Sing a Graveyard Song, page 4
part #3 of Enclave Book Series
“Then it is someone not in the village,” Magretha whispered. “Someone lurking out there in the cold and dark. Someone who came in to kill Ruod. Who might have killed Archaim and Karel.” The young woman looked at the window over the dry sink. The glass pane gave no view of the darkening world outside. It reflected only the room and the three people in it.
“That’s my guess,” her father agreed. “Someone or something.”
“I did not intend to speak of this.”
The hesitation in Feldie’s voice—Feldie, who never wavered over word or deed—stopped Jaeger in his tracks. The wise woman looked at him rather than her apprentice. Her hands twisted in her lap. He thought at first she sought approval, then he realized that something stronger than mere worry rode her hard.
“For some few days now, for longer than I like, I have sensed a—a darkness over my shoulder. Nothing certain, nothing real, nothing I could point to and say, ‘This shadows me.’ My power has never been strong, and it is so closely tied to the healing that anything else I try with it is chancy. But. I am haunted, Jaeger. Archaim and Karel missing, which could be mere accident. Ruod’s disappearance could be simple murder. Evangel’s shock is because he was killed in front of her. This is what I would like to think. This is what I want to believe. But. Three men gone and dread in my heart, these tell me otherwise. It is like—.” She hesitated, bit her lip, then said it. “Evil has shrouded our village.
“I have searched my books and the ones that Père Hals keeps in the church. Tonight is the third night since Ruod disappeared. Third night is a night that favors magic. So tonight I will take Evangel’s blood-stained clothes and climb to the first ledge where the mountain winds mingle with the airs of the valley. I will take holy water and warm earth, and I will kindle a fire. I will call up the four gods who watch over us, male and female, sun and shadow, life and death. And I will count the spirits unsung to their graves. I will go alone,” her raised hand forestalled Magretha’s offer, “and I will cast the few powers I have to discover what happened to Ruod and Evangel. By morning I will have some answer.”
“You can’t go alone,” Magretha protested. “You need me, Feldie. You’re old and frail. Papa, tell her she must let me go. I can help her. She can draw on my power to help her.”
“No, almost-daughter. If this is to work, you must let me do it my way. True, you have given me much help in the past. But not this time. This time I go alone. I will need all my strength and concentration for the casting. Anyone with me would be a distraction.”
“When will you leave?”
“Papa, you cannot let her go alone!”
“Hush, Magretha. Feldie knows what she’s about. I ask only that she takes a weapon.”
“Aye, I do know what I’m about, well enough to know I can no more use a weapon to defend myself than I can kill. It is the healing in me. Sometimes it is too strong.”
Jaeger met her eyes. Her determination was writ plainly in the steadiness of her dark gaze. He trusted she knew what she was doing, but his blood beat ominously in his ears, echoing her dread. “Let me go with you. I can wait behind the standing rocks. You won’t know I’m there. I’ve hunted game long enough to know how to sit quiet for hours.”
“Yet I would know. My concentration would be divided. I cannot risk that.”
Magretha clasped the wise woman’s aged hands to her breast. “If there is a murderer, Feldie, you risk your life.”
“Aye, child, but how else will we find out what evil has befallen us?”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Evangel jerked out of her uneasy sleep with a gurgled scream. Kortie quickly reached her and clasped her close, the only way she’d found to quiet the woman. “Hush, hush.” The shudders slowly ebbed. When Kortie eased her onto the mattress, Evangel clung, so she held her and whispered gently, rocking her as if she were the child Kortie would never have.
The curtain over the door rustled. Fireglow pushed back some of the dark. Although Kortie didn’t look, she knew Jors watched her soothe his wife. He no longer came into the room. His height and the breadth of his shoulders roused Evangel from her mute stupor to a screaming frenzy. After two days, he’d learned to stay back, but he didn’t stay away.
