The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (30 page)

I cleared the rubble first, taking care where I placed the rocks. Wood was scarce on the mountain while rock was common, so the Deathsworn built their homes from loose, unformed stones without mortar.

“Umbral,” she called. I ignored her. “Umbral!”

She punished me with the leash. I came to her.

“Thirsty?”

She held up a jug of water. I nodded. But when I reached for the jug, Ash held it out of reach. “Next time come when I call you. On your knees.”

I glared at her.

Ash squeezed the leash. I began to choke. Even then, I held my stand as long as I could, until faintness from lack of breath drove me to my knees. She leaped to catch me by the hair, just as she let up on the leash. I opened my mouth, gasping. She gave me only long enough to inhale before she tipped the jug into my open mouth. I swallowed most of the water, but some went down my windpipe. I gagged and coughed. Ash laughed and released my hair.

The leash was woven from all six Penumbras, but Ash could only control four. In theory, it gave her control over every thread in my aura, my thoughts, my feelings, my memories. But she used it only as a toy, to torment and punish. She leaked many of her own thoughts and feelings to me without realizing it.

“Get back to work,” she ordered. “You haven’t got all day to dally.”

Ever since my Chromas had been ripped from me, I had felt a cold, implacable hatred sitting inside like fields of ice. I made sure Ash could feel it pulse through the leash. She didn’t know I was doing it on purpose—I could sense her uncertainty, her fear that I was too strong—but she squeezed out another pulse of pain.  “Now!”

I’d made my point, so I shrugged and set to work. My real fear was that, if I refused to work, the Deathsworn would wall me up in a pit. Even hard labor was preferable to boredom and endless dark. I sorted the stones into neat piles. Stones had become my new friends. They were shades of gray by nature. When I worked with them, I wasn’t constantly reminded of my loss.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, strolling over to me. “Why are you standing there, staring at rocks? Get to work! Or do I need to remind you what will happen if you don’t do as you’re told?”

“Do you really want to know what I’m doing, or are you just looking for an excuse to punish me?” I asked evenly.

“I can see what you’re doing,” Ash blustered.  “You’re staring at stones.”

“No. I am deciding how they will best fit together. You see this striated stone, how it is flat on this side but rounded here?”  I held up two rocks. “And this speckled stone also has an angular oblique—it should go up against the flat edge of the first. Now this dark gray stone over here—”  I put the first two rocks down and lifted another. “This one is concave and should fit around the bulge of the striated rock. On the other hand, it is a much darker gray, so if I could find another concave rock of a lighter shade, the gestalt would be more harmonic.” I hefted the rock in my hand, thoughtful. “Unless you think that the chiaroscuro effect would be aesthetically appealing?”

“They’re just stupid rocks!”  She knocked the stone from my hand.

I reacted with such alacrity that Ash was caught unprepared. I yanked the end of my leash out of her hand, kicked her feet out from under her, and spun her around with a swift punch. Before she could counter, I had her leaned back over my knee, hands pinned behind her back with the cord around her neck.

Now for the best part.

I reversed the leash
. During the time I had worn it, I had studied the twining threads studiously, until I knew which would tweak Visions, which could cause pain, which could eat thoughts, which could sniff emotions. I switched the direction of control so it was all mine, and she was my helpless pawn, to torment or destroy as I pleased.

She panicked. I plucked the Vision of her memory easily. Instead of me, she saw the faces of the clansmen who had raped her and burned her as a child; the thing she was not supposed to remember. It still burned deep inside her, where even she normally could not see it. But we both saw it now.

“Get out of my mind!” shouted Ash.

I cut the horrible Vision off, but it was too late. Ash went berserk.

She lashed out at me with all her physical and magical strength. Even so, it was not enough. I tightened the cord around her neck and her air was cut off. She gagged helplessly, until she stilled. I released my grip slightly.

“You can kill me, but they’ll find you!” she blustered.

“I think you should turn that around. They might find me, but you’ll still be dead.”

“Go ahead!” she screamed. “Go ahead and finish what they started! You think I care? You think you can hurt me? I can’t feel
anything
!”

Her whole body spasmed uncontrollably. It was one of her many ticks, though it usually only occurred after she awakened from nightmares.

I loosed the cord from her neck and set her back firmly on her feet. I handed Ash the end of my leash.

“Not because I couldn’t,” I told her flatly, “because I wouldn’t.”

I went back to work sorting stones.

She didn’t speak to me the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t speak to her. We both knew I could have escaped if I had killed her. Wasn’t that what I wanted?

No, they would just send more Deathsworn after me.

Hurting Ash would not have brought me any closer to that. Why destroy one Deathsworn when I could destroy them all? I was more determined than ever to destroy Death herself.

As before, they were sharing the Vision. Finnadro saw and felt everything Umbral remembered.

Then the Vision exploded in pain as
Umbral reversed the leash
.

Somehow, he usurped the direction of control, making Finnadro his helpless pawn, to torment or destroy as he pleased. Finnadro’s most intimate memories fell into Umbral’s grasp like overripe fruits.

Hunting with his father. Kissing Fox. Making love with the Green Lady. Fox’s jealousy. Watching Fox fight Umbral until he bashed her against the canyon wall. Searching for her, but finding only a read smear
…

“Get out of my mind!” roared Finnadro.

He drew on all six Chromas and the whole power of the Blood House to fight back against Umbral.

The Blood House echoed his roar with a rush of energy. It felt like molten gold in his veins. Pure power. The leash reversed back, and he poured pain down the link. Umbral flailed backwards, writhing from the inner blaze. Finn punched Umbral repeatedly across the face while he was helpless.

“Tie him back to the frame!” Finnadro bellowed.

