by Jags, Chris
“Then how do I stop it?” Simon asked desperately. “Assuming any of this is true, how do I make this thing… go away?”
The leshy turned to study him, eyes roving in their visible wooden sockets. He shook his head slightly.
“First, tea,” he grunted.
Minutes passed before Simon held another comfortingly warm mug cupped between his shaking hands. Clearly aggrieved that the chairs had been appropriated by unwanted guests, Hezben perched stiff-backed upon his bed and sipped his tea sourly. Sasha, who had forgotten or elected to ignore her warning to remain in the vicinity of the door mat, was engaged in a close-quarters staring match with the mounted elk’s head. Niu had adopted a wary, darkly speculative expression. On the rare occasion she caught his pleading gaze, she favored him with a thin, tight smile which was hardly reassuring.
“So,” Simon said when he could bear the tension no longer. “Tell me more about this heartstopper thing.”
“It is a grievous affliction for those unequipped to handle it. A malicious parasitic soul,” Hezben expanded, “Reliant upon the instability of its host’s emotions. It takes only one bout of strong emotion to unleash the soul’s power, but this can be a disastrous enough turn of events to manipulate the host, in his confusion, to accidentally unleash it again and again as his fear and despair strengthens and multiply.”
Simon moaned aloud, not caring how juvenile he might sound. “I thought Vanyon was protecting me.”
“I could see how it might seem that way,” the leshy said caustically, “To a toddler.”
Simon ignored the insult. “What… what can I expect?”
Hezben sipped his tea primly. “Some never come to understand what is happening to them. They wind up killing their loved ones; eventually, perhaps, even their entire communities in the growing depths of their despair. Fortunately, such instances are more uncommon even than the heartstopper souls themselves, which are mercifully few and far between. But I say this: no one carrying the weight of a heartstopper has ever seen their story through to a tidy conclusion. Even now, a desperation is settling upon you that the soul is drawing power from. If you cannot control your stronger feelings – positive and negative alike – there will ever be consequences for those in your vicinity.”
“Positive as well?” Simon groaned. Somewhere at the back of his mind, a fantasy had been forming, that he and Niu survived their journey to Jynn and took up together in a cottage there somewhere - or whatever they lived in in that eastern kingdom. That Niu grew to forget Cihau and love him instead; that they lived happily. A simplistic, even childish fantasy perhaps, but impossible to fulfill if love was also off the table. “Please… how do I get rid of it?”
Hezben set his teacup down with exaggerated care. Then he stood, folded his hands behind his back, and began to pace, stiffly straight-legged.
“You don’t,” he said. “The curse will eventually consume you. Your best option is to lose yourself in the wilds, where at least you can bring no harm to those you care about. But not my wilds,” the leshy added severely. “I will not have a parasitic curse haunting my forest.”
“There must be a way,” Niu interjected, studying Simon’s crumpling face. “Surely there is nothing that can not be reversed. Even death.” She glanced at Sasha.
Hezben’s lopsided shrug gave Simon little confidence. “Perhaps it is possible,” he admitted, “Though to the extent of my knowledge, there is no record of it ever having been done, nor even a documented process by which it might be attempted.” He glared at Simon. “When the rains let up, we will guide you into the mountains. From there, I care not where you go or what you do, but do not return to my domain.”
“The sword,” Simon said suddenly, unwilling to submit to permanent exile so easily.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Right before… all this happened. I found a sword. A rusty old thing, cast aside. It’s what inspired me to try my hand at fighting the Cannevish Wyrm.”
Hezben’s eyes glittered. “Indeed?” His pacing grew more frenetic. “That does have precedent. I seem to recall a text… when Lady Sirena of Lossale became possessed by the soul in centuries long past, she is recorded to have recently inherited a veritable treasure trove of wealth from a deceased uncle. Her character began to change, historians say, from about that time and she began to pick fights with nobles she didn’t care for, eventually scaling up to neighboring kingdoms. Swaths of soldiers fell before her, it is said, as though they were struck down by an invisible hand, and likewise her own men fell. She was noted to have started wearing an uncharacteristically unfashionable necklace around that time. Show me this sword.”
