The Demons We See

by Krista D. Ball

  It was early in the morning, in the midst of the first real blinding blizzard of the winter that the abbey’s alarm was raised. Allegra bundled herself in furs and wool and went outside, flanked by six members of the Consorts, and Stanton in front of her, sword drawn. It was snowing so badly that Allegra couldn’t see the watchtower except for the lantern that shone inside its small protective structure.

  A light slid down what she knew was a ladder and two members of the Cathedral guard rushed for them. “There’s hundreds coming.”

  Fear gripped Allegra’s insides. “Hundreds? Hundreds of what?”

  “Them,” the guard said, pointing.

  A woman came into view, dragging a sled behind her, a mound of children under a tattered blanket huddled for comfort. “Are you the Contessa of Marsina?”

  Chills that had nothing to do with the howling winds spread through Allegra. “Lord God Almighty. What are you doing in this weather?”

  The woman’s answer was to collapse into the snow. Her children sobbed, but made no attempt to pull themselves from the make-shift sled.

  “Get her inside!” Allegra screamed. “Move! Move! Nadira, where are you?”

  “Coming, Your Ladyship!” Nadira came rushing outside in nothing but her indoor shoes, skirts dragging in the snow. “Kia! Calm Seas! Hurry!”

  Allegra watched in horror as more and more and Almighty knew how many more dragged themselves forward. Most collapsed when through the gate, once they’d realized their journey was over.

  Allegra shouted orders, all the while her heart pounding in her chest. “Get the servants out of bed. I need broth on the boil. Get the brandy out of the cellars. Get the linens out of storage.”

  “Tell the chambermaids to start lighting the fireplaces in the main ballroom and the chapel. Kia! Move!” Nadira issued forth. “Calm Seas? Get the rugs out of the attics. All of them! We need to put them down on the ballroom floor. Ladies! Let’s move!”

  “Merciful Lord,” Father Michael whispered at the frozen faces who passed by him. “Get them inside.”

  “How many are you bringing inside?” one of the servants asked.

  “All of them!” Father Michael shouted. He looked at Allegra, fierce determination on his face. “We are bringing them all in.”

  “Get those rugs up off the foyer floor and get them laid down on the ballroom floor,” the housekeeper shouted to a footman. “As we bring them in, get the sickest near the fires first. Nathan! Go wake up the footmen and the coachmen. All of them!”

  That morning was only the beginning. Over the next three weeks, over five hundred refugees arrived at the abbey. Slave. Free. Elemental. Normal. It didn’t matter. All of their lives had been threatened in some way and Borro Abbey had become their refuge. Allegra couldn’t turn them away. But the abbey was not designed to hold that many people. Fights broke out, accusations of theft and unfair treatment were leveled, and food stores were running dangerously low. The servants resented being ordered about, and the few wealthy patrons who stayed at the abbey for winter solitude felt put upon and threatened by the swelling numbers of ragged mages.

  “Your Ladyship, we cannot continue taking these people in,” Father Michael shouted at her, his nerves frayed by the steady stream of humanity. “We are not equipped.”

  “I cannot leave them to freeze to death!” Allegra yelled back.

  “Child, you are the Arbiter of Justice, not of compassion,” Father Michael shot back.

  “Is there no room for compassion in justice?”

  “There isn’t when there is no bread left in the abbey! What good will come of us starving alongside these people?”

  Allegra had not considered the impact of her edicts. Neither had the Cathedral’s cardinals, who wrote furiously for her address the pilgrims, refugees, or runaway slaves – the terminology changing with where the writers’ loyalty resided.

  “Fine.” Allegra grabbed a sheet of paper from the Bishop’s desk and began to write. “Serafina, this is a letter of authority for you to charge to my accounts. You are authorized to spend three hundred sovereigns. I need as much grain as you can get your hands on. Take my footmen with you and my winter sleigh. Get the coachmen to take you to the surrounding areas. Let’s leave Borro alone, since they’re struggling. Get me everything and anything. Barley, wheat, rye, all of it. Take three Consorts with you.”