When the curtain didn’t drop back into place, she looked around. The fireglow at his back kept her from seeing anything except his glittering eyes. She wanted to go to him, answer the questions that must be spiraling through his mind. She, too, knew loss, hers more lasting. In some ways, her loss was easier. Evangel, though, needed attention more than her husband did.
She managed to get the woman to lie back, but Evangel clung to her hands, her grip nearly hurting. The woman’s eyes caught the red fire-glow, looking manic. Kortie sang softly until her eyes shut. Her grip didn’t slacken, though, and she knew Evangel remained in the talons of fear. Wishing she knew more, wishing she knew as much as Feldie did, she sat quiet, letting the room’s stillness work into the woman. Gradually her breath evened out; gradually her fingers lost their strength; gradually she eased back into her lightly drugged sleep.
Kortie tucked the blanket under the woman’s chin. She remained seated beside her, for Evangel’s sleep was only temporarily peaceful.
“She better?”
She didn’t look around. Evangel’s eyes darted behind her lids. “Jors, you should sleep.”
“Is she gonna get better?”
“She’s been badly frightened. Only rest and care and time will help her recover.”
“That what Feldie says?”
“Aye.” She looked around then, knowing her cat-like eyes would catch the fire-glow. In this darkness they would gleam yellow and eldritch, imbuing her answer with an assurity of magic that she’d never have. “Go on, Jors,” she urged softly.
He said nothing but remained in the doorway a while longer. Then he stepped away, and the curtain dropped, plunging the room into deeper darkness. She sat still, listening to the house creak in the late winter wind, listening to the woman’s breathing become faster. “Oh, Evangel,” she whispered, “what did you see? What so terrifies you?”
When she whimpered, Kortie shook her shoulder to jar her out of sleep. Instead, it seemed to catapult the woman further into the nightmare. She thrashed beneath the quilt as she relived her lover’s death.
Desperate to help, she knew Feldie’s drugs only delayed the pain. Yet she remembered what Leute had taught her in that wrought month when the old wise woman had first recognized Magretha’s greater power. In that month she’d left her first two apprentices to their own learning, and Leute had delved into the forbidden book.
Cupping her hand against Evangel’s temple, she sparked the power that came so easily to her but ran as shallowly as a summer stream. She rode the power into the woman’s mind, picking up the edges of the dream, pushing them aside as carelessly as a curtain. And she saw what Evangel saw.
A man. Ruod. His face taut with passion. Over his shoulder another man, hazy in the lantern-glow. His skin white. His eyes so dark, like they’d lost their whites. He reached. A knife flashed, and blood gushed over her. Kortie recoiled in horror. In the dream, Evangel screamed, though only a mewling whimper surfaced through her sleep. Ruod was lifted like a child’s rag doll. The man bent to the opened throat and drank. Evangel screamed again. The animals in the barn lowed distress at the tang of blood. Then the man lifted his head and looked at her.
Kortie snatched her hand back, severing the dream connection. Power ran sharp and loose in the room until she snuffed it. She wanted to fold in on herself, but she heard the woman’s crying. Cringing from what she would see, she touched Evangel’s temple again, sparked power again, and turned the dream to sunshine and children playing, turned it to give Evangel the peace she needed—but not before she’d again seen the murderer.
Only after the woman slept quietly did Kortie pull back, wrapping her arms around herself and rocking for comfort.
Oh, gods, did my wishing dreams wake Harroth? How did I dream his spirit back into his body? How could I? Gods, how could I? But the evidence of her eyes did not lie. Harroth had revived to some warped semblance of life. In her overwhelming grief, had her power somehow loosed her bounds and done this?
It couldn’t be, but it was. Her Harroth. But not her Harroth. A thing that was not Harroth. He would never have killed, never have drunk blood, like the old legends of Death Walking. Her Harroth, a murderer, a monster. And truly lost to her now.
She sobbed and covered her mouth to muffle the sound. She heard footsteps, and somehow managed to compose herself as Jors came to the door. He said nothing, nor did she, holding tight to her emotions. When the curtain dropped back in place, Kortie crept to her rocker and folded herself into it like an old woman.
