Sing a Graveyard Song, page 35
part #3 of Enclave Book Series
Alstera clenched her fingers, lowered her arm to her side, and pushed her fist into her thigh. She forced restraint into her tone and the pace of her words. “Days and days, drop upon drop. I can feel the power boiling inside of me, but what I can evoke is so—. It took everything the blood-magic released just to knock the death-walker back. Not to kill him, not to injure him, just stop him briefly.”
She stopped, breathing deeply. Allard did not dare say anything. Ferrant scowled. “I must think on what you have said. Examine these two people. And discover the truth about this Death Walking. If what you say is true—?”
“Why would I lie? Ask a few questions to learn the truth, just as you did in Vaermonde.”
He brushed her words aside. “If you speak the truth, then I will let you go on your way and I will take back a report to Grandmère.”
“For my further damnation? And what of my actions after you depart, dear cousin?”
“Others follow us. Once we divined your direction, we left word at each stop. You will not be so able to sense your next pursuers, fair coz. No blood-kin link will betray their track.”
Chapter 31 ~ Twenty-Fourth Day / Twenty-Third of Winter’s End
Jaeger traced his finger round an old whorl on the table while the others threw out suggestions to trap and kill the Death Walker. Chanoine and Orris, Jan and a few others had crowded in as soon as they heard he was back on his feet. Magretha sat on his right, listening, not contributing. Raul perched on the cabinet behind her, swinging his legs and also silent. Thereiss had thrown up her hands at the invasion and been towed off by Olva. Jaeger didn’t know where Alstera had gotten to; when he asked, they’d shrugged.
His eyes kept wanting to shut, and he was as tired as if he’d dug himself out of an avalanche. His forearm throbbed as blood pumped in to replace the losses of last night and this morning. But he felt seasons better than after Harroth had cut him.
“Throw a net over him. Everybody jump on him till we get him tied, then torch him.”
“You got a net big enough, Orris? I sure don’t.”
“I should ward the village,” Magretha hissed. He covered her hand to keep her by him.
“Then what, Chanoine?” Orris retorted. “We can’t shoot it. Ain’t none of us got the sword-skill to walk up and chop its head off. I don’t see us luring it into a barn and going at it with pitchforks. So what?”
“If it were morning,” Jaeger stuck in, “we could track it to its lair, kill it while it sleeps.”
“How many times we done crawled all over Mother Hearth looking for him?”
“This time we have an advantage. When it wounded me last night, when it drank my blood, Alstera said it created a link between us. I can track him through the link to his lair.”
The idea gave them hope, until Jan said, “Too close to dark. Be full dark `fore we got to the caves. I don’t wanna be out on that mountain huntin’ that monster when it’s huntin’ me.”
The door opened. Alstera entered with two men close behind her. Strangers. Twins. With her facial structure, clear eyes, and dark hair. “Is this a council of war? Then we arrive in time.” She squeezed past Chanoine and Raul. Her eyes looked like sharp-edged glass, and dark circles betrayed her weariness. She rested a hand on Jaeger’s shoulder. The ice of her fingers seeped through his shirt. She’d been outside a long time. “Should you be up?”
“I’ll do.” He frowned. Her eyes had a hard, glittery cast. These were the pursuers she warned him about, come to take her back for judgment if she did not match some mysterious criteria. He hadn’t reckoned on them resembling her so closely. Was she brittle-edged because they had already pronounced their verdict? Damn, what a family. “Who are the twins? Your brothers?”
Her smile was as cold as her gripping fingers. “They will not thank you for seeing the resemblance. Meet my cousins. Ferrant,” he bowed, “and Allard. Ferrant is a wizard. Allard is a swordsman of much skill.” The second twin sketched a salute, and Jaeger spotted the swordhilt riding in a shoulder scabbard.
“You are the village headman?” her wizard cousin asked, revealing his dominance.
Jaeger got to his feet but didn’t try to squeeze down to shake their hands in welcome. “I am. My name is Jaeger.” He introduced his daughter then the other men, and finished with “We thank you for coming to help us.”
Ferrant scowled. “We were following Alstera—.”