“I don’t have it,” Simon said. “I left it in Vingate.”
The leshy’s eyes widened. One hand twitched as though he were resisting the urge to slap Simon. “Then someone else is in possession of the soul.”
“Isn’t it in me?” Simon returned defensively.
Hezben pondered this.
“I don’t know,” he admitted at length. “Whether the soul leaps from item to host, or simply infects its victims while continuing to reside in its original vessel, perhaps multiplying… no! Who can say? No one has fully studied this force. Scholars cannot even decide whether it is a conscious entity in its own right, or something more akin to a contagion; and where I say ‘scholars’, I mean the two or three doddering old fools throughout history who have bothered to tackle the subject with any attention.”
“I’m impressed you know all this, Hez,” Oswald chipped in admiringly.
The leshy waved the compliment away. “I make it a habit to be aware of what goes on in the world around me,” he said. “The better to protect the forest.”
“So the gist of it is,” Simon said wearily, “That no one knows what the heartstopper soul really is, whether it’s in me or not, or if I can purge it or not.”
Hezben grinned coldly, all wooden teeth and no humor. “What I do know,” he said, “Is that I don’t want it within miles of my home. So get some rest; tomorrow you will be leaving the forest forever.”
Oswald smiled apologetically from just out of Hezben’s line of sight. “We have some spare furs that you can sleep on. But first,” he added, mock-heartily, “What would you say to a nice, hot meal?”
“I already ate,” said Sasha. “But I may go back for seconds before they congeal entirely.”
That night, while outside the downpour dwindled to a light pattering and the winds finally held their breath, Simon huddled on his furs, wide awake. Niu was curled nearby, out of immediate reach. Simon didn’t doubt her sympathy – he could see it in her eyes – but she wasn’t going to chance succumbing to his spectral infection.
Sasha stood near the embers of the fire, unmoving. The eerie bruxa wasn’t asleep, not traditionally, at least; she appeared to have simply frozen in place. Oswald snored loudly, without a care in the world. Hezben, Simon was sure, was awake and listening intently in case his unwanted guests proved dangerous.
Unable to process everything that he’d just learned, too weary and heartsick to predict his own uncertain future, Simon stared unseeing into the darkness. Bursts of hope that his curse might be impermanent, that it might fade if he was outside the immediate influence of the item which had possessed him, were repeatedly trampled by his mounting fears and uncertainties. His mind threatened to shred itself as he considered the possibilities from all angles, so he forced his terror aside and attempted to focus instead on what tomorrow might bring. One step at a time.
As he slowly surrendered to his mental exhaustion, his beleaguered mind demanded the answer to one last burning question: who now possessed the sword containing the heartstopper soul?
XII
When Tiera awoke, Farrow was dead. Her final handmaiden lay sprawled facedown on the floor clutching at her chest, her eyes wide with shock. Tiera hadn’t heard a thing; her nightmares had consumed her completely. As she’d slept, her various frustrations had boiled over into a volcano of rage
which had suffused her dreams with fury. Why, despite her position of authority and influence, was she simply some political tool to secure good relations between kingdoms? How long could she stand a union with that insufferable dandy Prince Stallix? Why were her brother’s chambers off limits to her? How had the insolent peasant managed to evade her father’s troops at every turn? And how, above all else - the one question which caused her stomach to seethe like a nest of snakes - could a cretin of such low birth and standing presume to find her lacking?
And now Farrow was dead, her corpse sullying the floor of Tiera’s own bedchamber. The princess was struck by a second wave of fury. Who would lace up her gown this morning? How could she attend court without a servant? She would be the laughingstock of the nobles. She had half a mind to drag Farrow’s body across to the window and toss it from the tower.