Harroth. She did not mistake what Evangel had seen. Her Harroth. Dead this month and more. Preying on his former friends.
What evil did I rouse with my pleas to have Harroth restored to me?
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Raul hunkered down beside Alstera. He tugged off his gloves then blew on his hands to warm them. “Cold as Peitner’s snout out there.”
She glanced at the sleeping mule-stringer. “Hush. Do not wake Mossley.”
He lowered his voice. “I’ll be glad of a chance to rest my ears, that’s for sure. The man’s got more stories—. How long we going to trail with him?”
“He says we will reach the cairn for the turning at mid-day.”
“I just hope you don’t get us lost in these frigging mountains. They go on forever. I’m not wanting to freeze m’bum or any other vital parts just so you can satisfy your curiosity about this village. You sure we ain’t going to get lost?”
“We will not get lost. I have the map, and Mossley says that even with the snow we will be able to follow the road, cairn to cairn. You are just used to lowlands and rolling hills. A ridge to you is a mountain.”
“You’re no different.”
“You forget, I was raised in the mountains.” With a pang, she remembered the verdant slopes of Mont Nouris, the mist-filled ridges backed against heights that looked purple in the evening light. “Not like these craggy giants, but I do know what to expect.”
“If you don’t get us lost following some backtrail off the main road. Don’t know why you’re so determined to go to the place,” he muttered and blew on his hands again. “Way off the road. Be different if it were summer. It’s still damn winter up here.”
“In summer you would complain about the heat. Besides, Raul, it is late spring. We are after the first snow-melts.”
“But not after any chance of snowfall. And you heard the wolves last night. If the snow and ice don’t get us, they will. It ain’t a choice of deaths I’m after, Alstera. Getting eaten or freezing to death. Avalanche. Blizzard. Just plain losing the road in all this blasted whiteness.” She ignored him and threw twigs into the tiny fire. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Fool thing to do. Chase into the mountains on a half-baked whim. We could die out here, Alstera.”
His rising voice got her attention. She laid a soothing hand on his knee. “We can die anywhere, Raul. So far the gods have favored us. Do you think they will abandon us now, when we have committed no crime against them?”
“What the deuce did that innkeeper tell you that’s got you so damn sure you got to go to Alpage? You ain’t interested in coin. And it can’t be something political, not in that backwater. Unless it ain’t what he told you.”
She quickly looked away. He leaned forward, trying to see her face. In the many weeks they had traveled together, he’d learned to read her expressions. When she dodged again, he took her chin in his long fingers and forced her head around. He saw her averted eyes and tightened mouth and released her as if she’d bitten him.
“That’s it, ain’t it? Something to do with power? By all the saints, I should’ve known. Since you had that dream, you’ve been running us into these mountains like you had a racing snake on your heels. It’s got to do with power. Dammit, answer me, Alstera.”
She forced a smile, pretending an amusement she didn’t feel. “Why should I answer? You are doing a good job with both sides of the conversation.”
“For lovin’—. Woman, what are you up to? You get your jollies heading into danger?”
“When have I led you into danger?” she retorted.
“You got us mixed up with that old hag in the Cordes Verte. She had a profitable little poisoning trade going, then you had to interfere. When she couldn’t poison us, she sicced her prime customer the king on us.”
“We escaped, didn’t we?”
“Oh, aye, sound all cool about it now. The king’s troops were on our heels as we went over the border. And then you tumbled us straight into trouble in the Bois Argent, when you let those people know you were a wizard. We nearly got killed.”
“Far from it. They might have gaoled us, but that baron did not want us dead. He wanted to control my power.”
“Oh, aye, and once in Le Dictame’s dungeons, we would never have escaped. In my book that’s the same as getting killed. Besides I had enough of gaol in Vaermonde.”
“Why, Raul, I thought you liked taking risks.” She hoped the jibe would silence him.
