His first hint of it being that the temple was in a state of some uproar. Usually ordered, placid and soothing — in its cold way — Konrad entered at the hour of only quarter past seven to find the entire Order gathered there, or so it seemed. The great, double doors of grey stone were closed, as expected, but beyond was chaos. The moment Konrad set foot into the entrance hall, he heard the babble of voices, near and distant, the sharp sounds of footsteps echoing upon tile and stone, and glimpses of his fellows among the Order as they dashed about, carrying tidings or orders or simply panicking, for all he knew.
It was news to panic over.
He hesitated in the hall, uncertain what to do, or where to present himself. Was Diana here? If so, where?
Footsteps approached again, the quick, staccato sounds of someone in a hurry. A figure entered, and stopped dead upon seeing Konrad.
‘There you are,’ said the man, though it was no one Konrad recognised by sight. Grey-headed, weathered, uniformed and harassed. ‘The entire Order is searching for you, did you not know?’
‘They would have found me at home.’
‘Someone has been dispatched there, yes, and also into the spiritlands in pursuit of you. They’ll have to be recalled. Could you not have sent word?’
Strain was behind the man’s rudeness, Konrad knew. Strain, and fear. So he forbore to return a snappish answer, and said mildly: ‘How did you know I was in the spiritlands at all?’
‘Go up to the second floor,’ said his interlocutor without seeming to answer. ‘They’re in the embalming rooms.’
Was someone being embalmed? Konrad, mystified, took himself up the nearest flight of stairs without further comment, and entered upon another scene of chaos. The embalming rooms, normally white, pristine, stark and serene, were full of people. He put his face around the door of the nearest of two large chambers, and almost withdrew again.
If someone was being embalmed, the process was proving unusually bloody.
‘Konrad,’ said Diana, from somewhere within a small throng of people gathered around the bloodied corpse. If corpse it was. ‘Thank goodness.’
That, at least, was more welcoming. He stepped fully into the room, and the little crowd parted, making way for him.
Lying upon one of the embalming tables was a figure, human, but with some fey quality about her… she lay alarmingly still, white as the moon, her hair also, save that it was as liberally daubed in blood as the rest of her. Red blood, darkening as it dried, and also thick, black fluid. Aged, probably serene in temper at better times, her face was calm enough, but her eyes when they met Konrad’s were dark with pain.
Something about her spoke of winter’s chill, a deep, slaying cold Konrad could almost feel as he approached her.
‘The house of ice,’ he said. ‘That is your abode, is it not?’
‘Yes,’ came the answer, in a cracked whisper.
‘You’re alive. I thought whoever lived there must be—’
‘Konrad,’ interrupted Diana. ‘She’s very weak. Don’t pester her.’
‘It attacked you,’ Konrad continued, largely ignoring Diana. The woman wanted to speak; let her speak.
‘Nearly killed me,’ said she, with the ghost of a smile. ‘I am not so easy to kill.’
‘This is Talin,’ said Diana. ‘She is one of the Order’s wardens for the spiritlands. She brought word of the manifestation, nearly at the cost of her own life, so please do not tire her.’
‘I came,’ said Konrad, controlling his irritation with an effort, ‘to report this news, had you not already heard of it—’
‘Very late, Konrad, and since your idea of dealing with the catastrophe appears to have been to go after it alone—’
‘I did not then know what it was!’
‘How could you possibly fail to realise what it was? Have we taught you nothing?’
Konrad swallowed another sharp retort. Diana, too, was in a stew, for her position at the pinnacle of the Order must be chafing her today. A genuine disaster, and everyone looked to her for a solution. One she hardly knew how to provide, for neither she nor generations’ worth of her predecessors had ever had to deal with such a nightmare.
He did not envy her. He was feeling some of the same heavy responsibility himself.
‘I came to find out more about that thing,’ said Konrad, as calmly as he could. ‘The world at large has forgotten these creatures, but I am sure the Order has not.’
‘The term, once, was malefic,’ said Diana. ‘For that is what they are. Deeply malefic, and that is all, they have no better side, no redeeming qualities.’
