by M. C. Planck
The Gold Curate Joadan had spoken of Black Bart as a servant of the Shadow. Now Christopher knew how that had come to pass. And with Bart’s death, the ring had passed to another, who had then passed under the Shadow. And at every step, Christopher had helped it along.
His resolve melted like water, running down into the soggy swamp.
“It’s not you speaking, Cannan. It’s that damn ring. Just take it off. Please.”
Cannan’s lips twisted evilly. “That’s what she said. The bitch. All through the woods she whined at me to take it off. She wouldn’t shut the dark up about it. So one night I took her head off. And then I did things to her corpse. Fun things.” He leered, running his tongue along his lips, and Christopher felt physically ill. His hands shared the crime as much as Cannan’s; neither of them had known, but both of them had been careless in the face of danger.
Christopher heard someone behind him. Others were coming. They would kill Cannan without mercy. They would not be weakened by guilt or shame. They would not care that Cannan was innocent, and they would ignore any order Christopher gave in his current condition. Not that he could think of any other solution.
“The ring is controlling you, Cannan. If you can’t remove it, you’ll die, and I don’t know how to save you.”
Cannan’s eyes glinted with cold malice. “Remove it? So you can have it? You want it for yourself. You always did. Here, then, old man. Come and take it.” He held up his hand, fingers spread wide, and the ring shone in the sun. Both of them stared at the gold band, hard and ugly and refulgent with power.
With a deafening roar the ring disappeared, and Cannan’s finger was replaced by a fountain of blood. The red knight stared at the gushing red liquid, and slowly crumpled to the ground. Christopher blinked, trying to recover from the stunning blast, and looked over his shoulder, where Karl was lowering his still-smoking rifle.
Karl had shot the ring off Cannan’s finger. Or, more accurately, he had shot the finger off Cannan’s hand.
Christopher sagged in relief. “Find that ring. But for gods’ sake, don’t touch it.”
Karl pulled a dagger from his belt. “Even I have wit enough to know that.”
The young veteran stepped over the body, searching the ground with his gaze. Christopher knelt next to Cannan. He still had his orisons. One of them would close the man’s wounds and stop him from bleeding out, but without restoring him to consciousness. Christopher wanted the man bound hand and foot before that. There was the possibility that he was wrong. There was the possibility that it wasn’t just the ring.
The cavalrymen dropped Cannan’s body to the ground, none too gently. Carrying the barrel-chested man from the bushes to their camp had exhausted them.
“You’ll have to heal him enough to walk,” Lalania declared.
Nobody stated the obvious. Three of Christopher’s men were going home in a sack hanging from Karl’s belt, reduced to a mere finger. There was room in that sack for Cannan’s head. It would seem to be the simplest solution.
“Tie his hands.” Christopher wasn’t going to take the easy path. He hadn’t come into this swamp for a pocketful of tael. “Then we need to get moving.”
“We need to burn these bodies first,” Karl said. “We cannot leave them on this unholy ground.”
Christopher remembered the last time he had brought dead men out of the Wild. Royal had carried them then. But now Royal was gone, lost to the swamp, and they did not even dare take time to look for him.
Tears spilled down his face.
“Dark damn it, Lala, what the hell is wrong with me?” His brain knew that crying over a lost horse in front of soldiers was a bad idea, especially when three of them had died so they could take a murderer alive. His emotions didn’t seem to care what his brain knew, though.
Lalania was searching through a saddlebag, tossing the contents on the ground, and she didn’t bother to slow down while she answered him. “The ghost has drained your mind, the way the others drained Gregor’s strength. That you can still perform first-rank magic tells me you are not crippled, like Gregor is. So stop whining and make the best of it.”
He would have said something cutting in return, but he couldn’t think of anything. Instead, he put his mind through some paces. Mathematics, chess moves, lists of items they had brought with them. No problems there. In fact, he thought of something interesting.
“Those ghosts were intelligent. Doesn’t that mean they had tael?”
