Authors: Tim Akers
The gheist horn droned through the night.
* * *
There was no light in the shrine. Maeve breathed a sigh of relief as she passed bloodless through the stones. Her hand brushed the altar and found it unbroken. Whatever was happening up above, it had not yet reached the heart of the castle.
She found a candle among the niches and brought it forward, cupping it in her hand as she searched for the flint. Witches of fire had a much easier time with this, but Maeve had her own tricks. She held the flint next to the wick and, with a push of everam, teased the spark from the stone.
In the flickering light she saw two eyes, black and glinting, at the very edge of the candle’s light. The shadows rushed in and, with a smothering hiss, extinguished the candle’s flame. Startled, she dropped the wick and heard it splat dully onto the stones at her feet. The flint followed as she drew the twin blades from her sleeves and backed up against the wall.
“Do you greet all pilgrims thus?” a voice said from the darkness.
“You are no pilgrim,” she hissed.
“A seeker, perhaps. A student.” There was a shuffle of robes, a stir of air suddenly dry. The voice moved through the room like leaves on the wind. “Curious, like you—though you are not the person I was expecting.”
“Then you’ve no idea where you are,” Maeve said, backing along the wall. Something brushed her feet and scuttled away. The shadows scurried against her eyes. Oh, for the kinship of fire, but stone would have to do.
“I think I do,” the voice said. “Or, at least, I think I have some idea. I’ve been to Houndhallow, you know. I recognize the darker shrines when I see them.”
Without a word, Maeve slid toward the sound of the voice and slashed out with her blades. Air parted, and the shadows pulled at her robes, resistant as heavy curtains. The voice grunted at her side, then laughed sharply from behind her.
“Not for talking? I’d hoped to crack this shell without too much blood, at least at first—but we can do things your way.”
The shadows around her coalesced, like ropes summoned out of smoke, and bound her arms. Her left hand pressed against her thigh, the blade pricking skin and drawing blood. With her right, trapped at the shoulder but free from the elbow down, Maeve tried to cut free of whatever held her. Something snaked around her leg, her neck, pressing into her eyes until she was sure her veins would burst.
She pushed everam into her free knife, drawing on the power of the hidden shrine and the closing equinox, but whatever her blade cut, the threads of shadow would reform in seconds. With a grunt, Maeve fell to the ground, squirming like a beached fish.
“A dangerous knife, that,” the voice muttered. The speaker kicked the blade from Maeve’s free hand, then leaned down and slowly peeled her fingers back to wrench the other weapon out. His touch was chill, as though his hands were made of clay. “Now then. Perhaps we can try this again. Where do I stand, and what words do I speak to unlock its path to the everealm, witch?”
“Fuck off,” Maeve spat, then dropped through the stone floor like it was water.
The ropes of shadow didn’t follow her, bound as they were to naether. Under the surface of the floor, Maeve’s hearing was as muffled as if she were submerged, but her vision cleared. She could just make out the man, wrapped in shadows tinged the color of blood, stooped over the spot where she had just been.
A presence hovered in the man’s shadow, a spirit that was wearing him like a mummer’s puppet. It stretched from his back, arms tangled together, elongated head darting over his shoulder. This other consciousness tracked Maeve’s fall. Its face split into a toothy grin, its mouth like a sundered corpse, gaping open after the executioner’s blade has passed.
“God’s own death,” Maeve swore. The presence reached out for her.
* * *
Sacombre climbed the stairs as quickly as he could manage. The shadows drifting from his body carried something of his flesh with them, shadows tinged in blood and fed by his spirit.
The shrine was everything he had hoped, and nothing he could use. He alone now knew of the heresy of House Adair, of its generations of lies and duplicity. The family protected a secret, whispered about among the pagan tribes his trusted servants had infiltrated. Allaister had always believed it rested in the Fen itself, but Sacombre had never believed him, thinking that anything so precious would be kept close to the castle.
Allaister had been right.
Rising to the level of the crypts, Sacombre brushed from his robes the last of the dust of that profane place. Spots of blood grimed the hem. He would need to purge the vestments before he could speak rites in the doma, though it had been a long time since the high inquisitor had felt called to perform that duty.
