Authors: Alice Borchardt
The shade penned in the tomb studied the flame of the lamp. As the shadow watched, for he was just that, but a shadow of what he’d been, the flame at length reached the last oil, elongated, rose up and up, until a narrow spire, it licked at the low stone roof of the tomb. Its final, smoky flare stained the rough rock-cut ceiling with soot, then died, leaving silence and darkness in its wake.
Now there was nothing left but the harp. The eyeless spirit could feel it. It was he and he it.
Igrane screamed.
Uther was jerked out of his trance.
“He’s gone!!! He’s gone! What happened? I had him. I was about to take . . .” She broke off. His eyes were open. They looked into hers.
“You son of a whore!” she screeched. And kicked him hard in the balls.
His body jerked and he sat up, clutching at his groin. She was barefoot, so the pain was limited, but it was bad enough. Even through his pain, he began laughing.
Igrane glanced at the two golems. “Kill him!” she shrieked.
“No!” The voice rang harsh and metallic, and Uther realized it was Igrane’s lady corpse-in-waiting, Ustane, who had shouted. “Are you out of your mind, my lady? You might search for a hundred years and never be able to seize another opportunity like this one! He is ideal for your purposes.”
The vast domed hall was in shadow, the light faded from the symbol on the floor. Outside, above, the tide was rising, and the green seawater beginning to cover the dome. Whatever power the glowing symbol had to hold his flesh to it was completely broken, and Uther managed to wiggle to one side, out of its reach.
Igrane stood near the discarded scarlet robe. She snapped her fingers, and the robe rose. The sleeves slid over her arms, and it draped itself over her shoulders. She was pale with fury, her face perfectly white with it. Even her eyes seemed drained of color: gray crystals set in alabaster.
No,
he thought. She was no longer quite human. She had deferred destiny too long. Slow the change was, but cumulative in its effect. Bit by bit, whatever was mortal in her was being replaced by something else that lived in this place. And which, in the end, would change her into something as alien to humanity as the foaming sea outside or the creatures imbedded in the floor with the shapes of shells, fish, worm, tubes, and even anemones that once inhabited a sea but now were caught crystalline shapes imbedded in the black rock that floored the room. Changeless, eternal, beautiful in their glittering decoration, but dead, all true life forever lost to them.
He laughed again. Even he was not sure why. Certainly, she would kill him. He had evaded her attentions. Even as he had triumphed over the spirit in the dog, so he had won a victory, a small one, and frustrated her desires. Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered, but had she formed an alliance with Severius—and he was certain that was what she had in mind—together they might bring the High Kingship to complete destruction and their barbarian armies manage to extinguish his people’s last foothold on the earth.
But for all his reasoned knowledge that he had taken the proper, moral course of action, he cringed with fear, knowing that he would be punished—probably horribly punished—for what he had done.
He was right.
Igrane screamed, “Bring me a whip!”
He didn’t believe a human could suffer so much without dying. Without even losing consciousness. After the first few minutes, he began to crawl, trying to escape the blows that opened his skin like the cut of a razor and raised weals as thick as his thumb. He found himself leaving a trail of blood that crisscrossed the gigantic, domed chamber.
When she grew too tired to swing the thing any longer, she transferred it to one of the sinewy golem corpses and the flogging continued until he had not the strength even to wiggle along on his belly in a vain attempt to escape. And he lay silent, wishing only for the end.
At this point, Ustane’s remonstrances took effect. Ustane began screaming, “Do you want to lose everything? Everything? You cannot tell what the effect will be if you kill him here.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Igrane was seated on one of the velvet couches, getting her breath and drinking a cup of wine. “You said yourself, I am mistress.”
“Not—quite—yet!” Ustane’s tone sounded like one rock being dropped on another one, a hard, dull thud. “He has magic.”
“Magic!” Igrane forced a laugh. “He is impotent! That is not magical in an old man.”
“That symbol would raise a corpse. Indeed it has. It is practically impossible to be impotent when lying on it, as well you know. The kind of magic that would stop the transfer of power through him to you is awesomely powerful.”
“Faugh! You are like a child playing with fire. Neither knowing nor caring that the pretty flame can burn.”
