Sing a Graveyard Song, page 22
part #3 of Enclave Book Series
When the younger woman had controlled her tears, she said, “Papa told me you can’t find Feldie’s journal or her grimoire. I looked, not long after she died. They were missing then. Feldie always kept them with her simples.”
“Yes, that would be where I would store them. Since she was going up to the old circle, perhaps she moved them to a safer place. Did she have other caches?”
Her brow crinkled, then she climbed to the loft. Her search was noisy, but Alstera had already learned that the tiny house had few hiding places. Magretha climbed down more slowly than she’d gone up. “I suppose you’ve also looked in the cellar.”
“Every shelf, every cupboard, every chest. The beams, the floor, and every cranny I could get a hand in. Even each and every hearth stone.”
“And they aren’t there?”
“No journal. No grimoire. No paper, inks, or quill. I was beginning to think she was unlettered, but Jaeger said no and Kortie confirmed it.” Alstera took her dinner things to the basin to wash.
“She read and wrote better than Père Hals. He often dictated to her the yearly parish record to send down to the diocese. Someone must have taken her books. You don’t seem too worried about it, Alstera, and you should be. If Feldie’s grimoire fell into the wrong hands, if someone with a smattering of power used the spells in it without proper safeguards—.”
“Peace, Magretha. I have had no few hours to think about its loss.”
“What do you think then?”
“Someone with access took it. Someone no villager would suspect. Someone with power and a smattering of teaching.” She threw Magretha’s words back, hoping to start her thinking. “Someone who knew about the grimoire and desperately wanted to prove herself.”
“Papa said you suspected Leute or Kortie. He said you questioned Kortie today.”
Alstera didn’t answer until she’d fetched the kettle. Standing by the counter, she looked out the window, avoiding the younger woman’s accusing gaze. “Both women fit the threads I have gathered up. I accuse neither. I will knot no one into a snare unless there is proof. I am no witch-hunter, Magretha.”
“I don’t believe it’s them. Why would they kill their neighbors? How could they?”
So Alstera lied since the young woman wouldn’t admit that people she knew could do evil. “I believe whoever it was, they woke something, perhaps inadvertently, and that is what has killed so many. Whoever it was, though, they were the incipient spark.”
“I cannot believe that of Kortie or Leute,” she repeated, as if the reiteration could convert it into truth. “They helped Feldie so much. Feldie never closed her books to either of them.”
“While lore can be found in the book, the wielding of power is a taught skill. Without a master’s guidance—.” Alstera shook her head to clear her own past from her mind. “Wizards who forge into the arcane on their own, who work without a master’s safe guard, they pay a price with blood. Often innocent blood that is not their own.”
“You sound as if you speak from experience.”
She poured hot water over the dishes and watched the steam rise.
Magretha eventually said, “I won’t accept that it’s Kortie or Leute.”
“Fair enough. I will not mention it again until I have proof.”
“Papa said you wanted a ward around the village after dark.”
“Not a ward exactly. A circle of signs, linked to us, so we’ll know when the creature crosses into Alpage.”
“We best get moving then.” She pulled on her outer things. Alstera followed suit, aware that her suspicions about Feldie’s former apprentices had cracked a wedge into their budding friendship.
Chapter 20 ~ Twentieth Night / Eve of Womb Moon / Nineteenth Day / Winter’s End
“Come to me, Père Hals, come to me. Come to me. Come to die.” Leute whispered the words like an incantation as she traced the sigil of chaos on the scarred table-top. Sizzing in the hearth, the fire embers lit her finger as it traced a spiral outside a spiral outside a spiral, a never-ending circle that wound ever outward. The house creaked as it stood against the rising wind. Above stairs, the priest’s footsteps crossed to and fro and side to side in the many steps of the sealing ritual he performed in Rebreitha’s room.
“Come to me, come to me,” she whispered and was rewarded by the shutting door.
The old man’s slow steps trod the length of the hall then worked down the stairs. When he gained the kitchen, she shook out the wisp she’d used to light a lantern. The metal plate rasped down to guard the wick from the night wind.
