Authors: C.N. Crawford
“Is that what made you join the underground coven?”
William nodded solemnly. “It’s what got me reading, speaking properly in this fancy dialect, learning spells… I wanted Tobias to have everything a Throcknell would have. At least, the education. I didn’t want him helplessly watching his children die someday.”
“You’re a good father.”
The lump in William’s throat bobbed, and he waved a hand. “If you want to try speaking to the Theurgeons, I won’t stop you. They’ll take that silver of yours.” He nodded at Thomas’s watch. “But you won’t want to spend long in the city gates. The Black Death is spreading.”
Thomas nearly choked on his beer. “The plague?”
William nodded.
This news only intensified Thomas’s determination to hightail it back to his own world.
William rubbed his eyes. “I have to go into the Tuckomuck Forest and round up what remains of the Ragmen. Oswald can take you into town tomorrow. He’ll help keep you from getting clanked up in the Iron Tower.”
“The iron what?”
“The prison tower. If you break any of the Throcknell laws, you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of the bars. Easy to get in, but impossible to get out. No one has made it out of there alive. Not since Eirenaeus, anyway.”
The name sounded familiar. “Who was he?”
“Not more than a boy, but clever as a raven. He discovered the philosopher’s stone. He wouldn’t give it willingly to the Throcknells, wouldn’t bow to them. The Throcknells stole it anyway, and locked him in the Iron Tower. But he used Angelic to escape.”
Thomas ran a finger around the rim of his murky glass. “Well, I’ll be grateful to Oswald to keep me out of there. He’s a friend of yours?”
“Eden’s brother,” William said quietly. “He’s been with me a lot lately. He might be a little… upset. He doesn’t understand why Tobias saved a pennywort instead of his sister.”
“A pennywort.” Apparently, echolalia was Thomas’s only conversational skill at the moment.
“An outsider. It’s from the old language, I think.”
And if Thomas remembered correctly, it was a weed. An invasive species, at that.
As if on cue, a lanky figure shoved the door open, and milky sunlight streamed into the room, igniting blond hair from behind. “Whore’s kitling. Thou art ’ere, pennywort.” He strode into the room, pulling up an empty chair. Pale eyes bored into Thomas. Tangled, curly hair hung to his chin, and his skin looked like it had been bronzed in the sun. A yellow-breasted lark fluttered onto his shoulder—his familiar
.
William sighed. “Oswald. I’ve taught you how to speak in his dialect. And you should be thanking him for saving us all in the battle.”
Oswald folded lean, muscular arms in front of his chest. “Not
all
of us, though, was it?”
Oswald hadn’t spoken to him for the entire journey through the forest, past the city gate, and into briny-scented city alleys. Once or twice he whispered to his meadowlark, and Thomas gathered that the familiar’s name was Meraline.
They’d passed through something called Devil’s Milk Square, where a statue of topless women spurted milk into a stony basin, and they’d continued north through winding lanes along the city’s eastern edge, just inland from the Harbor.
Thomas wore an itchy woolen shirt and trousers loaned to him by William, his own clothing having been torn beyond repair in the battle. Of his own belongings, only his jogging shoes and watch remained.
A sludgy gutter ran along the center of a glistening cobblestone alley. Top-heavy, timber-frame houses threatened to topple into the street, and a few girls hung laundry from overhead ropes between the buildings. A woman with auburn hair and thin lips stopped to stare at Thomas, nudging her elderly friend. Nervous hands flew to their mouths as he passed.
Thomas stepped gingerly to avoid the refuse embedded in the cobbles. The neighborhood smelled of old fish and urine, but it was in better shape than Tobias’s. At least the buildings remained standing.
He glanced at Oswald’s profile—the frosty blue eyes and strong jaw obscured by his unkempt curls. He’d tried making conversation about the weather a mile back, but Oswald had merely glared at him.
Worth another shot.
“Have you ever been to a Theurgeon?”
Gray eyes flicked toward him and back. “No.”
That went well.
The alley opened into a large square.
Lullaby Square.
Thomas recognized the fountain, a stone cube inset with the petrified head of a succubus that spewed water into a basin. Images of the battle flooded his mind—the men who’d died at his hands.
With a shudder, he realized that a part of him ached for that terrible power.
His throat tightened, and he glanced at Oswald. It was above the fountain that Oswald’s sister had swung lifelessly just days ago. If Oswald knew that, his stony face didn’t betray it.
They crossed the square, its rough-hewn stones still marred by splotches of dried blood. The Throcknell Fortress towered over them, its stone walls shining white in the morning sun. The last time he was here, he’d been too gripped with panic to study it.
He could count five outer towers, like points of a star. Thick stone walls stretched between them. Two guards in tunics of blue and gold stood on either side of a tall portcullis, pikes gripped in their hands. Above the guards, five mountain lion heads floated in the air, their faces animated in snarls and roars.
The Throcknell herald—Celia’s herald.
Instead of iron barring the entry, thin streams of golden light crossed the opening, a magical barrier
.
Within the fortress’s center, a constellation of towers reached to the skies. They varied in width, but each had a gleaming spire, sharp as a rapier. He could have sworn some pierced the clouds.
Assuming this isn’t a complex hallucination, that is. Assuming I’m not dosed up on Thorazine in a psychiatric hospital right now, dribbling onto a mint-green hospital gown.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Oswald’s voice interrupted his staring.
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s not for people like us. Except the Iron Tower. And no one makes it out of that except to meet death in the square.”
The phrase “death in the square” sent a shiver crawling up Thomas’s spine, bringing with it the sound of cracking bones and gurgling blood.
It was all real, wasn’t it?