The blindmutes scurried like white spiders to obey. Finnadro picked up a knout of cords. The knotted ropes, against the raw, tenderized flesh of Umbral’s back, would feel like a dozen stinging knives.  Finnadro made certain that Umbral saw the knout.

“I tried to help you, Umbral. And how did you repay me?”

“Go muck yourself.”

Finnadro moved into position and snapped the knout across Umbral’s raw back.  Umbral emitted a ragged cry.

“Do you still take me for a fool?”
Whack
. No reaction this time, except a hiss between clenched teeth.

“You think I don’t know you fed me that pretty picture on purpose?” He whacked the knout again, harder, and again, even harder, until he elicited a whimper.

“You set your trap well, Umbral, but you were a little
too
clever. You shouldn’t have showed me exactly how you planned to take control.”

Whack.

Only a hiss this time. Must hit harder.

“I know what makes you a monster. It wasn’t the Deathsworn at all. Your disease goes much deeper than that. You crave power, don’t you, Umbral? Even your plan to free yourself from the Deathsworn wasn’t really about freedom, was it? It was about proving you were the strongest of all. What happened when you finally tried to kill Lady Death? I bet she beat you, like I’m beating you now, because that’s the only thing you understand. At heart, you’re a coward. Then she offered you all the power you wanted, as long as you groveled to her, and you grabbed at the chance. Because like all cowards, you’re also a bully. A monster is just a man who will do anything for power.”

Umbral bit down on his screams, out of stupid pride. He spoke thickly through lips he had bloodied himself.

“I didn’t know you had another lover besides the Green Lady, Finnadro. A vixen must be a real animal in the sack. Did you ever have them both together?”

“Clumsy, Umbral. Too obvious.”

Finnadro still had control of the leash, and he knew he’d scored a nice hit. It was funny how the insult infuriated Umbral almost more than the whipping itself. He didn’t like being maladroit. His stupid pride. Finnadro laughed.

“You’re obvious, too, Finn,” Umbral snapped. “You have
no idea
who the Aelfae Traitor is. You need to know. Desperately. In fact, you have only two days left to find out. And guess what.
I know exactly who it is
.”

“You piece of worthless muck!” Finnadro shouted, furious again. He grabbed Umbral by the hair to growl in his face. “That means that I have to put you back on the fire!  Is that what you want?  Worse burns?  Blisters oozing pus all over your back?  If you thought this was bad, how do you think it will feel when I whip you after that?”

He smacked him across the face, breaking his nose. Blood gushed out.

“Never…submit…” Umbral wheezed. “Never surrender.”

Finnadro let go of him. He had to get out of here. The filth of this place, the defilement of holding Umbral’s life threads tangled inside his own, it was spiders crawling down his throat. “You will be put over the flames. Lowered to the second notch.”

Umbral shook his head wordlessly. His body was a wreck. Finnadro had ripped him to shreds. Mercy. He hated this.

“The last girl you took,” said Finnadro. “I don’t suppose you ever knew her name. I can’t imagine what sick, twisted reason you had for kidnapping a girl like that and dragging her halfway across Faearth, although I’m sure you’ve justified it in your own self-serving logic. All I want to know is this. Did you violate her before you killed her? Or did you at least let her die quickly, there at the end?”

The leash that channeled Umbral’s emotions turned ice cold.

Umbral stared at him through eyes that suddenly seemed as hollow as the skulls around them. He didn’t say the name out loud, but Finnadro heard it clearly in his mind.

Dindi?

“So you
did
know her name.”

Dindi.

“You have excuses for everything else, why did you have to kill a harmless girl like that? A little butterfly who never hurt anyone. What did she ever do to you, Umbral? I changed my mind. I don’t even want to know if you raped her. I couldn’t tell her kin that anyway, and they won’t be extracting her deathdebt from you.
I will
.”

Dindi Dindi Dindi Dindi Dindi….

Finnadro probed the connection for some hint of guilt, remorse or compassion. Umbral felt nothing. Nothing but ice and echoes and the lost girl’s name, over and over, in an empty place.

“Lower him over the fire!” Finnadro ordered. It was time to make the monster with a heart of ice taste fire.

Vio stood at the head of the army, holding a peace staff aloft, the universal offer of parley. A dark-winged Raptor had landed, ridden by a masked Rider, but she did not dismount. He expected it was Amdra.

“Why have you brought the blooded spear to the foot of this tribehold, Outtriber?” she called aloud.

Not Amdra, then. She spoke as one stranger to another, though her voice was familiar.

“Tell your War Chief to return my wife, and I will leave, taking my warriors with me.”

“What is your wife’s name?”

The insult made him stiffen. “You know very well I am the Maze Zavaedi of the Rainbow Labyrinth and that my wife is the White Lady, the Last of the Aelfae. Play no games with me. Return Vessia to me now, or face my spear!”

The woman pushed the mask back up on her head. “And what if she has no wish to go with you, human?”

Her long pale hair fluttered free of the mask and caught the wind like a banner. Her eyes, huge and bright, but cold as frost, glittered. Her cheeks were smooth, delicately arched.

“Who is that?” asked Danu.

Vio almost failed to recognize her because his wife sounded and looked thirty years younger. She looked younger than the first time he had met her. For a moment, shock silenced him.

“What happened to you, Vessia?”

“I owe you no explanations, human,” said Vessia, “until you explain how you dare claim you have any attachment to me.”

“Will you at least dismount and speak with me face to face?”

“Have I your word that you and your tribesmen will allow me to leave again unmolested?”

“Of course.”

She slid off the back of the great bird, and he held out his hand to her. She walked by him, disdaining the touch.