  She’d have to write to her brother and request he forward five hundred gold to her personal account held at the Cathedral. It was more pin money than she spent in a year, but she also knew he’d release the funds. After all, they were her funds.

  “Nathan, you’re in charge of supplies. Take Nadira and some consorts. Find blankets, used clothing, heavy fabric, burlap, and scraps of fabric, all of it. Needles, thread, buttons. I need to put people to work sewing. We’re out of blankets and warm clothing. Find me living supplies, too Dried goods, small pots, utensils, linens, that sort of thing. We’re going to erect tents and makeshift shelters between here and Borro. We need enough supplies for everyone to be somewhat self-sufficient, or else we’re going to end up with another St. Croix here. Captain, I need you to beg the Duke for fifty palace guards. I don’t want the useless ones, either. I want the real guards.”

  “He’ll send twenty.”

  “Then ask for seventy. And ask Queen Portia for the loan of ten of her personal guard. We need additional protection here and she can spare them, since this is her mess we’re dealing with. No, wait. Father, you write to Francois and you get him to order Portia to send those guards. If she wants to play politics, then let’s play.”

  So it went throughout the winter. Allegra’s staff worked tirelessly to help both Borro Abbey and the town of Borro deal with the burgeoning population. Employment was scarce; few wanted to hire runaway mages. A few times, locals tried to steal back “their” mage slaves, many of which weren’t even mages. In the end, the additional guard presence helped keep the peace, even if there were still misunderstandings, fights, and endless petty crimes.

  Allegra’s own sovereigns disappeared, as did the additional money her brother sent her. Nathan and Serafina charged as much back to the Cathedral as possible, but even still, Allegra knew she could not spend her entire Arbiter’s budget in the first three months of the year and not have to answer for it.

  So they all made sacrifices. Nadira chopped up eighteen of Allegra’s finest gowns to distribute to the seamstresses to make sashes, purses, and the like. That kept many busy in the idle hours of sitting in the cold with nothing but a small fire to keep them warm, and it gave them the hope of some additional income when traffic would again flow along the Cathedral highway.

  Stanton put in three hundred gold sovereigns of his own money to help keep food in refugee bellies, even as more flooded in by the day. Lex and Dodd, likewise, wrote to their parents, begging for funds to help with the crisis. Even the abolitionist cardinals sent Allegra ready coin to assist in her humanitarian efforts.

  It kept them alive. When the spring thaw came, the small hamlet of Borro was little more than a tent city of over a thousand freemen and mages and a full-fledged crisis. Its former one hundred or so residents were overrun, terrified, and resentful. It was only the careful attention of the abbey that kept tempers from flaring.

  Some of the people moved on once the roads cleared and were safe to walk without freezing to death. Allegra had no money in her budget to give them all something to live off or a relocation allowance, and she certainly wasn’t going to get compensation when slave owners were angrily demanding compensation for loss property.

  The worst for Allegra was when the Marquis of Marsden showed at up at the abbey with the first spring thaw. He was a middle-aged man, fit and broad, with chiseled features that announced rakish tendencies in his youth. He was also married to one of Allegra’s many second cousins. She’d assumed he was there to visit, as a courtesy family visit and attempt to wring some financial deals out of the arrangement. That was w
hat all of her other cousins were doing by letter the entire winter.

  “How dare you steal ten of my best mages?” he’d demanded.

  They were alone in her study, as always when meeting any member of the aristocracy. “I didn’t steal anything, Colin.”

  “I passed those ten mages in the courtyard living in the slums you turned this place into. And they have the nerve to tell me they don’t have to come back if they don’t want to. Because of your say so!”

  “As Arbiter, I have been given…”

  He spat in her face. “Now, you make them come back with me right now or so help me Lord God Almighty, I will teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget.”

  “Get out, Colin.”