“They will be glad,” she quickly overrode her cousin, “to offer what service they can against the death-walker.” Her cousin’s frown deepened. His eyes looked like molten silver. “Now, what have you decided?”
Jaeger subsided in his chair, conserving his energy. It would be a long night. “We ain’t decided nothing except it’s too late to go hunting his lair tonight.”
“Tonight he comes to us. Ferrant is a high wizard. Perhaps his levin-fire can blast him as ours could not.”
“If you used blood-magic, cousin, it would have no effect against a creature of blood.”
“As I learned too late.”
“If you make your stand here in the village, then you should mark a perimeter with linked spells. That will give you an inkling of when and from where the creature’s coming.”
Magretha stood. “I can do that. I did it before.”
“You will not finish before full dark,” Alstera warned. “Raul—No. Allard. Will you go with her? You have been around magic long enough to know how to support her.”
They left. Ferrant eyed the remaining men. “I understand that we fight one creature, not an army. If you have fought it before, stay. If you have not—.”
Chanoine folded his arms. “We don’t take orders from no outlander, not even a wizard.”
Jaeger eyed Ferrant. He’d taken command quickly. Alstera’s suggestions seemed diffident in comparison to her cousin’s masterful air. “No, Chanoine, he is right. You go home. Lock up well.”
“Jaeger, you need somebody—.”
He shook his head at Orris, silencing him. The men left, moving slowly to show reluctance, offering him whispered help before they took their leave. The kitchen seemed empty without them, and he was still spent. Raul remained on his cabinet, swinging his legs and keeping quiet. Alstera slid onto the bench at his left hand. Jaeger leaned back and rested his bandaged arm on the table. “So, wizard Ferrant, you have whittled your force to three. Five, with Magretha and your brother. Will that be enough to destroy this death-walker?”
Ferrant addressed himself to Alstera. “Have you no one else in your force?”
“Who? This is a small village off the main road. No one here is greatly skilled in either power or sword. It was only four nights ago we discovered exactly what we faced. Last night was our first chance to fight it.”
He dropped into the chair at the table’s foot. “How many lives has it taken?”
Alstera glanced at Jaeger. “As near as we can reckon, nine, all but one of `em people from this village. And the death-walker’s from here. A man named Harroth.”
“Human no longer,” Alstera added to Jaeger’s explanation. “The memory of who he was, of those he loved and knew, that has either decayed or fragmented. I do not know if his spirit essence remains. You know this lesson, dear cousin, we heard it enough from our great-uncle Rombrey. The spirit hates the taking of life, remember?”
Ferrant looked loath to acknowledge the memory. Or maybe, since he was her pursuer and judge, maybe he was averse to joining her in fighting a common enemy. Jaeger reckoned her cousin wouldn’t have been picked to track her because they were close friends.
“I remember.” His curtness echoed the antipathy on his long face. “We were discussing why men became killers. Rombrey said, ‘Life-essence is inimical to murder.’ The first death accomplished after premeditation cracks the spirit. Each subsequent killing shatters a fragment, until they are all broken and he is an empty vessel, easily filled by a shadow force.”
“That is Harroth. His personality is gone. His logic is gone. His emotions are gone. All that remains are his senses, his reflexes, and the animating spark. I doubt he has a sentience we would recognize. He is driven by his need for sustenance, for blood and the life-force that is the essence in our blood.”
“What changed him?”
“Wrong question, dear cousin. If what I guess is true, Harroth became a death-walker some twenty-three nights ago. Before that, how long was he dead, Jaeger?”
“A little more than a month.”
“How was he changed into this Death Walking? Is that what I should ask?” The latter question had a snide edge. This wizard-twin obviously hated asking his banished cousin for her information.
“He is a spell-made being, spells worked with blood sorcery, the chief material being the after-birth born with Verel, the one I told you about, the blood-rite baby. That is how I can date him, that and the pattern which Père Hals worked out. The spells bound Harroth to a pattern of twos and threes. Five spells, I would think, for the five elements and the five gods. Five spells worked through blood sorcery. Five materials to reinforce the spells. I did not discover more before Leute died.”
