Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  “Out of my way, monster!” Nathaniel cried.

  Thy words wound me. The man’s lips didn’t move, and his voice spoke directly into Nathaniel’s mind. It sounded like crackling autumn leaves, or a fire built of wet pine branches. I have come only to benefit thee, Serpentspawn.

  Nathaniel’s head spun. Ma’iingan and his unnamed manidoo had brought Nathaniel to this wider, cosmic world, and yet in that world Nathaniel seemed to already have an identity.

  An identity and enemies.

  The long nails told Nathaniel what he was looking at. “Last warning, Lazar. Stand aside.” He didn’t feel as brave as his voice sounded.

  Very good. The Lazar’s smile was humorless. Thou knowest thy fairy-stories.

  Nathaniel struck his drum and sang:

  I ride upon four horses, I’ll not be caged

  Not by murdering giants, nor Lazar mage

  My bones are made of iron of solid gauge

  I ride the land of spirits, through heaven I rage

  He charged the Lazar.

  The dead man’s face registered surprise. Nathaniel’s horses sprang from the bank of the pool of death, scattering a cloud of star-spirit dust, and Nathaniel struck the dead man with his own shoulder, and then with the shoulder of each of his four horses.

  The Lazar teetered and waved his arms, seeking his balance—

  his long-nailed hand swiped at Nathaniel—

  Nathaniel felt a burning sensation as his neck was scratched by three long nails. Then his horses landed on the far side of the pool and he galloped on.

  He followed the earl’s voice along a thin, biting wind. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the Lazar stabbing downward with his nails, apparently fighting the tortured faces within his own deathly arcane pool, and then the Lazar was out of sight.

  Nathaniel found the ridge down to the Earl of Johnsland’s manor and he followed it. The manor was a small home, more like one of the sod huts the earl’s Irish workers built than like the brick palace Nathaniel knew, but he recognized it from the mold and rot that carpeted the roof and the walls. The same breeze that carried the earl’s voice made his house tremble.

  Nathaniel alighted, slinging his horses over his shoulder. He took a deep breath, then entered.

  Within the cottage was but a single room, and in the center of the room a slat-backed wooden chair. On the chair sat the Earl of Johnsland, his old face riven with grief, his hands clutching a tiny wooden box—the same one he held in the physical world, or one that looked just like it.

  On the back of the chair perched a vulture.

  Crowding all around the earl were spirits. Nathaniel knew them for spirits—ghosts, perhaps—because he could see through them. They approached the earl in attitudes of supplication: some knelt, some lay on their faces on the floor, some pressed at the earl’s feet. All of them raised their arms in begging gestures.

  And to his surprise, Nathaniel knew one of the supplicants.

  “Charles,” he said. “Charles Lee.”

  Charles turned to look at him. He still bled from the wound in his forehead.

  “It was my fault,” Nathaniel said. “I’m sorry.”

  The ghostly Charles looked at his feet, then met Nathaniel’s gaze. “I did my duty. I did what a man should do.”

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “You did was a good man does. You’re the truest gentleman I have known, Charles Lee. You’re my hero.”

  “I wish my mother and father could have known,” Charles said.

  “You can still talk. Tell them yourself,” Nathaniel pointed out.

  “My mother is dead.” Charles squinted at a horizon Nathaniel couldn’t see. “I believe I can find her. But my father lives.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “His name is Captain Sir William Johnston Lee.” Charles looked at the earl. “And him? Can you help him?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Charles gripped Nathaniel’s shoulder one last time. “You’ll be your own hero now, Nathaniel. And a hero to many other people, I expect.”

  Nathaniel abruptly felt young, as if a century of aging had been reversed in a single moment. “If I do, it’ll be because of what I learned from you.”

  Charles grinned and took his arm back. Then his face dropped into the furrowed brow of uncertainty. “Do you think the pastors are right? Or the godar? Or both?”

  “I know there are gods,” Nathaniel said. “Or…powerful things, out of sight, that call themselves gods.”

