They had seen him before, only once, and knew him to be an important figure, for he had been riding the dragon along with the giant being, up from the city to the sacred Usgar grove far above.
Connebragh composed herself and looked back, just in time to witness a parade of captured, miserable humans being marched up the stairs to the platform. Men, women, even children were set in lines, one to each rope. Other sidhe were up there, too, working fast to bind the prisoners’ ankles to the hanging ropes and then to different ropes coming up from the floorboards.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
Her answer came a moment later, when a line of sidhe took up a rope behind the platform and ran back with it. The feet of a woman tied to the line flew out from under her, and she slammed down hard to the platform, but only for a moment, before she scraped along and was inverted, going upside down into the air, stretching to her limits, the second rope holding tight about her wrists.
The tugging sidhe pulled until she groaned in agony, then wrapped the end of the rope around a cylinder. Another sidhe ran up with a pole, sticking it into a hole on one side of the cylinder, then he and two other sidhe leaned on it, tightening the rope, eliciting a scream from the prisoner.
They locked it in place, to the cheers of the crowd, the inverted woman stretched beyond her limits.
The pulling group went to the next rope in line and soon had a man hanging beside the woman in similar fashion. And so it went down the line, until the platform looked like something that might be used to hang dressed deer after a great hunt. Connebragh counted thirty people, upside down and stretched in agony.
The crowd cheered.
The priest pontificated and walked among the prisoners, a scourge in his hand. Randomly, brutally, he whipped them and shouted at them, and the three onlookers were shocked indeed to hear him speaking their language, and perfectly!
He was looking for other refugees, demanding that the prisoners speak, and when one didn’t, or didn’t give an answer he liked, he whipped that person and motioned to the team, and the crank was turned another notch.
A woman’s elbow dislocated with a snapping sound.
Connebragh melted back down the ridge, gagging. She climbed off the back side and ran off, hand over her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hold back her vomit.
By the time Asba and Tamilee caught up to her, she was far, far away.
“You have sympathy for my people,” Tamilee said.
Connebragh looked at her curiously.
“What do you think your people did to us when they came down on their raids?” Tamilee scolded.
Connebragh held up her hands helplessly. “I did’no know,” she said.
“Did’no know what?” Tamilee demanded.
“What they did?” added Asba.
“That you were people,” Connebragh blurted. She flailed about, stuttering, trying to explain, thinking that these two might finally be rid of her. But, to her surprise, Asba embraced her and Tamilee joined him, the three sharing a needed hug and cry.
* * *
“Brother Gilbert of Annacuth!” Brother Thaddius announced triumphantly. He looked up from the scroll he had been reading, which came from the first of the alabaster coffers he had taken from the tomb.
“The name is not known to me,” Elysant answered. She sat on the far wall of the small antechamber in the chapel of Appleby-in-Wilderland, which Thaddius had set up as their study, against the disagreement of Abbot Chesterfield. “Is he the brother referenced by Saint Belfour?”
Thaddius nodded excitedly. “It truly was the tomb of Saint Belfour. Now I am certain of it.”
Elysant motioned incredulously to her stone staff, to the new staff Thaddius had set by the door, to the robe she now wore, reminding him of their most extraordinary encounter.
“I know, I know,” the monk argued, against her expression. “But I had to be certain before we went all the way back to Ursal, and to Saint-Mere-Abelle beyond that.”
“Saint-Mere-Abelle?”
“The documents of Saint Belfour’s intended journey south, too few by far, spoke of Brother Gilbert. This Gilbert, Gilbert of Annacuth, I believe.”
“Where is Annacuth?”
“North of Palmaris, along the gulf, I believe, but I don’t think it survives to this day. But here, too, Saint Belfour, or one of his brothers on the journey, writes of Brother Gilbert and references his writings. If the village of Annacuth is gone, as I believe, then any surviving writings would be—”
“In the catacomb library of Saint-Mere-Abelle,” Elysant finished.
“Our journey and quest are just begun, my wonderful friend,” Brother Thaddius stated.
Some commotion out in the main chapel caught his ear, then, and he and Elysant closed up their work quickly, gathered their staves, and headed out to investigate. They found Abbot Chesterfield and the old man named Redshanks standing by the door.
“Ah, we meet again, Brother Tad,” Redshanks said.
“Thaddius” the monk corrected, though Redshanks wasn’t looking at him anymore.
“And the beautiful Sister Elysant,” the old scalawag said, with a wink at the woman. “Aye, but there’s a name I won’t soon forget. Ah, but when I was a younger man…”
“I would knock you down and make you apologize to my friend,” Elysant sweetly assured him, drawing a great bout of laughter.
A tall and lanky stranger and a dark-skinned woman in a long dress entered the chapel.
“My friends,” Redshanks explained. “Old friends, from the far west. They’ve come with a hundred refugees, ones stranger still, seeking shelter and guidance.”
Elysant noted that Thaddius’s gaze was locked on the dark-skinned woman. It was a stare not of lust but of disturbed curiosity.
“I am Talmadge,” the tall man introduced himself to the abbot.
“Yes, I remember when you came through here a few years ago.”
