by Terry Madden
The old thing grinned a hideous, broken grin, waggled her tongue and swayed on her knees.
She proclaimed with a spew of spittle, “A curse of crows upon thee. May the sea rise to swallow thee. May a babe lie within thee forever unborn—”
The stone dagger found its home, slipping easily above the old witch’s breastbone and into her throat. She crumbled and twitched and Ava backed away. For from the gaping mouth they came like flies from a carcass, pouring forth in a black flood.
Bees.
Irjan swept Ava aside and beat at the bees with her cloak. But still they came until they were in Ava’s hair, stinging, up her sleeves and down her bodice. She batted at the air and screamed, then fell to the floor, Irjan’s cloak over her head.
When she looked out again, Dunla’s body was flying away; bones, flesh, skin dissipating into a humming black cloud, unmaking itself like chaff before wind. The woman’s ragged gown fluttered and fell to the floor, emptied.
Irjan gathered Ava under her arm like a child and made for the door. The last thing Ava saw was the swarm of bees spiraling through the fire, untouched, and up the chimney.
Four mounted warhorses were brought out to the garrison yard. Finlys was stripped to his smallclothes, his flaccid body honest in its failings. Ava took her seat beside Jeven, the breeze off the bay playing at the silk canopy over their heads. She was a mass of throbbing bee stings but she would take control of the beast’s head now. Rebellion had a price.
“Ava,” Jeven whispered, “taking the life of a druí is—”
“Forbidden, yes. But I also know that taking the life of a traitor is within my rights as king. What if Finlys is both?”
Jeven had no answer. The wind just played with his silver bells, sounding an eerie melody that shifted with the wind’s direction.
The guards fixed leather straps to Finlys’ wrists and ankles. To these they tied rope that was then secured to the girth of the horses’ saddles, one for each limb.
“You deem this a necessity?” Jeven asked.
“An absolute necessity. I write no messages on parchment. Until the northern quarters come to their knees, I write them in blood, Jeven.”
At her word, all four riders dug their heels into their horses. The ropes went taut. The horses strained more than she thought they would, and Finlys cried out less than she thought he would. He groaned, as if trying to pull against the ropes. The horses churned dirt, casting it back like a wake. Finlys released a ghastly wail. At last, his limbs tore from his body with a pop of gristle and sinew. The horses lurched forward, until the riders reined them back. All limbs popped free but the left leg.
The last horseman moved freely forward, dragging the leg and torso, until he reined up. A guard drew his sword and finished the separation of the leg from the body.
An arm lay before Ava’s canopy, the hand still clenching and grasping at the air, twitching at the elbow. The leg on the far side still jerked at the knee, trying to crawl toward her.
Finlys’ torso lay in the middle of the yard. His eyes were wide and his head thrashed from side to side.
A low muttering rose from the crowd and a woman retched. These people were soft indeed. Small wonder Ava’s people had always taken what they wished from them.
She got up and moved to stand beside the mass of limbless flesh. Blood pumped swiftly from the ragged sockets. Yet he still stared into her eyes.
“A curse of truth on thee,” the dying man croaked.
He stopped thrashing and wheezed something incomprehensible.
“This is your truth, Finlys,” she said. “Your green soul is mine.”
She thought he was still conscious when they tossed him in the fire. But he didn’t cry out. Ava went as close as the flame allowed. She watched his staring eyes dry and wither, the fat of his cheeks blister, melt and glisten like butter. His lips curled into a hideous grin.
“Even in death he mocks me,” she said.
Jeven appeared beside her, his bells chiming, casting about at the fleeing crowd. They had begun to move away, covering their noses with their cloaks against the smell.
“Have I won their fear?” she asked him.
“I’m not one to judge their fear, lady.”
From her belt, Ava withdrew the pouch Irjan had given her. Finlys would not find his freedom so easily. He would serve her in this world for yet a while. She cast the pouch onto the blaze, speaking the words Irjan had taught her. They issued from her lips like smoke and mingled with the grey cloud that rose from the burning corpse. They twined, word around smoke, to form a rope that coiled into the sky. The pouch caught fire and burgeoned into a violet cloud. Bright white sparks cascaded in a great burst.