  “And heaven?” Charles asked. “Is there a place where I can rest?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathaniel said. “I’m learning that the universe is much bigger than I ever thought, and full of strange things. Maybe there is a heaven, where the just get to rest for all eternity. Though I heard someone say, just tonight, that an eternity and the blink of an eye are the same thing to the gods. Or maybe there’s a heaven where the brave continue to be heroes.”

  Charles smiled again. “I like that.”

  Nathaniel pushed through the other ghosts as if they were a gauze curtain, until he came to the earl. Standing beside the man, he realized he was holding one of the ghosts’ hands. The ghost looked a lot like the earl himself, and even more like George. Nathaniel thought he remembered this spirit’s name.

  “Richard,” he said. “Richard Randolph Isham. This is your eldest son.”

  The earl and the ghost looked at Nathaniel with matched eyes. The raptor perched on the back of the earl’s chair stared with the hatred and resentment of an animal defending its territory, or its rightful prey.

  “Killed,” Richard said.

  ~Killed,~ the earl echoed.

  “Murdered?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Killed in a fair fight, as far as that goes,” Richard said. “Challenge offered and accepted, seconds present, and I chose the weapons. By Captain Sir William Johnston Lee.”

  ~Killed, as far as that goes,~ the earl echoed. ~William.~

  “Charles’s father?”

  Richard nodded and his eyes flashed. “But I was attempting to do my duty to the Emperor and my commander, Thomas Penn. And Lee killed me to stop me from my duty. He killed me to raise the banner of rebellion against his rightful lord.”

  ~Rebellion, his rightful lord.~

  “Why would he do that?” Nathaniel asked.

  “As near as I can tell? Service to his lord and master, suh.”

  ~Tell his lord and master.~

  “You both acted with honor, then?”

  “And yet I am dead.”

  The vulture reached forward to snap at Nathaniel, who danced out of reach.

  Nathaniel considered. Then he took the earl’s other hand in his own and stroked the back of it gently until the earl looked up and met his gaze. “My lord,” he said.

  ~Lord.~ The earl’s voice held within it a piercing raptor’s cry, but also the mournfulness of the owl.

  “William Lee killed your son Richard,” Nathaniel said. “And your son Landon killed William’s son Charles.”

  ~My son, Landon.~ The earl nodded slowly. ~Landon is my son. He does not replace Richard.~

  “And yet Landon lives. As does George.”

  ~George. Yes, George is my son, too.~

  “Can we not say that all have suffered grievously, and let there be an end to the killing, and a sharing of grief?”

  The earl squeezed Nathaniel’s hand. ~But how?~

  Nathaniel turned, continuing to grip the earl’s fingers. “Charles!” he called.

  Charles came. “My Lord. Richard. Nathaniel.”

  “Richard and Charles,” Nathaniel said. “The cosmos is large, and somewhere in it is Charles’s mother. Richard—will you travel with Charles? You are both bold Cavaliers, and a traveler in a strange country needs a companion on whom he can rely.”

  The vulture above the earl’s seat hissed and spat.

  “My father needs me.” Richard tightened his grip on the earl’s other hand.

  The earl looked uncertain.
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br />   “Your father will be well enough without you,” Nathaniel said. “Landon and George are here.”

  ~Landon and George. My sons.~

  “Landon is a bastard,” Richard hissed. “And George is a child.”

  “I will also be here,” Nathaniel said. “Do you find me inadequate to the task?”

  The vulture pecked, aiming for Nathaniel’s head, but Nathaniel thumped his drum once and the horses leaped up to interpose themselves.

  “My father needs me.” Richard sounded less certain this time.

  “Your father needed you,” Nathaniel agreed. “You were here for him then. But he doesn’t need you any longer.”

  “If you are certain.” Richard looked to his father.

  ~Certain.~

  “Father?”

  The earl stood. With an angry squawk, the vulture leaped from its perch up into the air.

  ~I am certain, my son. Go.~

  Richard released his father’s hand and smiled at Charles. “Shall we find your mother, then?”

  Then he and Charles were gone.