“And now I am returned, and will not go back to the west, I expect. I come with grim tidings and a dire warning.”
“We should bring some of the village leaders and all sit down,” Redshanks said. “You need to hear what my friend Talmadge has to say.”
Some commotion out in the street interrupted the conversation and had them moving for the door—all except for Thaddius, Elysant noted, who was still studying the dark-skinned woman. Elysant looked at her, too, and only then understood her friend’s curiosity, for her movements were not natural. She seemed to be more floating than walking.
Thaddius caught her gaze and gave a slight nod, and Elysant understood. She fell in behind the other five and produced a red garnet that she had been using in the study, one that would show her any magic working on the woman.
They came to the door, and the abbot and two monks then understood the commotion, for in the street stood the strangest group of people they had ever seen: men, women, a few children, all with elongated, oversize heads!
The villagers of Appleby were all about, some gasping, some even praying.
“What is that?” Abbot Chesterfield demanded.
As Redshanks began to explain, Brother Thaddius gasped loudly, which seemed strangely delayed, until Elysant realized that he wasn’t looking at the strangers with the weird heads but at another man, tall and muscular, with dark hair and a fine-looking sword on his hip, who was milling about the gathering.
“It cannot be,” Thaddius mouthed, almost silently, and Elysant realized that only she took note of it. She took her friend by the arm.
“I know him,” Brother Thaddius whispered to her. “The whole of Honce-the-Bear knows him.”
* * *
The look on Asba’s face told the two women all they needed to know.
“Dead,” Tamilee said, as he approached.
“They’re feeding them to their lizards,” he replied, barely able to get the words out.
“I want to kill them all,” said Connebragh. She looked to her left, to the east, and the rim of the g
orge that was not so far away. Many times she had thought to gather up stones as heavy as she could find and throw them at the city far below. Someday, she vowed, she would find the courage to do just that.
“They’re bringing more,” Asba said. “They’re killing many.”
“Then we have to hide,” Tamilee said, expressing the frustration of all of them.
They were helpless here, utterly so. It took all of their wits and wiles to simply stay ahead of the patrols while finding enough to eat, let alone trying to find some meaningful way to strike back or to help the doomed prisoners.
The three were a long way from their cave, but the sun was setting, and to this point, at least, the sidhe weren’t sending any patrols out in the dark of night. So they dared to stay where they were, in the hollow of a willow’s base. Connebragh didn’t even bring up her magical darkness at first, taking some solace in staring at the moonless sky above.
How many times had she stared at that sky up on the slopes of Fireach Speuer?
How many times had she danced under that sky with her sisters of the Coven?
She could almost hear that song now, as twilight fell and the stars began to twinkle above. She could almost …
She could hear that song.
The woman blinked out of her trance and leaned out of the hollow, feeling the night breeze as it flowed down the mountain, carrying with it the melodies of the Coven. But not the words. She did not understand the words.
Compelled, the woman crawled out of the hole. Her two companions warned and complained but then came out behind her and flanked her as she stared up at the distant mountain and a growing orange-hued light up near its peak.
They had not seen this before, or heard it, though they had only rarely been this close to the mountain.
“It is part of the sacrifices we saw this day and last,” Connebragh said, somehow knowing.
She turned left with a start, as did the others, as a glow emanated from the crater of what had been Loch Beag—white light, growing brighter with every note from above.
“What…?” Tamilee whispered, and led the way, for they had to see.
They crept to the rim, peered over, and gasped as one.
The city was lit as if in daytime! Sparkling lights decorated every building, lined every boulevard, and the walls.
Oh, the walls!
Right below them, they saw the source, saw crystals growing out of the stone walls, growing and glowing with magical diamond light.
“Usgar,” Asba breathed, but Connebragh shook her head. She thought of the cave up above, beneath the God Crystal, where she had trained for the Coven. Full of crystals, magical all. She had called upon them to light her way through a maze of caverns much like this, though not near the scale.
Far below, torches exploded with small fireballs, then burned in their tall lampposts.
“What is happening?” Asba asked.
A boom of thunder shook the ground beneath them, followed by a communal cheer from far below. They looked up to the mountain to see a huge, dark cloud swirling above the peak, repeatedly flashing with lightning.
“The crystals,” Connebragh said, trying to make some sense of it all. “The caverns…”
She looked to her two companions and shook her head, at a loss. She swallowed hard. “We can’no stay here.”
“We’ve nowhere to go,” Tamilee reminded.
“They’re using the crystals,” Connebragh explained. “They’re bringing them forth from the earth itself and calling their powers.” She locked their stares and added, slowly, “There are crystals that sense life and tell you where and what might be about.”
“Your darkness,” Asba replied.
“There are crystals that find magic.” Connebragh tried to compose herself. “We can’no stay here.”
“Then, where?” asked Tamilee.
“Where there are less of them,” Asba answered suddenly and with conviction. He nodded toward Fireach Speuer. “Up there.”
* * *
Brother Thaddius paced the small side room, rubbing his face, muttering under his breath.
“The abbot’s guests have arrived,” Elysant told him.
“I know.”
“They await us.”
“I know!”