“Your soulstalker has taught you conjurer’s tricks,” Jeven said. “What do you hope to gain with this?”
She never took her eyes from the fire, just as Irjan had taught her, but repeated the circle of words and extended her palms to the smoky tether that rose higher. A figure coalesced in the shimmering heat.
“Look!” The remaining townsfolk pointed at the sky.
The figure slowly condensed into a solid form and struggled to rise above the flames. A raven rose on iridescent, blood-red wings, trailing embers and smoke as it struggled free of the flames. It circled the garrison yard thrice, stooping and turning as if learning to fly, before heading out over the open water of the bay.
In Jeven’s eyes, Ava saw a flicker of contempt, or was it envy? Perhaps he thought she had traded a part of herself for this conjuring, the part that might have still harbored some innocence. Perhaps he was right. And perhaps the old meadmonger was right, that it was Irjan, not Lyleth, who delivered Nechtan of his sorry life. Ava’s conscience told her she was a fool to trust Irjan. But she knew there were secrets yet to command, and one doesn’t kill their teacher before the lesson is learned.
She finally answered Jeven, “Everything. I will gain everything.”
Chapter 14
Nechtan waited for sunrise. He tossed a pebble through the darkness to plunk lightly in the river. The air smelled of waking pines, and his breath fumed in the cold like a boiling kettle. What or who allowed him to draw breath in this world? Certainly Lyl owned no such powers. She had flooded his mind with memories of a lifetime and left only ghosts from the Otherworld to people his dreams. He trusted no one more than he trusted Lyleth, yet he’d never felt as helpless as he did this morning.
He and Lyleth had made their way down the mountain by following the growing swell of the River Rampant into the rich vales of Elfael. Lyl had grown weaker and Nechtan had spent most of the night watching while she slept. His own sleep was haunted by the fear of not waking to this world, but another, the one he had left behind.
“Nechtan?”
Lyl had slept beneath drifts of leaves for warmth; they still clung to her cloak like a golden veil. She wrapped it tighter.
“Have you slept?” she asked.
“Enough to know the confusion it stirs,” he said, trying to smile.
She sat down beside him and draped her cloak around them both. She felt too warm—the fever still had hold of her.
“I dream…” he said. “I’m in a place I can’t describe because it can’t exist. Not here, not anywhere, I hope. It smells of… of lunar caustic and horse urine. There are snakes that—” He struggled to find words to describe it. “Snakes that pierce my skin, my veins, crawl down my throat. Their venom turns my blood to sand. I always find myself in a room filled with light. Not firelight, nor sunlight, another kind of light. White light so bright, so cold, I can’t see, I can’t move, I can’t cry out. I need to scream, Lyl, but then someone holds my eye wide open and shines that light inside my head.”
He could still feel the mute blindness.
Her brow knotted and she looked to the brightening woods. If he asked her what the dream meant, she would lie, so he didn’t ask, but dragged his palms over the stubble on his cheeks.
“If that’s the ‘Fair Land’ I’m se
eing, I thank stars and stones you brought me back.”
“Is the lad there in your dreams?” Her parched voice was barely more than a whisper.
“He’s there.”
“How old is he?”
“Old enough to carry a sword. He just stands there and looks down on me. ‘Wake up,’ says he. That’s it, Lyl, just ‘wake up.’”
She puzzled over it, her eyes on the sunrise, her cheeks red with fever.
“Sleeping…” she mused. “Do you recall when Cynfrig slept without waking for a full winter? His druí fed him broth. Enough to keep him alive.”
“He took a blow to the head when he fell from his horse, aye. But he didn’t wake up, Lyl.”
She gave him no reply, just a flash of her eyes.
“You think I sleep in the Otherworld? The way Cynfrig slept?”
“It’s but a thought. But if it’s so—”
“I draw breath in two worlds? How can that be? If I wake there, what becomes of me here?”