“Calculated risks. Risks I weave myself so I can keep a finger touching all the strands. I don’t like risks that get my neck stretched or my insides sucked out by wizardry.”
“That’s a far cry from what we’ve encountered,” she rebutted. More’s the pity, for a dangerous risk would rid her of another tenet that bound her power. Restoring Cherai to her title and privileged life had burned away the balance tenet. Four more remained: service and sacrifice, freedom and energy. To help Cherai, she had circumvented the bindings with blood, her blood. That hadn’t freed her power, though. Without primitive blood-magic, calling any power was like wading through mud. When she remembered how it had once roared like water over a cascade, she wanted to weep.
Raul’s complaint hit squarely on her reason for pursuing the snaking wizardry into these mountains. She recklessly sought any opportunity to serve another penance. She had plunged them into the fight with the old poisoner, then in Le Dictame her presumption again tripped them up. She hadn’t considered that her healing spells would trample someone’s private province. Nor had she considered that an ambitious noble would see her magicks as a means to grab honors for himself.
Hubris was chief of the sins that seduced wizards. In her selfish desire to rid herself quickly of the bindings, Alstera had forgotten that it was such presumption that led her to dabble in darker spells until her grandmère demanded that her magic be shackled.
Alstera hoped she did not walk them toward another arrogant mistake. She believed she didn’t. Not after the dream and its elemental. Not after sensing sticky evil loosed in the night.
“You do not have to come with me, Raul,” she offered quietly. “I must go to Alpage. You can go on with Mossley Stringer.”
“No, I’ll stick with you. Somebody’s got to watch your back. Just. . .are you sure you want to do this?”
“I must,” she husked. Over the past hand of days, compulsion had replaced choice.
“Fair enough,” Raul said. “You turn in. You got third watch, so Mossley’ll wake you. Make sure the brew’s hot in the morning.”
Alstera crept to her blanket and burrowed in to the tune of the mule-stringer’s snores as they had walked for days to the rhythm of his tales. She slept immediately.
When she woke, night still cloaked them, cold still seeped under the blankets. Her mind blank, she lay shivering, watching the firelight dance on the roof of the shelter. When her cheeks became chilled, she put her hands up to warm them and discovered moisture on her face. Tears. Only then did she realize she’d wept. Only then did she realize that great sorrow washed through her like the tide, ebbing in and flowing out. And only then did she realize that she had sensed death in her sleep.
Death, a single death, but the death of someone with power as deep as the roots of the mountains. In a feeble attempt to fill the void, the backwash of sorrow sucked energy from the night, from the air and the ground, and from her. Then, like the waft of a breeze, it was gone, leaving only its memory.
Chapter 4 ~ Sixteenth Night / Maiden’s Night / First Day of Lady’s Moon / Winter’s End
The temperature dropped as twilight descended. Frozen pellets stung Alstera and Raul as they looked for shelter among the overhangs above the trail. When a cleft gaped like a monster’s black maw, they climbed the stony face, slipping on the loose scree and ice-skimmed rock. They had luck: the cleft became a cave, a haven from the sleet and wind. Ducking under the long fangs of icicles, Alstera summoned a globe of fire. The simple magic cast a cold white light over the slick rock and the coals of an old fire. Unburned wood had been piled against the wall, away from the ice-rimed mouth. Keeping her back to the wind, she knelt to kindle a new fire.
Raul ventured deeper and called back, “Someone left his gear. And a horse has been here.” He rummaged through the packs. “Trader by the looks of it. I got tinware. Pots. Cups. Spoons. Rolled paper in this one. A couple of books. Quills.” He abandoned the first two packs. “Ah, food. Dried meat. Carrot. Onion. Lots of pouches.” He sniffed one. “Nutmeg.”
Flames licked over the new wood, burning with orangey heat. “Bring me the food. I will make soup.”
He brought his finds then crouched to warm himself. “I was starting to think we weren’t going to find shelter.”