‘So I had surmised,’ said Konrad, a vision of his own attack at the nightmare’s hands flashing through his mind. He had sensed nothing about the creature but darkness, and evil.
‘You were hurt,’ said Diana, seeing him at last, for she focused upon his torn coat, and particularly the ragged shreds of his sleeve. Konrad had the gratification of seeing her rise to her feet, and run over to him, her concern palpable. ‘Spirits above, Konrad, you should have said — here I’ve been haranguing you—’
‘I am all right,’ he said quickly, interrupting her flow of self-recrimination. It soothed, but it could help nobody. ‘Nanda sent it packing, and patched me up.’
‘Irinanda Falenia?’
‘Yes.’
‘She fought off a malefic?’
‘Yes.’
Diana blinked, nonplussed, her tongue momentarily silenced. ‘Can we get her here? Is she with you? We are going to need skills like that.’
‘She has gone to muster assistance from the spirit-witch enclave in the Bones. She can’t fight it off alone, Diana. This one intervention almost finished her. She’s already weak—’
Diana waved this away. ‘Naturally not. No one can easily destroy a malefic, certainly not alone. Let them come here, those who are willing to help.’
That Diana seemed to know all about the hidden enclave did not much surprise Konrad. He wondered if any of those who dwelt there were among the Order’s members, too. More of them were Shandral, most likely.
‘She may take them to The Shandrigal’s Temple,’ he suggested.
‘That will do as well. And— spirits, yes. The Shandrigal’s Order. We’ll need them, too.’
‘Diana,’ said Konrad. ‘Pause a moment. Do we know how to defeat this thing? Is that still written somewhere?’
‘We have… ideas,’ said Diana.
‘Ideas? That’s it? Wasn’t the Order chief among those who hunted the malefics, once upon a time?’
‘With The Shandrigal’s Order, yes. One thing you may not know about, however, is the fire.’
‘The fire?’
‘The great fire, must be seventy years ago now. More. The Temple was almost entirely destroyed, and all its records with it. What we are now standing in is its replacement.’
Words failed Konrad.
‘And of course those specific records have never been replaced, because by that time hunting malefics had become an obsolete art, and the arm of the Order devoted to that kind of peace-keeping was long since disbanded. So we’ll have to ask the Shandral,’ said Diana grimly. ‘Though I do not know how much help it will be to us, for their methods must of necessity be very different from ours. Still, we will take any information we can get.’
‘So,’ said Konrad slowly, ‘we have no idea what to do about this thing.’
‘Truthfully?’ said Diana. ‘No. Not much of a one.’
Talin made a sound, a choked cough. ‘I have been aware for some time of a… wrongness, growing,’ she said faintly. ‘I took measures to draw it to me, when it came. I succeeded.’
‘Too well, nearly,’ said Diana, with a tenderness that surprised Konrad, coming from her. The Order’s cold, lamaeni leader returned to the older woman’s side and bent over her in concern. ‘You did not tell me.’
‘I had nothing to tell. I hardly knew what I was seeing. I could have been wrong, senile…’
‘Never s
enile. You were right. You should have trusted your instincts.’
‘And I knew,’ Talin continued, her pale eyes focusing on Diana, ‘that you would recall me as warden, if I told you.’
‘I would have been right to!’ said Diana. ‘Look at you.’
‘I am not finished yet.’ Talin’s odd eyes flashed fiercely as she spoke, and she half rose from her recumbent posture upon the hard table-top.
Diana pushed her back down. ‘I know. Dauntless to the end, but I pray that the end shall be some ways off yet. Rest, won’t you? You have done enough.’
Talin sank back obediently, but her ferocity vanished; despair came instead. ‘And what is it that I have done? Only drawn its ire, almost at the cost of my life. I did not prevent it. I could not stop it. I do not even know where it has gone.’
‘We will soon know that,’ said Diana bleakly. ‘You brought us word, Talin.’
‘He would have done just as much, if I had not got here before him.’ The he in question referred to Konrad, for she looked dispassionately at him.