Not even Lyl could hide the dread he saw in her eyes.
“Then my time here is…”
“Short. Aye, if the lad has his way. The Otherworld has not let go of you, I fear. And it shapes you no less than this world.”
As the day wore on, the path grew broader and the river grew fatter, joined by silver races that spilled in falls from mountain valleys. Clouds of mist scattered the sunlight into rainbow sprays of color. If Nechtan was right, they’d reach the inn by nightfall.
Lyleth was weak. They made slow progress, his arm around her waist, half-carrying her. Brixia led them to a trail that at first seemed to take them in circles, but finally dropped down to the plains of Elfael. When they slowed, the little horse waited, when they rested, she rested. From here, Nechtan could see across the plain to the pale blue rise of the mountains of Pendynas, the border of Cedewain.
“Marchlew knows better than to meet Fiach on the open field,” Nechtan was saying. “No, there’s something else rolling around that man’s brain.”
“He would try diplomacy first.”
“Marchlew? Diplomacy?” He had to laugh.
“You would,” Lyl said.
“Marchlew’s ways have never been mine. But I agree he would do whatever it takes to put his son on my throne.”
He thought about his nephew; the only reason Marchlew would risk war was that he had fathered the boy most people would accept as heir to Nechtan’s throne.
“How old is the boy now?”
“Talan is of an age to take the field and the throne,” she said. “Perhaps a season younger than you were.”
Nechtan hadn’t seen the boy since he was playing with sticks and chasing cats with his wolfhound. It had been that long since he’d seen his sister, Kyndra. He felt a pang of guilt at the thought of her. When his father had proposed an alliance with Marchlew, an alliance sealed by marriage, Nechtan had agreed. When Kyndra begged him to persuade the king, their father, to reject Marchlew as a suitor, Nechtan told her it was her duty to wed for the land. He remembered it clearly, standing in her bedchamber while she slapped his arms, his chest, his face, raving that she would kill herself. He’d let her expend her rage until she was too exhausted to strike another blow. Then he escorted her north for the handfasting, and within six years, he suffered the same fate, married to a reaver’s daughter, his marriage bed a peace treaty. Justice, some would call it.
“If we reach Marchlew,” he said to Lyleth, “what do you plan to tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Maybe I’m just a bit of borrowed flesh.” He stopped in the road and forced Lyl to face him. “I have no mark, and I’m planted with memories you’ve selected.”
“I don’t own your memories—”
“You’ve given me only the memories you deem necessary. There’s a reason I can’t remember those last weeks, Lyl. You don’t want me to remember. Why?”
He let go of her and ran his hands through his hair. “Knowing changes nothing,” she said at last.
“It changes what lies between us,” he said. “I deserve to know what it is I should regret.”
He watched her test explanations in her head and discard them silently. She wouldn’t meet his eyes when she finally said, “You banished me.”
The image of Lyleth riding away without a backward glance flashed through his mind. He stood there, watching her go, knowing he was already dead. Remembering why he had banished her could only renew the bitterness simmering behind her eyes, a resentment that had softened these past two days. Maybe she was right. Maybe some things were better left unremembered.
Brixia came back down the road toward them and urged them on with a high-pitched whinny. After a long silent look, Lyleth turned and started after the pony. She’d gone no more than ten paces when she fell into a fevered heap. Nechtan gathered her in his arms and followed the pony.
“You can’t die yet, Lyl. We’re not finished, you and me.”
The road spilled from wooded vales into pasture. Straw bundles waited to be gathered for winter and sheep grazed the stubble of a flax field. They stopped for several hours at midday and Lyleth slept in the shade of a haystack. And Nechtan watched her. He remembered that he had vowed never to set eyes on her again. He remembered Ava’s jealous rants, claiming Lyleth and Nechtan were lovers. She accused them of breaking their vow, and now, watching the breeze dandle the loose strands of Lyleth’s hair, the even throb of her heart beneath her skin, Nechtan wondered. Had they?