Lalania stopped and looked at him, a coil of rope in her hand. She frowned as she said the three words she hated saying the most. “I don’t know.” She glanced out over the tangled weeds. “If they did, and assuming we actually destroyed any of them, how would you find it?”
“Tael is magic. And I can use magic to find magic. . . .” Christopher studied the landscape. The burned and blasted area where the grenade had gone off was a good place to start. Christopher waded through the bushes, concentrating on one of the little spells still left to him. He was surprised when two cavalrymen rushed to follow him.
“You can’t see it,” he told them. “Might as well go back.”
“Begging your pardon, Colonel,” one of them answered. “But we’d rather not send you into the bush alone.”
Good point. Christopher’s brain seemed capable of all the same abstract thinking it always had been, but his instincts were completely off. He kept doing impulsive things. Stupid things. The concept would have bothered him more, but then he saw a faint purple radiance emanating from the ground, and excitement washed away his concerns.
Twenty minutes later he was several thousand gold pieces richer. He was happy for an entire thirty seconds, until his still-logical brain calculated that after he raised the three dead men using the Saint’s expensive fingernail spell, restored Torme’s lost rank, and replaced the horses, plus the tack and armor they would have to leave behind, he would only be in the hole for twice as much. Roaming around the swamp and having hair-raising adventures didn’t seem to be profitable.
Until he thought about it in a different way. He was only going to be in the red because he was replacing his men. Most nobles wouldn’t even think of doing that. This explained why the nobility went on these little jaunts. It was a way of turning blood into tael.
Other people’s blood, of course.
“Is he ready?” he asked Lalania, although he could see Cannan was. Lalania had bound the man’s arms behind his back, from his wrists to his elbows. The woman had a knack for bondage. Christopher shook his head, trying to dislodge the stray and wildly inappropriate thought. He needed to get this ghost curse fixed, before it drove him to do something really, really stupid. Like crawling into Lalania’s bedroll in the middle of the night.
“Yes,” she said, watching him with a peculiar look on her face. Christopher stopped trying to guess what she was thinking. He couldn’t trust any conclusions he reached in this condition.
Bending over Cannan, he reflected that this at least was something he could still fix.
“Wake up,” he said, when his spells were done. “I know you’re not dead.”
Cannan opened his eyes, looking up at Christopher with a terrible emptiness. Earlier those eyes had been alive. Burning with psychotic rage, true, but at least there had been light in them. Now they were still and quiet, drowning in an unquenchable grief.
“I should be. I would curse you for your cruelty in keeping me alive, but I cannot. I am out of curses. I have taken them all on myself.”
“Get up,” Karl said. “We’ll not carry you. Indeed, you may be carrying Ser Gregor before the day is done.”
Thick black smoke rose from the funeral pyre, signaling that it was time to go. They left everything but the clothes on their backs, a loaf of bread each, and their weapons. Each cavalryman carried two carbines, and Karl carried two swords, his and Gregor’s. Christopher had to carry Torme’s katana. Karl cut the remnants of armor from Cannan’s shoulders and left the pieces lying in the mud. They also
left Cannan’s sword. It wasn’t magical. It could easily be replaced.
If only the damage it had done could as easily be left behind.
Cannan did not argue, complain, or even speak. He walked when they told him to walk, and stood when they told him to stand. His passivity unnerved Christopher even more than his manic hatred had. The raving creature he had been was just another monster. This broken, crushed man had once been Christopher’s friend.
They stopped for lunch on a tuft of ground a few feet higher than the rest of the swamp. Christopher fought a losing battle to keep the flies off his bread while he ate it.
“Eat,” Karl told Cannan, holding a loaf in front of the man’s face. “Eat, or I’ll shove it down your throat.”
Cannan bit into the bread, chewed mechanically, and swallowed. It was like watching Karl feed a sick cow. Karl didn’t bother to chase the flies away, and Cannan didn’t bother to care. Christopher conquered his revulsion long enough to speak up.