All those people he’d slaughtered. Worse than the death was the thrill of power he’d felt as he’d snuffed out their lives. He didn’t even know how many he’d killed. You were supposed to remember all the faces—that was what he’d read in books. But it was a blur of spraying blood and shattering skulls. Nausea spread through his gut.
“Are we done staring?” Oswald pivoted to stride across the square, and Thomas tried to clear his head of the bloody images.
He followed Oswald to a row of steep-peaked buildings marked with colorful signs. Barefoot children in ragged clothes stared at him as he walked past, and a few more lingered around vendors selling bread, hoping for scraps. A cold sweat prickled his skin as he noticed their pale lips and dark-shadowed eyes.
A young girl in a dusty brown dress approached them from behind an empty cart. She must have been about six, her brown eyes large in an emaciated face. Tangled brown hair hung past her shoulders, and her bare feet padded on the stones. She stopped, close to Thomas, and pointed to an abandoned, overturned cart. A filthy dark-haired boy of about four slumped against it, a dazed look in his eyes. Purplish lumps bulged from the sides of his neck. Thomas’s heart dropped into his stomach.
The Black Death.
The girl squinted in the sun, blocking his path. “Are ye a pennywort?”
Thomas nodded, glancing at the little boy, who seemed to struggle for breath. “Yes. And who are you? Are your parents around?”
“Dead.” She took a step closer, her face drawn. “I’m Chloris. Does ye have pennywort simples? My broder, Ayland, ha’ the token.”
He frowned, glancing at Oswald. As if sensing the danger of infection, Meraline took flight, soaring for the rooftops.
Oswald crossed his arms. “She wants to know if you have medicine from the outside world.”
Thomas shook his head, holding out his empty hands. “I don’t have anything.” He inhaled, his chest filled with a hollow sadness. If by some miracle he’d had access to modern antibiotics, this would have been his chance to wash the blood from his hands. But he had nothing.
“Are you coming?” Oswald jerked his head toward a storefront—a narrow building, the color of tobacco-stained teeth, crookedly jammed between two darker buildings.
Chloris’s eyes brightened, and she pointed to the building. “Do they have token simples there? For my broder?
Thomas fiddled with his silver watch. “Yes, but you need…” He looked away. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
A lump rose in his throat.
This isn’t right. Four-year-olds can’t just die in the streets.
She wrinkled her nose, her eyes shimmering. Judging by the sickly pallor of her skin, she wouldn’t be far behind the boy. She scratched her head contemplatively before turning to wander back to her brother.
Thomas swallowed hard, turning toward the Theurgeon’s temple. Beams of dark wood divided the façade into three stories. A large, circular sign hung above the door, its surface painted with a snake wound around a staff. The
Rod of Asclepius
—the ancient god of healing. He ran a hand over his chin.
The same medical symbol used in my world.
“The serpent sheds its skin, bringing new life and death alike. The dual-edged responsibility of a healer.”
“What are you clavering about?” Oswald spat.
Thomas blinked. He’d been staring again. “Sorry.”
Oswald approached the wooden door. A golden lion’s head protruded from the rough wood, holding a ring in its mouth as a knocker. Oswald banged the ring against the door. A few seconds of silence passed before it creaked open.
A young man, barely older than Oswald, stood in a long stone hall, around a hundred feet long and fifty wide, with a vaulted ceiling two stories above their heads. Vertigo washed over Thomas. It wasn’t possible for such an imposing space to fit into a cramped building, but Thomas was beginning to rethink the possible.
The young man before them wore a long black robe and a conical black hat with a live, golden viper writhing around its base. The man’s skin was the color of unbaked bread, and a mere suggestion of a chin curved from below his crowded smile. “Welcome to my temple. I’ve been expecting you.”
Of course. He has to say that.
Thomas glanced back into the square before the door shut. He caught a glimpse of the little Tatter girl staring at them. She was still hoping for her medicine.
“You may call me Brother Asmodeus.” The young Theurgeon motioned to a long banquet table in the center of the hall, its lurid red cloth marked by golden threads that formed shifting alchemical symbols, erasing and rewriting themselves in a slow crawl of script.
Colored lanterns floated near the ceiling. Or at least, they seemed to be floating. Thomas couldn’t see any strings. High-backed chairs lined both sides of the table. Around the room, vines swooped down from the ceiling, their leafy tendrils curled tightly around spell books.
Asmodeus gave a slight bow. “Please, follow.”
Thomas and Oswald followed Brother Asmodeus to the other end of the table where two guards in blue and gold uniforms hovered before a dais. Just like those in front of the fortress, they gripped pikes.
The Theurgeon’s heels echoed from the marble flagstones. Around the room, the walls were lined with shelves of colored and bubbling potions. Between the shelves, painted statues stood in alcoves depicting lavishly dressed royals in jeweled clothing. At the base of each statue was a tiny, golden lion head.
The Throcknell likenesses.
As he approached the far end of the hall, Thomas surveyed the two grandest statues enthroned on the dais—a crowned king and queen in golden robes. The queen’s platinum hair tumbled over her shoulders, its paleness contrasting with the vibrant red of her lips.
The guards in front of the platform had to be seven feet tall, and their long golden beards gave them the appearance of Viking warriors. They guarded something on the center of the platform—it looked like a small marble bowl on a gold stand.
“Admiring Queen Bathsheba’s beauty, I see.” Asmodeus smiled, his freckled cheeks flushing. A servant rushed forward and pulled out a chair for him. “How could you not?” Sitting, he thrust out a hand toward the nearby seats. “Please. Sit.”
Thomas took his seat, partially distracted by the shifting symbols on the tablecloth. Oswald folded his hands behind his head, leaning back. From the way he seemed to make himself at home, Thomas almost had the feeling that he would cross his ankles on the table.