They found the inn where Elowen said it would be, on the north bank of the Rampant where three rivers joined. A weir held back the flow to form a millpond where a waterwheel churned loudly.
The sound of laughter and smallpipes carried from an inn called The Rampant Rooster. A weathered sign bearing the head of a crowing cock swung on rusty chains in the wind.
Beyond a yard filled with racks of drying salmon, Nechtan found the stable.
“Let’s see the quality of guests they entertain before we join their festivities,” Nechtan said.
Inside, a bay, a black and a sorrel munched hay beside the fat dun plow horse that Elowen had taken. Brixia confirmed it, nickering to the big horse as she sidled up to share its hay.
“Elowen is here before us,” he said. “How is that possible?”
“Perhaps she knew another way.”
“Or she rode through the night.”
The plow horse showed signs of hard travel; dry sweat matted its neck and belly. Nechtan examined the saddles on the others. The high pommels were bossed with the brass sigil of Emlyn, crossed barley sheaves.
“Fiach’s men,” he whispered. “Scouts looking for Marchlew’s hosting.”
Lyl stroked the plow horse’s neck. “Or they’re looking for you. We should move on.”
He glanced at the last of the linen they had used to wrap her wounds. Fresh blood seeped through the old. “We’ll not leave here without stitching you up.”
“It can wait.”
“It can’t.” He met the stubborn will in her eyes. “A king with no mark and no solás. I’d be a worthless man indeed. They’ll be drunk anyway. Wait for me here.”
“I’m coming.”
He would lose this fight. “Then leave your bow, put your dirk in your boot, and cover the blood.”
She turned her cloak so the clasp sat on her shoulder, and hid her bow in a haystack. She looked like death walking, pale with dark circles under her eyes. The innkeep would likely think she was ill and throw them out.
He found a length of rope that would do as a makeshift scabbard for his shortsword. “Tie it on my back.”
Lyl wrapped the rope over both his shoulders and slipped the blade through. When he put his cloak over it, the hilt rested just under his hood, the blade running down his spine. He tested his reach.
“We’re minstrels,” he said.
“Very dirty minstrels, with no instruments?”
“Beggars then.”
“I have some coin. We won’t beg,” sh
e said. “But I hope the men here don’t know their king when they see him.”
“Or perhaps we hope they do.”
The common room held a dozen long tables crowded with farmers, slapping the boards for more ale and arguing over several games of hounds and hares. Nechtan found a bench that put their backs to the hearth, affording him a view of the whole room.
The innkeeper was a stout man covered in a pelt of greying hair that crawled up from his chest into his beard.
“Ale, if you please,” Nechtan said. “And meat if you have it.”
“You have the coin?”
Lyl produced a silver salmon.
The innkeeper snatched it from her and eyed them with suspicion. “For a silver salmon you’ll be wanting the whole pig, or a room for the night, or both.”
“Both,” Nechtan said.
The three horsemen from Emlyn sat across the room, and in the middle, a boy pumped the bellows of smallpipes and worked at a merry tune. A single barmaid danced with a succession of men, weaving hand to hand through a line.
Lyl’s elbow found Nechtan’s ribs. “There.” She nodded past the dancers.
Through the peat smoke he saw Elowen. She made her way through the tables to take a seat on a barrel beside the boy with the pipes.
As the boy finished his jig, Elowen worked the tuning pegs and readied the harp. It was then she saw Nechtan. Her eyes flashed from him to the horsemen.
The piper’s tune done, Elowen’s fingers moved expertly over the strings made of Nechtan’s hair, the harp of the drowned maid. The sound seemed to come from somewhere inside his gut, but clearly, no one else felt it as he did. It awakened him. His senses sharpened. He could smell rancid fat from the kitchen, vinegar and apples on a man across the table, the smell of lovemaking on a young man farther down the bench, tannery lye on the other.
On the horsemen from Emlyn, he smelled blood.
Elowen plucked and his soul hummed like sun on water. The sound became him and with it, he understood why this second chance at living was a gift.