  With an angry shriek, the vulture dove for the earl. Its neck extended and its beak opened, as if to snatch him up like a fleeing rabbit. The earl looked up at the incoming bird, eyes calm—

  and Nathaniel’s four horses leaped up to intercept the attack. With iron hooves, they kicked the vulture to the floor and then trampled it repeatedly. When they were finished, and returned into Nathaniel’s drum, they left behind them a smear of red on the floor, marked with a few large feathers.

  The earl sat again, burying his face in his hands, and wept.

  Nathaniel rested his hand on the earl’s shoulder.

  ~I have lost so much!~

  “And yet you have so much.”

  The earl wept awhile yet, and when he looked up, his face beneath the glistening tears was calm. ~I know you. You are Nathaniel.~

  “Nathaniel Chapel.”

  ~Nathaniel Elytharias Penn. Your mother was Hannah Penn, cunning, patient, iron-willed, and possessed of more charisma than any of the Penns since William. Your father was Kyres Elytharias.~

  “The mad rider of the Missouri.”

  ~The Lion of Missouri, dispenser of swift justice and protector of the weak. Hero of the Spanish War. The King of Cahokia, wooer of the far-famed Hannah, and my friend. Who was murdered by Thomas Penn, so when Kyres’s man brought me the child to care for, I couldn’t say no.~

  Nathaniel had a hard time grasping all the threads of this tapestry. “The Emperor Thomas murdered my mother? And you kept that a secret?”

  ~I hid Thomas’s guilt so I would not risk revealing my own glorious secret, that I concealed within my house the sapling in which Penn and Elytharias were grafted together!~ The earl looked down and shook his head woefully. ~But my son Richard learned the truth. Without consulting me, he confronted William Lee, and he died for it.~

  “And you kept me and Charles both about your household,” Nathaniel said. “And when Charles’s mother died, you gave her son a commission.”

  The earl shook his head. ~Yes, I gave her son his commission. I armed him at my expense and made him an officer, I kept that vow. I kept all my vows! When I die, they may say of me that I was a madman, but no one shall say I was an oathbreaker.~

  “You kept your vows.” Nathaniel touched the earl’s shoulder gently. “You cared for me and protected me when I was vulnerable, and an outcast. Thank you.”

  ~For a short time I thought that Jackson would be able…but…Poor Jackson.~

  Jackson?

  “May I ask of you one final boon, My Lord?”

  ~You have but to name it. If not for the love I bore your mother, then for the love I bear you, I’ll do what I can.~

  “Though you may see me in your hall, I am elsewhere, and I’m being attacked. George and Landon are with me.”

  The earl stood. ~Tell me where, and my men will ride.~

  Nathaniel had no idea. “A tobacco-curing barn. Beside a narrow lane, surrounded by tobacco fields.”

  ~There are fifty such places on my lands alone,~ the earl said. ~What more can you tell me?~

  Nathaniel’s heart fell. “Little. Only that it burns.”

  ~I will mobilize my men,~ the earl said. ~We will begin the search. You send word when you can. What sort of foe shall I advise my men to prepare for?~

  “Dead men who walk, and a sorcerer.” Nathaniel considered. “Bring fire. And tobacco.”

  The earl strode from his hall without waiting for more. Nathaniel thumped a rhythm from his drum, leaping astride his horses as they came. He rode through the ghosts—were they fewer in number now, and less insistent?—then out of the hall and up the slope to the prairie of heaven.

  As his horses’ hooves struck the sandy soil of the sky, it occurred to Nathaniel that the stars above him only moved in their rotation. He had traveled, in some sense, from Johnsland on the Atlantic coast to—he thought—Cahokia on the Mississippi, and the stars overhead had done nothing to shift other than spin in their vast circle. Had he ridden the same distances at the same speed on earth, he would have seen many stars rise and sink above both the eastern and western horizons.

  Did this have something to do with what the woman with the imp on her shoulder had said about eternity and seconds?

  Nathaniel’s horses stumbled and he was thrown.

  Instead of landing on the ground, he landed in a warm, wet soup, a stinking cesspit of amber-orange color. He thrashed with his arms—he was a poor swimmer, but strong enough to keep himself afloat—and kept his head above the liquid long enough to see that grass appeared to be growing across the top of the Lazar’s pool of sorrowful faces, and also that the grass was nothing more than appearance. When he moved his hand, it passed through the grass without encountering any resistance, and with no sensation.