Père Hals looked around the dark room. “Where has everyone gone?”
“By your order, father, Rebreitha’s sons are carrying her to the chapel. Have you forgotten already?”
“I am old, Leute, not senile. Her sons chose to stand the vigil for Rebreitha tonight. But what of the others? Daughter Aghis and the rest of family?”
“They, too, have gone. Everyone to their homes.”
“Aghis, too? I thought she decided to stay with her brothers’ wives at Larrit’s?”
“No.” Leute tossed the spent wick into the fire. The lie came easily, and knowing Père Hals would not survive this night, she had no qualms. With him dead, no one would ever discover her deception. “She wanted to be in her own home, surrounded by her own family, instead of with her sisters-in-law.”
“Did you not also want to hasten from this house of death?”
“I stayed to see you back to the chapel. Here, sit. I saved a last bit of tea for you.” Picking up the kettle, she poured the warmed water over the tea twist she’d prepared before coming to this house of grief.
“My thanks.” He eased onto the bench, his old knees creaking like the house. “This late at night, I am groggy on my feet.”
Lifting the steaming tea, he warmed his face then drained it after the herbs had steeped. Leute watched from the corner of her eye, but he tasted nothing untoward. Setting the cup down, his gaze settled on the far shadows. He looked very old, very weak. Easy prey for Harroth.
When she doused the fire, sending dank smoke and steam into the room, he roused himself. “Will you come tomorrow with the village women, to cleanse the house?”
“I will.” She hooked the empty kettle on its hob.
“`Twas kind of you to watch this day with Rebreitha’s family.”
She heard a stern note in his voice and looked over her shoulder. Even in the diminished light, his eyes glittered. Of everyone in Alpage, he alone had seen her heart. He alone knew to look beyond her actions to their distant, driving purpose. “Aghis and I grew up together, Père Hals. Rebreitha taught me simples, before Feldie gathered me under her wing. I owe her that respect.”
“Ah, respect. That I would grant you, had I not overheard you earlier tonight. Those words were ill done of you, Leute, and well you know it.”
“And what words would those be?”
His eyes narrowed, and she realized that he heard the derision beneath her mask. “You know what words, young woman. I heard your sly comments about the wizard Alstera, after Magretha had left and could no longer defend her.” He shook his gnarled finger. She wanted to snatch it off. Only the thought of Harroth, waiting, lurking, craving, kept her from screaming at the old man. “You tried to turn these good people against the wizard, like you turned Grisetta and her family against her.”
“Wizards are shadow-spawn.”
“Not so, and that you well know. Sorcerers lie and disguise themselves as wizards. When everyone hates wizards and bans them, who will defend against the evil that the sorcerers will do?” Even in the dimness, he saw the flash of her teeth. The bench scraped back as he stood, moving with an agility that age had impaired but righteous anger had renewed. “Don’t give me that sly smile, young woman. I know your tricks of old.”
“I said naught in your hearing that wasn’t true.”
“`Tis what you said when my back was turned that has me concerned. The lady Alstera has come to help, Leute, or have you forgotten the dire monster that ravages us?”
“I’ve not forgotten.”
“Then henceforth keep your mouth shut. Do not make the wizard’s work harder than it already is. After the funeral tomorrow, I will visit Grisetta and convince her to let Alstera examine her babe. The wizard can likely cure it. We’ve had too many deaths. I do not want another one, especially such a small and helpless innocent child.”
“I haven’t forgotten that either, Père Hals.”
“See you remember it when next you’re envious of that woman’s greater power.”
She refused to answer. Rather than give him another chance to harangue her, she fetched his greatcoat and bundled into her own warps. Then she picked up the lantern and waited by the door, watching impatiently as his gnarled hands worked to fasten the coat’s loops. Old fool, she thought as he pulled a cap over his hoary pate, I’ll see you dead tonight. When he drew on his gloves, she opened the door and stepped into the cold.