“You go too fast. Who is Hals? Who is Leute?”
“Hals is—was the priest here. A holy man. Killed by Death Walking three nights ago.”
“If this creature drank his holy life-force, that bodes ill for us. His power strengthens this monster. Who is Leute?”
“Leute is worse news. She created him. She bound him to the pattern and probably to a specific vengeance, either of people or of time or both. He killed her last night and took her body with him.”
Ferrant looked appalled. “He has killed his animator? Gods, Alstera, he is not only twice-powered, he is no longer bound to any pattern.”
Jaeger folded his arms and crossed ankle over knee. “Aye, when you came in, we were talking about just.”
“My fault,” Alstera said. Her eyes blazed in her pale face, directing a challenge at her cousin. “Charge this to my crimes as well, Ferrant. My idea was to trap Leute into admitting her guilt by making her fight with us last night. My idea and thus my fault when he took her.”
Jaeger unbraced and reached out to cover her clasped hands with his, amazed at their lingering chill and the tension that gripped them. “We all agreed to it, Alstera.”
She didn’t respond, and it was some moments before her cousin did. Raul remained silent, although his gaze flashed from wizard to wizard. He was looking out the window now, probably wondering how far Magretha had gotten with her wards. The sky was in its last stages of bright blue before the sunset bannered it.
“Take me through this more slowly. Nine people of your village have died in twenty days at the hands of this Death Walking. Who is a man named Harroth, dead for a month but re-animated the same night a baby was born. He is no longer bound to a pattern because he killed his animator. He drinks blood, and you tried to fight him with blood-based magic.”
“That’s right. Except for the blood-based magic. My daughter called up the power they fought him with.”
Alstera’s hands twisted under his. She bowed her head. “No, Jaeger, no. It was blood-based. I linked us. My power pulled up Leute’s and funneled ours together to Magretha. And I used blood to do it, blood-magic to slip free of my bindings. Her levin-fire had an ill birthing in blood-magic. In blood. I never thought—. I connected the blood-magic with the blood-sorcery that raised Harroth, but I thought I could control it.”
“That was stupid of you, Alstera,” her cousin pointed out with relish. Her head lifted. The light dimmed in her eyes as she met her cousin’s clear gaze. “Sun and shadow,” he reminded her, “two sides of the same power. Magic with blood, sorcery with blood.”
“More than stupid of me,” she agreed. “This is one charge for which I have no defense. I am the reason we failed last night. I am the reason Jaeger nearly died and the reason Leute is dead and Harroth strengthened.”
“Your blood-magic is the reason, yes. It weakened the magic and strengthened the sorcery in this creature. Now do you see why it is banned? And you deepened the error by linking powers, which the Enclave expressly banned after the debacle with Saldoran. This is twice you have broken that ban. Is there any law you will not hesitate to break?”
She flinched, but she didn’t look away. “I do not evoke wraiths, dear cousin.”
And Jaeger kept quiet on their visit to Standing Rocks, when she opened the gate to Neothera and spoke with the Neotheri who clustered at the gate, eager to enter the earthly realm. And because of his mistake, the Neotheri wraiths now knew her name. He wouldn’t add another sin for this wizard to tally against her.
“If you thought you had a reason, you would,” Ferrant snapped. “When we fight Death Walking tonight, you may not use any power evoked through blood.”
“Then I am less than worthless to you.”
“Perhaps not.” He reached into his doublet and drew forth a pouch. He tossed it to her. “This is yours, I believe.”
Alstera didn’t reach for it. Jaeger loosed the string and up-ended the pouch. A pendant dropped out with a silver chain spilling behind it. And still she didn’t move to take it.
“This is yours, is it not, dear cousin? I found it at an inn in Vaermonde.”
“Yes, it is mine. I left it for you to find. It is useless to me.”
“Useless? Did you not once use it to focus your power?”
“Indeed I did.” Her voice hardened. “Did you not recognize it for the betrayal it was?”
He shook his head, clearly clueless. “You have lost me.”