‘Yes. Konrad. Let’s hear your story. What exactly happened? How did you come to be up in the ice-house?’
Konrad recounted everything that had happened, beginning with the appearance of Karyavin at his house, and the summons to the scene of the malefic’s first human victim. At least as far as they knew. The room grew quiet as he spoke, the gathered Order as well as Diana listening attentively. Talin’s sharp, fey eyes rested upon him throughout, intent, almost unblinking.
‘It attacked you, too,’ said Talin when he had finished speaking. ‘Why you, and not your companion?’
‘I had thought… it follows me.’
‘Follows you?’ said Diana, frowning. ‘Why?’
Konrad related his theory as to that, too, though his confidence in the idea faded with every word. Diana’s frown only deepened.
‘Forgive me, Konrad, but it is very like you to find an explanation centring especially around yourself.’
That stung. ‘I may well be wrong,’ he conceded. ‘I hope I am.’
He did not miss the worry in Diana’s face. She thought, feared, that he might be right after all. ‘We will soon know that, too,’ she said wearily. ‘You had better take care, Konrad. And keep that spirit-witch with you.’
‘I cannot ask her to keep defending me.’ Not at such a cost to Nanda.
‘One of the others, then. Go to The Shandrigal’s Temple, and wait for them. That would probably be best.’
‘And if it is following me? Shall I not endanger any others there?’
‘The Shandrigal has ways,’ said Diana mysteriously. ‘Wards. It might prove to be the safest place in the city for you, if your surmise is correct.’
Konrad bowed. ‘And what will you do?’
The hollows beneath Diana’s eyes seemed to deepen and darken as she spoke. ‘I had better try to talk with the Master.’
Konrad did not envy her that duty.
Chapter Four
Nanda had never imagined she might be retracing her steps to the enclave in the Bones so soon, but now she blessed that earlier venture. Her feet remembered the way, and moved the faster for it. The snow, lessening in impact now that it melted day by day, impeded her much less than before, and she arrived at the twist in the bone-white trees sooner than she had ventured to hope. The air was still, at so early an hour. All she heard was the occasional, soft drip of melted sleet or heavy dew falling from bough to earth, and the faint crunch of thinning ice beneath her own feet as she walked. Her breath misted in the still morning air.
She did not waste time on pleasantries. Announcing her presence in some subtle way, waiting for someone to answer her call, and open the way between the trees — these things she did not have time for, today. Urgency wrest all thought of etiquette away.
She set a hand against the trunk of the nearest guard-tree instead, its frosted bark shivery-cold and rough under her fingers, and let its gentle, natural magics elevate her own.
A deep, deep breath.
‘Ware!’ she cried. ‘Wake! Danger! The enclave is sorely needed, and I bid you, wake.’
Her words rolled and boomed through the treetops, setting the boughs to shaking, and the lofty eyries with it. Leaves and lichen and shattered ice rained down, dislodged by the thunder of her voice.
They did not take long to rouse, after that. Soon a low, thrumming, creaking sound split the air, and the twined trees before her unwound themselves, and broke apart.
Lady Lysak, or Rita, stood waiting.
‘I thought it was you,’ said she. She was dressed for the weather, wrapped in soft layers, no late riser here. Her hair, though, was not yet dressed, and hung in a dark mass down her back. She looked Nanda over, bright with alarm. ‘When I spoke of help—’
‘No time,’ Nanda said quickly. ‘I would not so rudely rouse you without good reason. I come bearing ill tidings.’
Rita beckoned her into the enclave, and the trees instantly snapped shut behind her. She stood in a large clearing, bare earth beneath her feet, a ring of close-knitted tree-trunks surrounding it. The settlement lay above, in the mass of withy-built treetop dwellings only half-glimpsed among the boughs. They were good at hiding, these witches. She wondered briefly why.
A thud, and a large-framed man landed beside Rita, having tumbled down from some way above with surprising grace. Niklas, his hair as white-blonde as Nanda’s own, but eyes clear grey rather than blue. He had not greeted her with much warmth the last time they had met, nor did he do so now. He merely watched. Waited.