  A clump of real grass—grass from earth? That, too, seemed strange. Floated in the center of the pool. Fueling the sorcerer’s work, maybe.

  The Lazar strode casually up to the edge of the pool, and the chorus of screaming came with him. Who would have imagined it would be so easy? But then, thou art young and inexperienced, and likely no more clever than thy slattern sister.

  He placed his hands on his hips and laughed.

  My master will be well pleased. And when he devours thee, tell thou him that it was his best servant Robert Hooke who sent him thee.

  Nathaniel’s horses neighed and rolled out of his reach over the top of the pool.

  Then hands out of sight gripped him by the ankles and pulled him down.

  Mercifully, once he was inside the pool, he could no longer smell it. He opened his eyes, and found he could see—but what he saw gave him no comfort.

  Orange light drifted down from somewhere above. Around Nathaniel circled dead faces, mouths open and shrieking and eyes staring blankly, and among and around the faces, hundreds of hands. Hands of women and men, children’s hands, the claws of beasts. Hands that grasped at Nathaniel and dragged him down.

  “I ain’t a maniac.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The spirit-apparition had been her brother, Sarah was certain of it. And if she had magical gifts from her father, there was no reason to think that he might not also have unusual abilities.

  And yet she was surprised when Maltres Korinn, counselor Uris, and Alzbieta Torias walked in through the door of her prison cell, accompanied by Yedera and Sherem.

  Sherem was not only walking, but alert.

  She stood. “You’ve seen the error of your ways.”

  Maltres Korinn said nothing. He unlocked the door to the cell, stepped aside, and bowed.

  Cal stood too, and they exited the cell.

  Uris handed Calvin his tomahawk. “I’m sorry, Calvin.”

  Cal grunted in return.

  “My father’s regalia?”

  Maltres raised his face, eyes flashing. “They’re the kingdom’s regalia—” Then he mastered himself. “I gave the orb, the crown, and the plowshare i
nto the keeping of the goddess. I left your staff where I found it.”

  Sarah looked up the chamber’s airshaft at the dark sky. “It ain’t yet dawn, Korinn, but it’s gittin’ there. I ain’t got time for partial truths.”

  “I placed the regalia on the Serpent Throne.”

  “The Presentation,” she guessed. “Your seven candidates are getting ready to stand around the throne, and you thought maybe the regalia would add power to the ritual, or attract the goddess’s attention, and make it more likely She would make the decision you’ve been waiting for so long.”

  Maltres Korinn nodded. “The candidates are standing there now.”

  “Six of the seven candidates,” Alzbieta said.

  Sarah took her cousin’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

  Maltres bowed his head. “You see through my foolish machinations.”

  “Right now, I see the hour is late,” Sarah said. “I’ve got a goddess to woo, two attackin’ armies to repulse, and on top of everythin’ else, a brother to rescue. I ain’t got time to git my stuff.”

  “A brother?” Cal asked.

  “I’ll retrieve it,” Korinn said instantly. “Where shall I meet you?”

  “The Sunrise Mound. Calvin, I need to travel fast and light right now. Will you go with the Cahokians here, and see the job gits done right?”

  Cal sighed and shook his head. “You know I will, Sarah.”

  Sarah took the time to stand on tip-toe and kiss Calvin’s cheek. Without even looking to see his reaction, she raced up the stairs and into the night.

  Her star-lore wasn’t so good that she could tell much time remained before the dawn; the eastern sky was dark, but she thought sunrise must be close. The side of the city bordering the river seemed to be burning, and she forced herself not to think too much about that. Kneeling to wipe away an armful of snow and reveal a bare patch of frozen earth, she scrabbled to get dirt under her nails, then anointed her own eyelids with it.

  “Oculos obscuro,” she said, using one of the formulas she’d first heard from old Thalanes. She sighed, feeling his death—at her hands, though compelled by the Sorcerer Robert Hooke—as a fresh wound.