Igrane’s face twisted, and for a moment there was nothing beautiful about it. “I want him to suffer.”
Lying on his belly, with his cheek against the icy black floor, Uther found his voice and whispered, “And that wish to see suffering takes precedence over all other things, doesn’t it, my queen?” he asked ironically.
Igrane leaped to her feet.
“Stop!” Ustane commanded. “Think what you do! What ‘He’ would have you do.”
“Very well. Then tell me, since you’re so wise in the ways of this tomb, this empty mausoleum.” She gestured at the vast domed chamber that surrounded her. “You tell me what to do now!”
Ustane moved across the floor. Uther wondered if she walked or did her ruined feet simply slide across the glassy surface, drawn alone by magic. In a few moments, she stood over him.
Odd,
he thought through his pain. He seemed to see through the thick, black robe she wore. Her body was that of a corpse buried for a long time. There was some roundness to her legs and arms where dried muscle and sinew had been placed over bone so that she was able to move. But her body was skeletal, with parchment skin stretched over bone except at her midsection, where she was empty as a basin between her leathery pudenda and the sternum that held her ribs in place. He could look into the hollow and see the dried, blackened muscle that sheathed her spine.
He closed his eyes and found he could still see her, and just as clearly as if she stood in the sun.
Magic!
he thought. But what is magic? The horror that was Ustane had told Igrane he had magic. If this was what it was, it became simply another torment.
“He is not badly hurt,” Ustane muttered, surprised. “Why is he not half-killed?”
“He’s tough. He always was. He and that son of his. Twice he faced Merlin down, threatened to burn him. Merlin was always afraid of fire. Fire and cold iron. I don’t know if he would have been able to do it, but Merlin was afraid he might. And I’ve seen enough of that old man to know if he decided on a course of action, nothing—and I mean nothing—would turn him from his path. I warned Merlin that he should kill Arthur and now I’m warning you, Ustane. The best thing to do would be to kill Uther now.”
Ustane’s voice was a dry whisper, and Uther wondered how she made the sound, because the lipless, noseless face didn’t move.
“No, in this strange place, he might be more dangerous dead than alive.”
“Very well. What? And be quick about it, because I want my supper and a bath. Then my maids can dress me. Severius will be expecting me at the banquet tonight.”
“He is trying to use you, that one,” Ustane said.
“Ustane, do you like lying imprisoned in your tomb?” Igrane asked.
“No, my lady.” Ustane managed to sound submissive.
“Then give me no further advice about a game I understand even better than you do. Sweet, cruel, stupid Severius will be bridled and led to slaughter just as easily as any of the cattle that graze in his meadows. He wants to be emperor, king, or whatever they’re calling themselves now, and rule what’s left of the empire from Ravenna. I’ve a good mind to let him. Then he might almost be worth sucking dry.”
Disaster,
Uther thought. Disaster for his people. A combination of Severius and Igrane could—would—strip the kingdom down to its bare bones as thoroughly as a savage flock of sea eagles stripped the flesh from a corpse, leaving nothing. Not even a memory of a kingdom where justice, mercy, and truth prevailed would remain.
At least I will die. I will die and never know. Pray to fall as the warriors in Gaul who faced Caesar prayed to fall, before they saw their wives become the prey of a victorious army and their children’s brains dashed out or those old enough to work sold as slaves.
But perhaps Ustane was right. Here in this horrible place, he could die.
“A tomb,” Ustane murmured. “A tomb. Certainly, a tomb.” She raised a skeletal arm and beckoned the two golems. “Fetch a litter,” she said.
Uther was loaded on the thing. It amounted to six straps stretched between two poles. They wrapped a sheet around him. Or at least, it looked like a sheet, white and flat. It did move of its own volition more or less, as Igrane’s robe had.
“Why bother?” Igrane asked.
“We don’t want him to drip,” Ustane said.
Yes,
Uther thought. The weals that covered his body wept fluid and slowly oozed blood.
Yes!
And with his mind, he ordered the sheet to form a funnel at one of the lower folds. It soon grew saturated, and he felt it dampen the cold stone floor under him. And when the two golems lifted his body, a mist of fine droplets scattered and fell with every step they took.
“There is a way to persuade him to cooperate,” Ustane said.