Nanda told her tale. She did so as quickly, but as clearly, as she could, unwilling to waste time repeating herself, or answering questions, for every moment’s delay could mean another death, human or fae. Her nerves jangled, more shattered by the nightmare creature’s attack upon Konrad that she had wanted to admit. Too alert, restless, she struggled to stand still where she was, and speak in measured tones. Her ears strained, expecting every moment to hear that tearing shriek again, to see the flash of bright-dark talons, see the spray of red blood. Konrad’s. And the flow of black, bloodied bile that had streamed from his mouth…
‘Konrad said—’ she began, when her narration was over. ‘It’s been said that the witches of Assevan used to ward the bridges for a reason. Not just the bridges, either, but everywhere the doors used to open long ago. And this was the real reason, not just that the fae sometimes wandered in. Is that so? I must know. Can it come through without that someone has opened a door?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rita, wide-eyed. ‘I know nothing of such a creature. Niklas?’
The big man silently shook his head.
‘If it is true that you — that we — used to hold fast the doors against these things, then someone must know. There must be someone who remembers. Or a book, something written. Anything.’
‘What do you hope to do?’ said Rita.
Nanda groped for words — ideas — something. ‘I do not see how such a thing can ever be destroyed,’ she said. ‘It is so strong. I could not fight it, I could only deflect it, for a time, and that cost me—’ She broke off. Less rambling, Irinanda. Think. ‘I want to contain the danger,’ she said. ‘Keep it from wandering at will between spiritlands and the city, thereby to reduce the number of its victims. There I think you may help me, if you will. How to overcome it after that, well, that I cannot guess at now.’
Rita made no answer. She exchanged a look with Niklas, a look both thoughtful and profoundly disturbed. ‘I wish that we had more to tell you,’ said she at last. ‘How was it that you deflected it, as you say? Was it through our magics, or something else? For I cannot think how that may be done.’
‘Ours,’ said Nanda rapidly. ‘Ours, and something more, for I am Shandral.’
‘Then you will want Inia and Mili, for they too are Shandral.’
Nanda vaguely knew an Inia, among the Order. A slight woman, if her recollections were correct, and very young — barely twenty, by appearance
. A shrinking creature, but shyness did not denote a lack of heart or courage. Mili she did not know.
‘I will accept their help very gladly,’ she said. ‘I had hoped—’
‘We will all attend you,’ said Niklas, to her surprise.
Rita shot him a sharp look. ‘All?’
‘It must be so,’ he said. ‘And she must also see Anouska.’
‘Anouska? Can she…?’
‘She is stout enough for this.’
Nanda looked from one to the other, confused. Their conversation excluded her entirely; they seemed absorbed in whatever their shared reflections were.
Finally, though, Rita returned her attention to Irinanda. ‘You take her,’ she said, presumably to Niklas. ‘I will muster the village.’
With which words she nodded to Nanda, and leapt. She caught hold of a low-hanging bough, or something, and swung herself up; instantly, she vanished into the canopy, as thoroughly disappeared as though she had never been there at all.
Leaving only Niklas.
‘Come,’ he said, still all ice, not a shred of warmth in his manner at all.
Nanda set aside her cares. As long as he did what she needed, he may speak to her as coldly as he chose.
A small shriek escaped her, hard upon the heels of this thought, for her feet came off the floor and suddenly she was shooting up, up into the canopy, following the way Rita had gone. Her passage was neither smooth nor straight; she shot this way and that, turning and tumbling, threading her way through branch and leaf and tangling plant, plagued by the sensation of myriad tiny hands clutching and hauling and releasing her.
Stopped, at last, far above the ground, she balanced atop a platform of woven sapling-boughs, dizzied and trembling. A peep below punished her with no glimpse of the far-off ground, but an impenetrable thicket of pale leaves and ivory branches. How there came to be so much leaf at such a season, she only then thought to wonder.
‘Anouska tires easily,’ said Niklas from behind her.
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