  He grabbed her by the sleeve and slammed her to the desk. Allegra screamed as Colin knocked over the ink well and he pressed her face into it. He slammed her face down into the ink two more times, demanding his mages back. When Lex charged through the door, Dodd hard on his heels, Colin had a dazed Allegra by the throat in a death grip.

  Lex kicked Colin hard in the back of one knee. The crunch of bones splintering was a sound that haunted Allegra for many nights after that. Dodd grabbed the semi-conscious Allegra and wrapped her protectively in his arms, while Lex beat the life out of the Marquis.

  Stanton and a servant had to pull the enraged Lex off the Marquis, who was curled into a fetal position to protect himself from Lex’s punishing kicks. Stanton grabbed the back of Colin’s ornate jacket and hauled him to his feet, all the while Colin screamed about how he was a man of power. Stanton kept his cool, even when Colin punched him in the face. Blood trickled from one nostril, but Stanton hauled Colin down to the local militia who’d been assigned by the local magistrate to assist with the refugees.

  ****

  Stanton rushed back to Allegra’s rooms as soon as his duty was discharged. He took the stairs two at a time and rushed into her rooms. Various maids were on their hand and knees scrubbing the ink from the papered walls of her office. Likewise, her polished wooden floor had been splattered and the ink stains came out into the main sitting room. Calm Seas and several of the abbey’s chambermaids were on their hands and knees scrubbing before the ink set and ruined the floorboards. Allegra was seated on a chair close to her balcony doors, well-wrapped in a blanket and flanked by Lex and Dodd. All were stained with ink and blood.

  Nadira leaned over her mistress, scrubbing her face with a paste of salt, soap, and butter, and the silent tears that trickled down her cheeks. Most of the stain was gone now from her golden brown flesh, leaving behind temporary red rawness.

  “May I speak with the Contessa alone, please?”

  Kia, who’d been scrubbing the paper with a fine brush, said, “Of course, Your Grace. Your Ladyship? I’ll have the footmen replace your stained rugs. Would you like me to find you a new desk?”

  Allegra’s red-rimmed eyes were dull. Gone was the sparkle that Stanton had come to love. Not in a romantic way, he corrected his thoughts. Just in that cheerful way her eyes always made his feet feel just a touch lighter whenever she looked at him.

  “I would love a new desk, please.”

  “That’s all I can do for your face anyway,” Nadira said. “The rest will fade away in the next day or two.” She frowned. “I hope you don’t bruise too badly.”

  “Thank you,” Allegra said, and her voice was small. She didn’t look over her shoulder.

  Lex flashed Stanton a worried look before saying, “Contessa, we’ll discuss new security arrangements when you are feeling up to it. I promise you’ll never be left alone with a madman ever again.”

  “No one’s getting through if you don’t want them here,” Dodd said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

  Stanton waited for the door to close behind the trail of servants and helpers before he sat down next to her. “How are you?”

  Instead of answering his question, she asked, “Was all of this a mistake?”

  He wanted so badly to wrap his arms around her, to protect her and promise to always keep her safe. He berated himself for letting this happen. Rank had blinded him. All of the precautions against the mages for what? A gentleman to dance his way into their midst to brutalize her.

  “It was never your decision. It was theirs.” When she didn’t respond, he kept going. “You’ve become a symbol for them. You’re a mage and you are tasked with the Lord’s justice.”

  “Justice. All I’ve done this winter is mediate petty disputes, write letters to pompous fools begging their assistance, and for what? Hmm? To lose the respect of the people I’m trying to change.” Allegra scoffed. “How many people died trying to get here only to starve and freeze?”

  “I’m sorry he hurt you,” Stanton said into the silence.

  Allegra’s jaw trembled. Most of her face was still a deep, angry red where Nadira has scrubbed the ink from her skin. Her neck was bare and the tops of her breasts heaved with each breath under the strain of her tightened corset. The usual white linen that decorated her neck was draped over a desk’s edge. Her red and yellow striped satin dress was stained.

  “Will you be able to save the dress?”