“Don’t let him eat flies. They might make him sick.”
Karl nodded, and swept away the insects with his other hand.
Lalania wrapped half her bread in cheesecloth, and tucked it inside her lyre. She had refused to abandon the unwieldy instrument, saying, “It’s already saved our lives once,” to Karl’s disapproving glance.
Christopher realized he probably shouldn’t have eaten his entire loaf of bread.
They struggled on, the mud sucking at their steps. They covered ground as fast as they had with the horses, but only because they were carrying almost nothing. They were all tired, but Gregor was white with exhaustion. Christopher didn’t think the man could do this for four more days. Without food, he wasn’t sure he could.
When the sun was half covered by the horizon, Karl stopped. “We have to find a place to camp. Now.” The rock-hard young man was only a shade less pale than Gregor.
“I wouldn’t suggest here,” a tree said. Its branches parted, and D’Kan leapt lightly to the ground. “There’s a much drier spot a hundred yards farther on.”
“Well met, Ser,” Lalania said. “It is good to see you again.”
“Indeed,” D’Kan answered, but he wasn’t talking to Lalania. He stared at Cannan, his face tight. The young Ranger stepped forward, his hands lightly touching the pommels of his twin swords.
“Ser D’Kan,” Christopher said. “Take us to your camp. We are tired and in no mood for nonsense.”
D’Kan did not reply, casually taking another step closer.
“Soldier,” Karl said, stepping into his path, “that was an order.”
The Ranger stopped, only because Karl was in the way.
“Do you have a sister?” he asked Karl, casually, as if in idle conversation.
“The Colonel gave you a command.”
D’Kan stared at Karl, as if seeing him for the first time. “Of course. This way.” The Ranger turned around and walked off. Christopher took his hand off his own sword hilt and tried to ignore the blackness that swam at the edge of his vision.
It was dark by the time they reached the Ranger’s camp, but the starlight was bright enough to reveal the identity of the creature that shoved its huge, hairy head into Christopher’s shoulder, looking for an apple. Royal snuffled at him, like he did when Christopher stayed away from the stables for more than a day.
“He was doing a credible job of heading home,” D’Kan said. “And keeping the herd together. I picketed the other horses, but Royal and Balance would not let me leash them. It is good that you came now. Another day and they would attract predators beyond my ability to deter.”
Christopher put his hands in Royal’s mane and sobbed. He wept for the loss of his horse, and for its miraculous restoration. He wept for his wife, and for the miracle he hoped would rejoin them. And he wept for Cannan, who could not even hope.
“The Vicar’s mind was assaulted by a shadow. As was Gregor’s body,” Lalania explained to the staring Ranger, her voice tinged with a sharp edge. “Do you know anything of this?”
D’Kan shrugged, his focus still elsewhere. “They will heal on their own, or they will not. If he has not shown improvement in a few days, he never will.”
Lalania frowned at the Ranger, and then turned away to face the rest of the group. “We need sleep. We can accomplish no more tonight.”
Karl, swaying with fatigue, put his hand roughly on D’Kan’s shoulder.
“If you think to disobey the Colonel during the night, then do not make the mistake of leaving any of us alive.” The young soldier put his back to a tree and slid down to a sitting position. He was asleep before he reached the ground, his head pillowed on a low-hanging branch.
Christopher let Lalania lead him to his own earthen bower. Royal followed them and stood over his master. The sounds and smells of the great beast comforted Christopher, and he passed easily into darkness.
He awoke to brightness. The sun was dazzling, although it was barely over the tops of the trees. The beauty of it elated him, until he realized that such an emotional response to sunrise was proof that he was still impaired.
Breakfast crushed him, his spirits dropping like the downslope of a roller coaster. Strips of pale white meat, sickly sweet and bitter, smelling entirely too much like raw fish.
“D’Kan caught . . . something,” Lalania said. “He says it is repayment for the porridge you gave him when he first came to you.” She hovered over him, anxious and motherly. This was the first role Christopher had seen her perform badly. “How do you feel?”