“Our dear great-uncle Rombrey took it from me when I was imprisoned. He returned it before I entered my exile. He told me not to use it until I needed power to slip my bindings. I believed him. I trusted him. And when I focused with the crystal, I released a spell that burned me, nearly seared me to the core. A neat little trap, yes? Do you not believe me? Can you have carried it all these months and not recognized the trace of Rombrey’s power? A second betrayal, Ferrant. Is there a third?”
Her cousin didn’t answer. Jaeger stared at the clouded crystal. “You want me to give it back to him?”
She laughed, short, a little wild. “Indeed, yes, do take it back, Ferrant. All the way back to Rombrey. Give it to him when you announce the charges against me. He may appreciate the irony. When the spell he locked into the crystal lashed at me, I bloodied my lip. And could use my power.” She laughed again. “One could say my beloved great-uncle—who inked one of my bindings on me—he caused me to use blood-magic.”
What a family! His common, mountain-bounded life no longer seemed so poor. Jaeger tucked the pendant into the pouch and tossed it back to her cousin. Ferrant snagged it in the air and held it a while in his palm. “I did not know, Alstera.”
She hunched a shoulder and refused to respond. Ferrant tucked the pouch inside his doublet. Jaeger didn’t know what to say. The outlander wizard solved it by looking at Raul.
“And who are you?”
He slipped off the cabinet and folded his arms, looking tall and rebellious for all his gilt. “Alstera’s friend. Name’s Raul. We’ve been travelling together since Vaermonde.”
“You’re a Rhoghieri?”
“So?”
Ferrant shrugged. “Comtesse Muirée mentioned you. She called you her friend. And Alstera friend as well. The countess and her husband and Duc Orlesse and one of the queen’s councilors, a bishop, they all spoke highly of you, Alstera.”
“Their support humbles me.” Her caustic tone said otherwise.
“Fair coz, you should not hide behind false virtue.” His voice was just as scathing. “It ill befits you. Hubris was your chief error before. Perhaps it is your chief error now. After all, you did not think your blood-magic could strengthen the death-walker. You thought your power stronger than his. And once again you were wrong, and now someone else is dead.”
Her head came up. Through slitted lids her eyes gleamed like shards. Jaeger would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of that glare. Yet she didn’t blast Ferrant the way he would have. She retreated. “I must meditate before nightfall. If I am to be of any use, I must meditate to draw power through the bindings. Jaeger.” She turned her head as if it hurt. She was so taut that her head-turn likely popped tendons. “Jaeger, you will not go without me?”
He got her arm in a hard grip and hauled her up with him. “I got to rest myself. Raul, you’ll tell us when Magretha comes back.”
“Will do.”
Alstera didn’t balk at going upstairs with him. By the time they topped the second flight, he was shaky and sweating. Once in the room she shoved him onto the bed then shoved a cup of water in front of his face. When he’d wet his mouth and the shakes had settled, he said, “I don’t much like that cousin of yours.”
She had her back to him and was rubbing her arms as if she was still chilled. “He is a puissant wizard. We need him to fight Harroth. Especially since I am useless.”
Jaeger didn’t like her bitter tone. “You are not—.”
“He was right, you know. Everything I have done is born of arrogance. I was the ArchClans’ granddaughter. My parents, both of them were counted great wizards. I wanted the same honor. I tried to achieve it through tainted means. After they bound me, I refused to admit that my arrogance was the root of it. In Vaermonde, when I destroyed that priest’s mind, I took what I thought was the right path, knowing he might die. I took the easiest path, the most destructive one, but not the right one. And here, I never contemplated not using blood-magic. Even after I realized Harroth was a creature of blood, drunk on it, created by it, I still used blood to slip my bindings. I knew it, and still I used blood-magic. Gods, how could I be so blind?”
He didn’t know how to comfort her. The day had rocked the foundation she’d re-built after her exile. Without her blood-magic she’d have to find another way to access her power. Wizard he wasn’t, but he knew that much. Her options were limited. He tried touch, since it worked when Thereiss cried. He pressed a hand to her shoulder and turned her to face him. He touched under her chin to make her meet his steady gaze. “So you start over.”