“How?” Igrane asked.
“Promise him a clean death.”
“No!” Igrane said. “I will have him as a servant, waiting on me hand and foot for the rest of eternity. Because you’re right, Ustane. Here he might be more dangerous dead than alive. So I shall make a present of his undying death to myself, regardless of whether we can torture him into compliance with my wishes or not.”
Ustane shrugged.
Igrane walked over to the litter and spat down into Uther’s face. He felt the wetness on his cheek and lips. He could see her as he saw Ustane; her body glowed through the robe. She was beautiful, sculpted the way a statue was. Her will, augmented by something else he couldn’t clearly comprehend, gave her form and substance.
The sight of her almost undid his resolution not to react to her beauty. Almost, but not quite. The raw bodily pain he was in dragged him back from the brink.
“You are going to your tomb,” she told him with evident relish. “There you will lie in silence and darkness at my beck and call forever.”
Then she turned away, saying, “Take him, Ustane. And when you return, a light supper. I won’t want to make a glutton of myself at the feast. I think quail glazed with honey. A salad of wild greens with a touch of citron and oil. And split, roasted capon stuffed with mushrooms. And prepare my bath. Scent the water with . . . I don’t want anything too harsh.” She dithered. “What do you think?”
“Oil of rosemary,” Ustane suggested.
“Perfect.” Igrane snapped her fingers.
“Wear rubies, topaz, and amber, but add heavy gold bracelets. You want to hint at wealth, not display it too openly,” Ustane said.
Igrane nodded and glided away into the shadows.
“When you reach the sea view room,” Ustane said, “you will find your dinner waiting there.” But Igrane was gone.
Ustane signaled the two litter bearers. They lifted the stretcher. The king cried out in pain.
“You shouldn’t have crossed her,” Ustane said. “Had you done as she wished, by now you would be dead and beyond all suffering.”
“Dead as you are dead?” the king asked.
“Yes,” Ustane admitted as she led the way into the shadows. “But dreadful an apparition as I am, death places me beyond suffering. As in time, it will place you.”
“Ah, then I can rot, as you have, but not die.”
“Yes. That is the way of it here.” Ustane whispered something, and a silver cup appeared in her hand. She whispered again and light appeared from the cup. Not in it; the light source was a star two or three inches above the cup. The light grew and Uther saw they were indeed carrying him through a crypt.
Was this place built?
Uther asked himself. Or did it grow out of the ink-dark rock that formed the floor? Had it been built by human hands, the pillars and ribbed vaults that supported the roof would have been symmetrical and all close to the same size. Not so here; rather it seemed they traveled through a forest and the pillars were drawn up from the floor, the way glass is drawn into spirals to cover a cup. Then, when they reached the ceiling, they spread, arching out the way the branches did in an orderly disorder to create a stone ceiling decorated with a profusion of gems.
Gems. Yes, he saw their dull fire in the faint glow of the lamp.
Almost without thinking, he willed it to grow brighter, and it did—with a sudden flare that startled the corpse woman Ustane.
Abruptly, she cried out, and the litter bearers paused. Uther did see that the crypt resembled a forest in that it stretched away on all sides, many-pillared as the deep woods are. The ceiling was filigreed with amethyst, ruby, sapphire, cloudy and clear emerald, topaz—multiple shades—and gold-encrusted quartz.
Yes, there were tombs, and he could clearly see their contents: twisted, contorted things. All buried alive amidst the beauty, each mouth agape, eyes—where eyes remained—staring fixed on the absolute horror of their doom.
On each tomb an effigy rested, an effigy of the thing beneath. Odd. Though the corpses were wracked with anguish, arms up in many cases as though they had pounded the stone lids of their coffins, the statues reflected only peace.
At Ustane’s cry, the lamp obediently dimmed again. She glanced around the vast, dark hall.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes.” No point in denying it.
“Now you know what you face. I will bury you. Tomorrow or the next day or the next, she will call you. Or maybe she will never want to be bothered with your tomb at all, and you, like they, will remain a shriveled, witless, frozen thing . . . for all time and all eternity.”
“Silence and darkness,” he said. “It is all the best of us can expect. Silence and darkness. I will not be her ‘thing’ then, as you are.”