  Allegra snorted, a half sob-half gasp sound. “It’s ruined. Nadira is hoping the laundry can salvage the skirt, but I doubt it. This was my favorite dress, too.” She cupped her face into her hand and began to cry. “Crying over a dress when people are starving outside of our doors.”

  She twisted until it was obvious she wanted him to hold her, and he did. He wrapped tight arms around her and let her cry out her fears and hurt.

  Chapter 18

  Allegra was on the hunt for blankets and candles. She could have called for a servant, but her heart refused to calm its frantic pace while sitting in the very room the Marquis had attacked her in. She determined it would do her good to go search for herself. Nadira and Kia had left for the village to find soothing tea for Allegra. Both women had insisted and, with the two of them so rarely agreeing on anything, Allegra felt it was best to let them be.

  There were a couple of mage women living in the tents who made restorative blends. Father Michael swore by one particular astringent blend that purported to whisk away his morning aches and pains. Nadira herself had been caught sipping such a blend on occasion when the weather was particularly damp. With Allegra’s luck, however, her faithful servant would return with a blend containing enough valerian and lemon balm to knock out a draft horse.

  Allegra instructed Rahna, the Consort guard outside of her room, to remain there. She wanted to wander the abbey in peace. Rahna agreed and said she’d not allow anyone to enter her rooms beyond the servants. Allegra thanked her and went about her hunt for supplies.

  Eventually, Allegra found herself on the lower level of the abbey, a place she’d only been once before on an ill-advised kitchen raid attempt. This part of the abbey was suspiciously empty. The noise and bustle of upstairs didn’t reach this dank part of the building, though the scents of the kitchens still seeped down the corridors.

  Cold crept up her arms and she shivered. It wasn’t the kind of cold that came from the dampness, however. She had no words for it, other than wrong.

  She looked around the narrow corridor, but there was no one in sight. Not even the flicker of a small candle to signal another’s presence.

  Allegra shook off her concerns as nothing more than the exaggerations of an overactive and tired mind. She pressed on, looking for the damned storage room. Why didn’t they keep the candles in the closets on every floor, along with the linens? They used wax candles upstairs where the quality guests graced the gilded hallways. They could store the wax upstairs without issue.

  This was the unlivable part of the abbey. No chimneys, no warmth. Just the damp coldness of stone and crates upon crates of storage. The priceless items were stored in the attic, where the square brick chimneys helped chase away the moisture. Down here, however, were the things that could handle a little mildew without muc
h complaint.

  Like candles.

  Allegra tried a door, but it was locked. This was turning into a bad idea. She’d never been to this part of the abbey before, where the walls wept from the dampness of being inside the mountain’s face.

  She was about to turn back when light caught her eye ahead. She took the dozen or so steps and around the corner. She didn’t recognize the symbols on the wall, and couldn’t even determine if it was merely decorative or some form of writing. None were bigger than her thumbnail, but there were several of them.

  She put her own small candle down on the floor to then brush a hand across the wall in an attempt to clear away an errant strand of spider’s web. Her hand erupted in flame. Allegra screamed until she realized it was her magic, and not an uncontrolled flame, that had engulfed her. She shook her hand several times, terrified, looking around in case a servant had seen. She smacked her hand against her dress without thinking, and the fabric caught ablaze.

  Allegra shrieked. She dropped to the damp floor and rolled around on the cold stone, smothering out the flames on her dress. Her engulfed hand also extinguished, but the job had been done. The wall glowed not with symbols now, but with the blackened image of a small, but monstrous, creature. Similar in shape to a bat, only with one, long arm ending in talons.

  Allegra gasped. She knew what that image was. She grabbed the candle lantern which was still flickering away on the floor and hauled herself to her feet. She had to get out of here. Now. Even being seen near this image would be enough justification for some to lock her away for the rest of her life.

  Screeching filled the air. Allegra looked back at the wall. The sound grew closer and, with horror, Allegra realized the dark image was not an image at all, but a hole…a portal…