Snowflakes swirled in the lamplight, bright motes tossed up by the wind before they danced beyond the light. She lifted the lantern and walked to the lane. Père Hals had trouble with the door. As she waited, a frisson of fear climbed up her spine, raising the hair on her nape. Harroth. She peered around. The snowy lane looked empty and safe, but each corner, each recessed doorway and overhanging eave offered hiding places. He was near. He had to be near.
The priest crunched over the newly rimed slush. “Well, Leute?”
“Well, Père Hals?”
“I did not speak to hurt you, child, but we must remember what is important.”
“I know what is important, Père Hals. Believe me.” She smiled and lifted the lantern higher. “Shall we walk on?”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
They waited in the forge, a single lantern holding the night at bay, the windows shuttered against the wind, trusting the chain of wards to warn them when the creature crossed into the village. Magretha had snuggled against Raul for warmth, her eyes shut resolutely. Only the frown on her brow and the occasional working of her gloved fingers betrayed her diligence as she focused on the wards.
Alstera envied her easy call of power. At twilight, as they had circled the village, her power had fumbled as she forged the third ward, a chain of spells, link upon link of protective magic. Without blood-magic, she couldn’t strengthen that chain of spells. Not wanting to taint Magretha with the primitive power, Alstera had guised her role as a mentor teaching an apprentice. Glad of help with the unaccustomed spells, the young woman had accepted her guidance without question and finished the fourth chain by herself.
To sense the wards, Alstera had to meditate, calling it up the old way, the hard way. Unseen beneath her quilted doublet, she fingered her knife in its belt-sheath. Blood-magic would slip her free of her shackles, but she wanted to save that blazing infusion of power for the coming battle. She walked away and gave them her back, shutting out their whispered conversation with hard-won concentration. Her silent chant sluggishly drew up energies from her essence. The meditation calmed her envy of Magretha’s facile wielding and gradually dissipated her simmering rage against the Enclave and the bindings. By degrees she hoarded enough power to sense the linked wards.
When energy ran like quick-melt into her arms and fingers, she dropped her hands and faced them. Raul slept, leaning against the still-warm bricks of the forge hearth. Magretha looked asleep, but the magic said no. Jaeger stood nearby, dividing his attention between his daughter and Alstera. When she turned about, he closed the distance with a few steps.
“Ready?”
He’d sensed her evocation of magic, she realized. She should not be surprised. His power ran deep, and this forge was his, filled with the iron tools he used to control elemental fire and earth. She had a sudden worry that Magretha had also sensed her meditation and that the younger woman would wonder why Alstera had to struggle to draw up power. She did not think Jaeger would tell his daughter about the bindings without a good reason; she hoped only that the explanation was never necessary.
Jaeger nodded toward the others. “Does Raul always drop off that fast?”
Alstera looked at Raul. Rho that he was, he’d fallen asleep with Magretha sheltered in the curve of his arm. “He sleeps like a cat. No sins haunt him.”
“Aye, well, I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. When do you think that creature’s going to come?” She shrugged, and silence returned.
Cold crept in and displaced the heat from Jaeger’s afternoon smithing. The wind pressed against the boards and worked through chinks in the mud plaster. Alstera and Jaeger moved closer to the hearth. As the forge lost its remnant heat, their wait became downright cold.
And then Alstera sensed a foulness, palpable as a scent in the cold air. Gelid and sluggish, distinct from the viscid poison of sorcery. She turned, stretching her hand out like a beacon. Her drawn-up power twanged like a plucked lute-string. Jaeger hissed as Magretha sat up. They had also registered the crossing of the wards.
“Where?” the younger woman whispered. “Where did it cross?”
“I think. . . . Near the chapel.”
Jaeger reached for his musket and kicked Raul awake. Eyes wide and shadowed, Magretha joined Alstera. “It’s fading. Why is it fading?”
“He moves away from the wards. Into the village. Toward us.” The icy reek died. She reached beneath her doublet to grasp her knife. “He is moving fast, Jaeger. We must hurry.”
