonry dust and the black blood of the Mor. Their hands are ravaged, the claws and nails broken and torn away. They must have dug their way from beneath the fallen wall. The stones must have sheltered them from the lightning that consumed the Mor.

  One, a sweetling raised from the body of an older archer, Raist I think was his name, looks at me from a skull crushed almost unrecognizable, its lone, weeping eye peering out at me from beneath a flap of dangling hair. Its entire lower jaw has been sheared away, its tongue dangling against its torn chest in a manner that even I find disturbing. It can barely walk; its two shattered knees want to bend in the wrong direction. It drags itself along on its hands, the mangled digits stripped of all flesh. The others must have slowed their own pace so as not to abandon it.

  "Time to rest now, my brave one. Well done, oh, so well done,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes. I reach out and caress the terrible face.

  A moment later, the sweetling topples back, its body trailing ash as it falls. I see, with my secret eye, Raist's soul flicker away, hummingbird-quick, into the night sky. The sound the departure makes is as soft as the rustle of a wasp's wings.

  Behind me, I hear Ato's indrawn breath. Lia curses, a jumble of Harbortown profanity, the words oddly melodious in her mouth. I sit, awaiting judgment, mentally commanding my children to be still, to not move, telling them again and again how very fine and brave I think they are.

  Minutes later, I am still sitting. The stone is cold and unyielding beneath me. I look up, and see that both of them are still staring. Ato's face is a blank sheet of granite, obdurate and implacable, the righteous fury of his goddess shining, golden, in his eyes.

  Lia's stare, every bit as intense, is softer somehow, filled with equal parts loathing and an unexpected wonder. I frown. I am not used to seeing such a complex expression on one that looks upon my progeny. Usually, their reaction is much more akin to Ato's.

  "I had no idea...” I hear her whisper.

  "They are an offense against Shanira and must be destroyed!” Ato thunders, as if Lia's words have snapped him out of a daze. He strides forth, brandishing his staff. Trails of gold hang in the air like dust as he moves.

  "If you wish to harm them then you will have to kill me first,” I say, rising. Sadness fills me. Ato, for all his blind prejudice, seems a good man, loyal to Lia. A fellow healer. I do not want this.

  "So be it. ‘Thou shalt not suffer an abomination to live',” he quotes, his eyes wild with devotion.

  "Brother, no!” Lia screams. “There must be an explanation! You cannot kill Kirin! Priests do not kill!"

  Oh, but they do, my sister hisses. Just ask a thousand old women, herbalists and midwives all, taken in the priests’ last attempt at purifying the land in the name of their oh, so righteous gods.

  I nod in agreement. I know what this man's kind, if not this man himself, is capable of. His piety, like Hollern's, blinds him to anything outside the narrow boundaries of his faith. It gives him strength along with the desire to use that strength, no matter the cost to others. I ready myself, gathering my legs to spring.

  Lia's words have a more profound effect on Ato. He jerks away from them, tearing his eyes from mine to look at her. He stammers out a denial. “I ... Lia, you do not understand. I must ... She..."

  "Is alive. Is a living woman. Brother, you must not do this."

  For a moment, I think he will do it anyway. Will call down whatever justice his faith demands for my sins. I wonder if it will hurt, or if whatever force resides in my earthly shell will simply be snuffed out, like a candle flame.

  Then he is gone, his sandaled feet skittering across the stone, nearly falling with the urgency of his flight. I hear him, out in the darkness, blundering through the undergrowth, trailing half-heard words; curses and prayers mingled like vinegar and honey.

  I look up into Lia's sapphire eyes, and see that this is not over. She has spared me, but she does not like what she sees. A hint of illumination, like the flash of far-off lightning, flickers across her eyes, and I move to put myself in front of my children.

  "Shall you finish the job that Brother Ato was too weak to complete, Lia?” I say softly, honestly wondering what she will answe
r.

  The question hangs between us in the still air, as Lia struggles with her answer. I reach out and stroke my sweetlings’ faces, awaiting her pleasure, awed once again by the depth of their devotion. No matter what she or the priest decide, they can never take that from me.

  The heavy overcasT makes the coming of the dawn a slow, dreary affair. The sky is still lightening in the east when the rain begins. Soon, it thickens into a downpour.

  I sit in the meager shelter of our camp, while Ato and Lia debate. They have moved off, into the trees, to talk in private, but I can hear the faint buzz of their voices over the rain's restless patter.

  As I wait, I clean the worst of the dirt and blood from my children's bodies. It is, I know, a vain attempt to make them more presentable, but I cannot help it. Nothing will change the reality of their warlike forms, or obscure the fact that these are indeed dead things, brought back by my secret power.

  You can kill them. Now, while they are busy with their endless arguments, my sister whispers. Even the girl will not have the power to resist you, once your blood magic is loose in her veins.

  "She would call down the lightning and fry us both where we stand,” I murmur, turning to hide my lips.

  I do not know why I bother. My guilt is proven in Ato's mind, the evidence sitting on the stone before me.

  Why do you not flee, then? They are no match for you in the woods. Even burdened with the children, you could be away before they know it.

  It is a good question, one that I have asked myself with growing frequency. I remember Lia, slumbering, as unknown danger approached. Remember her scrambling up, tangled in her blankets, defenseless and blind, and I know.

  They need me. She needs me. So many have died. At Gamth's Pass and at Fort Azure. People who trusted me. Lia, despite her mastery of the storm, is only one woman. If the Mor come upon them in force, even she might not have the power to defeat them. All it will take is one knife, one claw.

  The thought of her lying in the mud, body torn, her pretty eyes boiled from within and her lustrous hair crisped, fills me with an unexpected rage. No. I will not allow that to happen.