Sighing, he looked around at the generations of Adair dead, their stony faces bland beneath their coats of grime. Sacombre smiled.
“No more lies, my friends. You’ve done well, and I promise that I will do more with your little secret than your gods could have imagined. Still…”
He paused as he heard a footfall, and peered up past the trail of bodies that he must have left. The nearest was a scullery maid whose crumpled face was dotted with specks of broken teeth and blood. Sacombre no longer feared the dead, at least not on this side of the quiet, but sometimes he was horrified at the state of the corpses he rendered.
Fighting had never been in his blood.
A man stepped from the shadows.
“Sir Volent!” Sacombre hailed. “The perfect man for tonight’s proceedings. I have a task for you, good sir, a task that will bring your name to the lips of every pagan who dares defy the word of the Celestial church.”
“I saw you give him that sword,” Volent muttered.
“The sword? Oh. Oh, yes, and such a sword it is. Cinder-blessed and Strife-forged, hallowed in purpose and in heft. Why, foolish is the gheist who—”
“Shut up,” Volent said. He came out of the shadows. The man was dressed for war, as always, and gripped his sword in a pale hand. “What have you done?”
“Done? I have done what I was anointed to do. What the gods require of me. What Cinder requires of me.” Sacombre pressed forward, crowding into the newcomer’s face. “You have followed me this far, Sir Volent. What sours your blood now, on the verge of victory, at the cusp—”
“You killed him,” Volent said. He put one hand on the high inquisitor and pushed, casually, but with such strength that the priest went flying. “Gabriel Halverdt saved me. He found me, mad, quivering, a murderous bastard among murderous bastards, and he made a man of me.”
“The duke of Greenhall is dead? Oh, gods, what tragedy!” Sacombre pulled himself to his knees, wincing as the gritty floor clogged the scratches on his shins, the palms of his hands. “We must flee to the army outside! Bring Cinder’s justice down on these heathens. Gods, but I know it was a mistake to bargain for peace with pagans.”
“A tragedy, yes,” Volent agreed. “One which you engineered—and that gheist? Don’t you think that was a bit much?” Volent paced forward, swinging his sword back and forth, as if the edge ached to strike. “What black well have you dipped into, inquisitor, that you summon pagan gods to do your bidding?”
“Now listen, and listen closely, Volent. It is not your place to question the actions of the church. I will not stand here and be accused of witchcraft by the likes of you.”
“You’re kneeling,” Volent pointed out. Then he rushed forward, sword drawn back, a glint of fury in his silent face. He was nearly upon the high inquisitor when Sacombre threw his arms out.
A band of shadow ripped across the dusty room. It snapped like a whip, and Volent stopped short. The black veins in his skin pulsed to the surface. He gave out a startled, terrified cry, and then was immobile. His sword clattered to the ground.
“Now then,” Sacombre said, rising to his feet. He dusted off his knees and the palms of his hands. The demon song was singing in his head again, the streams of pagan power flashing through the air, clenching Volent tight. What had the witch called it? Everam? It was always good to know the proper name for things. He strolled up to Volent.
“That is enough of that, Sir Volent. I’m sorry for your master. I’m sorry that he had to die, but lessons must be learned, and sometimes, when the master dies, the dog goes mad.” He placed a finger against the immobile forehead, quietly sketching an ancient rune in Volent’s own blood, binding it in naether and flesh. He began to wonder what the limits were. Perhaps Strife’s bright energy could be included, as well. He would have to visit the Lightfort one day, after all this was over. Initiate some of the girls into his order.
Volent’s eyes shifted, clouding with ink. Sacombre smiled, then pressed his palm into the man’s skull. Volent whimpered and then, stiff as a board, fell back to the floor.
“When a dog goes mad, sometimes you have to put him down,” Sacombre whispered. “But even mad dogs have their uses.”
Then he went up the stairs and into the night.
H
ENRI WOKE TO
a green so dark it was nearly black. He was lying flat, his skin alive with motion, the tiny, burrowing grit of unseen life. Memories swam through his head—memories of travel, of distance, of battles fought and won, and comrades buried in the earth.
That’s where I am
, he thought.
Buried.