“No,” he said, “I’m not any better.”
“Then we must call on your brethren for aid. I cannot bear to think of you like this . . . permanently.”
The prospect was too daunting for him to consider. So he didn’t.
“What about Karl and Gregor?” he asked.
“We are recovering,” Karl said, joining them. “But now we can ride, so our weakness does not matter. We should turn north. We can reach Samerhaven in two days at most.”
“Not likely,” Lalania said. “If Christopher rides through Longvelt in this state, he might not ride out of it. The Marquis of Longvelt is no friend of the White.”
“Give it a rest, you two.” Christopher regretted the petty words as soon as he spoke them. He tried to smooth it over. “Let’s ask D’Kan. He’s our scout.” Christopher was amazed at how readily he trusted the young man for answers, based almost solely on his gratitude for having had his horse returned.
D’Kan agreed with Lalania. “I have mapped the way to your fort, the lay of the land and the lairs of the predators. We will travel back in half the time we traveled here. I do not know the swamp-lands to the north, and would not ride readily into unknown danger with our principals in this state.” With a sidelong look at Christopher, he added, “There is little cause for haste in any case.”
Christopher looked up in alarm at this harsh diagnosis, but Lalania was already responding.
“Hush. He calls the greatest healer in the realm Brother; we shall not worry yet.” The smile she flashed was as thin as paper, though.
This was the second time Christopher had been forced to ride Royal bareback, and he didn’t like it any more than the first. He wondered just how many saddles he had to buy to always have one when he needed it.
True to his word, the Ranger led them on at a good speed, and by noon of the second day he announced their imminent arrival.
“Tonight will see us at the walls of your fort, my lord.” He spoke only to Christopher, ignoring both Karl and Lalania. It was part of a general trend. The Ranger was so pointedly ignoring Cannan that it had spilled over to the rest of the patrol.
Such excess was wholly unnecessary. Cannan was easy to ignore. He moved slowly, like a man underwater, and made no sound. Karl treated him the same way he treated the horses, with due regard for his health and needs but without any notice of his emotions or thoughts. Christopher found that infuriating. He wanted to shout at Karl and make him recognize that Cannan
had been a friend once. But some residual self-discipline held his tongue. Instead, he watched Cannan, waiting for the glacier to melt.
During lunch, Lalania picked leeches from Cannan’s legs. The man paid neither the bloodsuckers nor the bard any attention.
Christopher followed her to the nearest pool of water where she washed her hands. “He might as well be a walking corpse,” Christopher muttered, when they were safely out of earshot from the rest of the group.
“Have you ever seen one?” She made a face, spitting out tiny bone fragments of the stringy swamp-pheasant that had served for lunch. D’Kan’s woodcraft was sufficient to keep them fed, as long as one’s definition of food was generous to the point of absurdity. Lalania, whose definition tended toward the gourmet, was perforce in a bad mood, and Christopher decided not to argue with her on the topic of various species of soul-trapped abominations.
“Maybe Cannan was right,” he said instead. “Maybe it would be a mercy to let him die.”
“What makes you think Cannan deserves mercy?” Lalania’s tone was acid on steel. “He is still ranked. He owes a debt to society. Let him find his death in defending those who cannot defend themselves.”
“He can’t fight like this. He can’t be trusted with a sword.” He couldn’t even be trusted to feed himself.
“That is what atonement is for. Your Saint will take away his burden, and replace it with an obligation.”
Christopher paused, surprised by the venomous accent on the last word.
Lalania tossed her hair defensively. “Did you think it was all daffodils and sunshine? The Saint will restore his mind, but nothing can restore his spirit. There was a time I envied Niona, but never again. Cannan has betrayed and broken his own inner nature, and all the Saint can do is put a Cannan-like puppet in its place. Not a soul-trapped. Something worse. A soulless being with the perfect imitation of a soul.”
As always, he had to argue. “Cannan did not choose this. It was the ring. Cannan was only its instrument.”