Elysant furrowed her brow, and Thaddius forced himself to calm down.
“Are you sure?” the woman asked.
“It is him, King Aydrian Boudabras,” Thaddius insisted. “I know him. I was there at the battle of Saint-Mere-Abelle, when he was defeated. I was among the brothers who accompanied him and his mother down to the docks to put them on a boat that would take them far away, never to return.”
“Never to return to Honce-the-Bear,” Elysant said.
“Yes,” Thaddius started to answer, before he realized her point.
“We are not in Honce,” Elysant confirmed. “He is doing nothing against his exile. If that is even—”
“It is him,” Thaddius declared. “I would never forget him. You know that I was in favor of Marcalo De’Unnero. It is to my great shame, but I cannot deny it. I thought De’Unnero and that man, Aydrian, would bring the discipline needed by church and crown. I did not understand until that very last battle that they were monsters. And now I see a monster in an Abellican chapel, and I am sickened.”
“Father Abbot Braumin chose mercy for Aydrian,” Elysant reminded.
“Only because of his mother—once the queen, ever the hero. There is no one more revered in Honce-the-Bear than Queen Jilseponie, still to this day, and that is well deserved.”
“Then maybe he saw hope for her son.”
Thaddius rubbed his face yet again, brightening the blotchy marks against his pale skin.
“Your hope is mere conjecture.”
“Everything in here is mere conjecture,” Elysant said. “Even your identification of the…”
She stopped and held up her hands, telling Thaddius that his scowl was enough.
Thaddius walked over to the table where sat the three alabaster coffers and picked up a pair of dark red garnets. He tossed one to his companion. “Pay attention to his sword. I know that sword—its name is Tempest. It was made by the elves for Aydrian’s great-uncle, then claimed by Aydrian’s father, Elbryan. King Aydrian added gemstones to it. It was a topic of great interest at Saint-Mere-Abelle.”
“And on the woman, too,” Elysant said. “She floats and does not walk. There is something magical about her.”
Thaddius took another deep breath, trying to compose himself.
“Are you ready?” Elysant asked, and Thaddius nodded.
They found the gathering in Abbot Chesterfield’s large audience chamber, just behind the main hall of the chapel. Chesterfield was there along with Redshanks, three other prominent Appleby citizens, and six of the visitors—the five who did not have misshapen heads and the young woman with braided blond hair and an elongated skull, the one Chesterfield had called Catriona.
“Ah, at last,” said Chesterfield. He moved to his seat behind the desk at the back of the room and motioned to the other collection of chairs and benches set haphazardly about the room. “I am not used to such large gatherings,” he said. “Not outside of the chapel proper, at least, so please excuse the less than hospitable trappings. But I thought it better that we speak in here, given the gravity of the claims of these visitors.”
Thaddius was hardly listening. He scanned the dark-skinned woman and chewed his lip when he detected the powerful magic set about her waist. He turned to the man he knew to be Aydrian, but stopped short of the mark when his gaze passed across the smallish woman with the dark hair and darker eyes. His attention was caught by her clothing, first of all, or lack thereof, for she wore low-cut, short-legged breeches that left most of her lower legs bare and revealed a thin anklet set with stones. Her shirt was cropped short, leaving her entire midriff bare, revealing a three-tined belly ring set with various gemstones.
Thaddius couldn’t take his eyes from th
at bare belly, and not for any carnal reasons.
The belly ring, the pendant hanging from her waist chain, the anklet above her right sandal, the earring on her left ear, the ring on her right hand, even the skin—nay, not the skin, but the markings!—of her hands and bare arms, all of it tingled with magic.
This stranger, this woman supposedly from a land thousands of miles to the west, was decorated in Abellican Ring Stones!
She noted his stare, then, and the monk turned away, embarrassed. He washed that notion aside quickly, though, for there sat Aydrian on a bench, and yes, his sword emanated magic, as did the man’s torso. Thaddius closed his eyes and took note: King Aydrian was wearing his magical armor, the breastplate at least.
“Now, my friends of Appleby,” Abbot Chesterfield began, when all but Thaddius had taken a seat. “You know of my guests, Brother Thaddius and Sister Elysant, of course, but I have asked you here because of these new visitors here, who are friends of—”
“Where did you get those?” Thaddius interrupted, standing, staring hard at the small woman, and pointing at her belly.
She looked over at him and narrowed her eyes but did not respond.
“Brother,” the man he knew to be Aydrian replied.
“Brother Thaddius, take your seat,” Abbot Chesterfield ordered.
“Those gemstones you wear,” Thaddius pressed on. “Where did you get them?”
Still returning his stare with a hard look of her own, the woman stood up.
“And you!” Thaddius said, spinning about to point accusingly at the dark-skinned woman. “That belt you wear! You two, both of you, are thick with Abellican magic.”
Abbot Chesterfield slammed his large fists down on his desk and stood up, shouting, “Brother!”
“Brother, sit down,” another man implored him.
“I know who you are,” Thaddius answered that man. “Why are you here?”
“That’s what we’re looking to learn, I’m expecting,” Redshanks remarked.
Song of the Risen God Page 15