“Aye,” he said. He had Raul up, awake and aware. He gave the younger man his pistol and a lantern. Magretha had drawn the other pistol. Grabbing a second lantern, Jaeger flung open the door and plunged into the night.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
“Earth and air, water, fire. Blood and breath, flesh and bones. Sun and shadow, soil and stone.” Kortie rocked as she chanted, calling on the four gods. Her voice was hoarse from the hours of incantation. She knew no spell to counter the attacks. Feldie’s teaching had never dealt with such monstrosity. Tonight as she spooned supper into Evangel, Jors had told her that the headman had given warning of another attack. Haunted by Evangel’s dream, Kortie felt sick with fear. She’d hurried home in the deepening twilight and made her preparations. A chalked circle, the gods’ entwined and overwritten, and four candles at four points, one for each of the gods.
Kneeling within the circle, she’d wracked her mind for something more to do. And she remembered the blood Harroth had drunk.
She cut her arm then drew the gods’ sigils on her cheeks and her palms. At last ready, blood still dripping from her bared arm, she’d begun the singsong chant.
Power ran rich and luxuriant through her body. Never had she experienced such puissance. She poured it all into her incantation. Yet she knew—knew in her bones, skittering over her skin, boiling in her blood, every exhalation hot with energy—she knew it wasn’t enough. Knew and prayed otherwise.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Leute swung the lantern as she walked ahead of Père Hals. She had no dependence that Harroth would recognize and spare her. With the priest so near, she dared not call power to ward off her monster. She didn’t want Hals to know what was happening until Harroth had him. Then I’ll watch, she gloated. I’ll watch that old man die. She wondered when he would strike. Here, at Jors’? Or here, as they crossed the square? Or here, in this narrow lane that Hals had used so many times to reach the chapel?
They reached the turning past the last house. The chapel’s double-lancet windows glowed ahead, golden outlines undimmed by the swirling snow. Rebreitha’s sons had started their vigil. Where was Harroth? She slowed then stopped before she passed the corner. She could hear nothing except Hals’ heavy breath, sense nothing but the cold and the night. But he was near. Like a mother, she knew it. She had birthed him, and that connection would not be lost until she destroyed him. Near, she thought and put her back against the house.
Hals drew even. “Why have you stopped?”
Leute lifted the lantern toward the corner. “I saw something moving near the chapel.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him looking hard at her. She kept the lantern lifted. Then he peered ahead, trying to see as well. With his old eyes, would he want to get closer? Would he remember the warning Jaeger and that outlander had passed throughout the village this evening? Or was he too tired?
“Perhaps it was just one of Rebreitha’s sons.”
“They should be standing vigil. The chapel is already lit.”
“Come, we will go on.” She pressed her hand to his back and guided him ahead of her. Where was Harroth?
As they passed the corner of the building, something surged shadow-fast from its cover. Leute gasped and fell back. She saw the man-shape, saw the flash of a knife blade. The priest staggered. He flung up an arm. Harroth grabbed it and whirled him around. The knife slashed. Blood spurted, then he gathered the old man close and bent to him.
Leute pressed against the wall. Père Hals sagged in Harroth’s arms. Gurgling, he beat the larger man with his fist, but the blows had no strength. They lost impetus as she watched. His hand fell. His breviary dropped onto the snow. His noises faded, faded. She saw his knees buckle and Harroth curl his arm tighter.
He’s dying, she thought, but the glee she had expected was overwhelmed by fear. She couldn’t take her eyes from Harroth’s lethal embrace. Shoving her fist against her mouth, she tried to muffle her sobbing breath, but Harroth heard.
He lifted his head. He shifted the old man in his arms as if he weighed nothing. The lantern-glow fell on his face, the first time she’d seen it since she’d abandoned him in the caves. Pale, pale, except where the blood stained his mouth and chin. His eyes looked night-black, lacking any shining white. Then the shaking lantern cast its very light into his eyes. Red and glittering. Red as the blood he drank. The eyes of Death Walking, eyes from legend, wholly red and inhuman.
She slid along the wall, a step, another step away from him. “I made you,” she hissed. “I created you. You cannot kill me. You cannot kill twice in one night.”