Finally, the thought cutting through a thick haze of petulance, it occurred to Tiera to wonder how Farrow had died. Poison, perhaps, she considered. Some concoction meant for me that the silly girl couldn’t keep her hands off of. This led Tiera to the realization that if Farrow had accidentally suffered some death meant for her, than someone wanted her dead even more so than usual. Rather than causing her alarm, this pleased her in two ways. Firstly, she would take utmost joy in having the culprit hunted down and eviscerated. Secondly, it meant that someone had decided that she was noteworthy enough to have killed.
Finally. Someone recognizes my importance.
Padding across to Farrow’s body, Tiera crouched beside it and, with some effort, rolled it over. She wasn’t used to physical exertion, having always relied on others to perform even the slightest of laborious tasks for her, and found the corpse frustratingly heavy. There wasn’t a mark on it that she could see. Almost certainly poison, then. Whatever had happened to the girl, Tiera wanted her unsightly remains removed immediately, and called for the guards.
No answer. For the first time, a prickle of something akin to anxiety touched Tiera’s spine. She called out again, without result. Finally, irritation trumping caution, she marched to her chamber door and threw it wide. If the men outside had left their posts or were ignoring her, they would never see their families again.
As it turned out, she wasn’t wrong: neither of the guards assigned to her suite would be going home. One lay on his back, legs splayed, clutching at his chest plate. The other sagged against the wall, eyes wide and blank. Both had been dead for some time.
Tiera, unaccustomed to fear, went cold. Her voice rose an octave as she called out again, choking into silence as she caught sight of a second pair of crumpled lumps at the end of the hall.
An assassination attempt? Tiera wondered wildly, retreating into her rooms, slamming and barring the door. But how could that be? The assassin had successfully eliminated the guards and, if Farrow’s corpse was evidence, had managed to enter her chambers. There had been no obstacle between killer and sleeping target.
Was the assassin still in the chamber? With a cold thrill of dread, Tiera considered the various possible hiding places where a killer might lurk. Her expansive wardrobe and the space beneath her bed took on a threatening aspect of a kind she hadn’t experienced since childhood. She, Tiera Minus, daughter of the regent of Cannevish and famously afraid of nothing, stood paralyzed and unable to think or act.
Eventually, she unthawed. The assassin was gone; why should he or she hide? His aim had never been to kill her, or she would already be dead. More likely this was a political statement, possibly meant for her father. Mess with us, it said, and look how easily we can get to your daughter. Her father had no end of political enemies, after all. Perhaps this was the kingdom of Quell‘s way of ensuring that the agreements which Tiera’s and Anton Stannix’s union were intended to cement were honored. If Tiera ever determined that to be true, then her husband-to-be was in for a truly rocky marriage.
A sudden thought struck her: had the attack been limited to her floor? Had her father suffered a similar intrusion? She heard no alarum, but her father was the kind of man to handle such affairs quietly, just to show that he hadn’t been rattled. Or worse, had King Minus been the target all along? Had the intruders killed her father and left her to live for some enigmatic reason? Perhaps so that Quell could take immediate control of Cannevish without waiting for the king to die?
No, that made no sense. Tiera took a deep, calming breath. Even if Anton’s father intended to make such a grab for power, he would certainly have waited until his son was married to Tiera and his line had a legal claim to the land. There was nothing Quell could hope to gain from such a move at present, except war. Unless someone wanted to instigate violent confrontation? Not everyone was thrilled with the idea of unifying the two kingdoms.
I’m getting ahead of myself, Tiera thought. Before I worry about any of this, I have to get to safety. Which means…
Which meant she had to brave the hall of dead guards and whatever might await her beyond.
A weapon. I need a weapon.
Tiera did not keep weapons in her chamber. The guards were her blades; this was a situation which she’d never prepared for. There was no way she was going out into that hallway unarmed, though, and she cast around for an improvised weapon. Her scissors, perhaps?
The peasant’s blade! Tiera rushed to her bed and, with some trepidation, knelt to peer underneath it. No assassin lurked there, but the rusty old sword, scalded into ruin by dragon acid, still lay on its bed of burlap. It was a hideously unsightly thing, but it was a weapon, and it had sent the Cannevish Wyrm to an early grave. Tiera had no idea how to wield it with any skill, but she felt better with it in hand all the same.