Yet there was light, and he saw leaves inches from his face. He stood, brushing past some undergrowth, the leaves scratching against his cheeks.
The trees were closer than he remembered. In fact, he didn’t remember there being any trees at all. He stood shoulder to trunk with evergreens and oak, their limbs crisscrossing over his body as he took a step forward. Then they bowed aside, creaking as they moved out of his way. There was a path ahead of him.
He followed it, and it crossed another, and then another, joining and intersecting, becoming wider until the sheer number of trails became a clearing. A glen where the trees gathered above in a hatchwork of leaves and mossy branches, blocking out the sky. Despite that, there was no shortage of light in this clearing, pure as gold.
Gathered at the center of the clearing were figures, tangled in shadow and light. Four men, standing in a circle, facing the center. He moved closer. They looked familiar.
“Who are you?” he asked quietly. The nearest two turned just a little, as though they had heard something, just over the shoulders. “Who are you?” Louder this time, more insistent.
It was a foolish question.
They were him.
“This has gone on long enough,” the farthest figure said. He was more upright than the others, back straight, hands clasped in his belt, dressed as a knight at court might dress, fine velvet and silk, a sword hanging at his side. “We’ve marched under their banner long enough. It’s time to draw our own colors.”
“Your loyalties do not matter,” the closest one replied. “Halverdt has served our purpose. Would Sacombre be any worse?” He stooped forward, as though his bones were too heavy, his head bent uncomfortably just to look forward. His skin was as white as snow and shot through with thick veins of purple and black. Henri came around to look into this face, but it was missing. A pit, deeper than the skull and creased with scars and blood, echoed with a demon’s voice.
“It’s foolish to even be talking about this,” the demon said. “The priest is killing us, right now.”
“Killing you,” another of the figures answered. It was smaller than the others, more a boy than a man—a tall child, still soft in his joints, skin untouched by work or worry. A single crease wrinkled his brow. “Like you killed Papa,” the child said.
“Be silent,” the knight responded. “You have always been a visitor here—an unwelcome one at that.”
“Leave Father out of this,” the final shadow snapped. He moved as if to lurch forward, but something held him in place. Henri pulled his gaze away from the strange pit-faced demon, then jerked and jumped back. This one was lined in blood, skin stained and teeth sharp, rotten, yellow and tinged in gore. His eyes were as wild as a madman’s. His hands were cracked and dry. Each finger ended in a blade, steel erupting from the flesh like broken bones, and pus leaked constantly from the wounds.
The feral man looked at Henri, the first of the strange congregation to acknowledge his presence, and smiled wildly.
“This is no place for you.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Henri said, holding his hands up and backing away from the feral man. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look into the pit-faced demon’s visage. Another voice rose up, shivering through his bones, whispering words that only he could hear.
His mother, screaming her husband’s name as the gheist that consumed him drifted through the door. A memory, stirred from his nightmares, spoken in the heartbeats before he turned his back and ran out the door and into the rain.
“You killed them!” Henri yelled at the demon, the shard of the gheist that had lodged in his blood and stolen the life from his face. He whirled into the center of the circle of figures.
“It’s gone on long enough,” the knight repeated. “We must take our part.”
“You’re only here because I brought you here. You’re only alive because I’ve kept you alive,” the demon answered.
“You! You’ve kept
us
alive?” the feral howled mockingly. “We’ve carried you all this way, like a burden strapped to our heart. I’ve carried you. All of you!”
“Please be quiet,” the child said. “I don’t like it when you’re loud!” The others seemed to ignore him, but when they spoke again it was in hushed tones.
“If not for me, the duke would have discarded us,” the demon said. “And as for you—” He turned to the feral man. “Without me you wouldn’t even exist.”
“Gods bless that were true, demon,” the knight answered, “but you found a home in us
because
he existed, even then.” He tossed his head toward the child, who quickly looked away. “In truth, I’m not sure either the duke or the high inquisitor has done us much good.”
The feral man laughed, a sound both sharp and brittle. The bloody figure shook his head.
“Look at you,” he said. “Silk and silver, talking about taking control. Do you think the duke would have raised us up so far, based on your skills? Father was a carpenter. We were never going to be anything more.”