Rushing to the door before she could lose her courage, she pushed out into the corridor in her nightclothes, blade first. Stepping over the bodies of the guards, she moved toward the downward stair, jumping at every sound, no matter how innocuous or remote. The throne room seemed impossibly far away, and she disliked the idea of appearing before the court disheveled and afraid. Any measure of awe the nobles might hold her in would be forfeit forever; worse, it would appear to them that her father could not protect his own house, never mind his kingdom. Where then to go for protection?
She might make her way to the chamber of her betrothed, Prince Anton. The man was a primping buffoon, but his men could shield her from whatever enemy had breached the house of Minus. Still, she hesitated. She didn’t want to be beholden to Quell’s irritating peacock in any respect. At the presentation which had been dubbed the Ceremony of the Savior, where the scion of King Stallix had claimed victory over the Cannevish Wyrm while posing alongside its head, he had refused to touch the blade responsible at the last moment, on the pretext that it ‘might ruin his gloves’. The man really was useless. No; Tiera had to get word to her father without involving Prince Anton or the revealing her distress to the nobility.
Breathing fast, she slipped downstairs with the twitchiness of a squirrel, finding herself in the hall where the barricaded entrance to her brother’s chambers was guarded now only by a dead man. She rushed down the passage, deeply fearful now, pausing where it branched to listen.
From the direction of the throne room, muffled only by the great oak door, she could hear voices. Was her father’s among them? She couldn’t tell, but there were no sounds of panic or confusion, no raised voices or shouted orders. Court life was proceeding as normal. Even if her father wasn’t in attendance, members of the palace guard would be stationed there. Her best and safest choice was to swallow her pride, run twenty steps down the corridor to the throne room and throw herself upon their protection.
Surprisingly, her feet remained rooted to the floor. She urged her legs to move, but they wouldn’t cooperate. Unwillingly, her eyes turned toward the forbidden door to Merequio’s rooms. Would she ever get another unhindered chance to say goodbye to her brother? To give closure to a decade of her life, a chance to lay her haunted nightmares to rest?
Killer be damned, she had to do it.
&nbs
p; Her feet brought her to the fallen Warrington, Warrensworth, whatever the lumbering lout’s name might have been. Tiera wondered if he had a family, or indeed anyone who might miss him. She hoped his death would cause them pain. Had she not been barefoot, she might have ground her heel in his wide, stupid face.
Stooping beside him, she rifled about at his belt for his key ring. She had no idea which of the twelve keys fitted Merequio’s door, and each failed attempt increased her jumpiness. She cast constant glances over her shoulder, certain that the jangling and scraping would draw the attention of the assassin, but the corridor remained silent. Eventually a small, rusty key turned in the lock and she breathed a sigh of deepest relief.
The door opened only grudgingly. Tiera was forced to use the rusty sword to lever it open, which was almost beyond her ability. Her soft, pampered palms were sure to blister, but she accepted that as a consequence of an opportunity she could hardly pass up. Once she’d pried the resistant door open to a width she could slip through, she found herself in a chamber much smaller than she remembered. Cobwebs shrouded the walls and shuttered the high window so that little light spilled inside. Most of the furnishings were gone, possessions crated up. Only a wardrobe in which Tiera had once hidden during a spirited game of hide and seek remained, stark and lonely against the bare stone walls. The room was as much a skeleton as her brother. Tiera felt a lump swelling unbidden in her throat.
With some effort, she dragged the door shut again so that she could not be easily surprised and cast about for her brother’s spirit. Was Merequio at rest, or did some part of him still haunt this place? She thought she’d felt his ghostly touch on occasion before, as she passed the door, an echo of his being. Did his soul walk these chambers? Was that why her father had them sealed up?
“Merequio?” she whispered, her voice as tentative and uncertain as she’d heard it since her memories of that day. “Are you here?”