Heaven's Needle

by Liane Merciel

  Heradion was already there. Blood crusted his red-gold hair. He favored his left leg, leaning against the wall when he thought no one was looking. He’d stuffed the books and papers into sacks from the chapel pantry. Falcien’s body lay in a corner, shrouded by an altar cloth.

  “We can’t leave him here,” Evenna said. “This place is cursed. He deserves a pyre, but that will have to wait for morning. Until then we’d best take him back to the Rosy Maiden.”

  While the others took sacks of papers, Asharre hoisted the dead Illuminer over a shoulder. It was not penance, exactly, that she should be the one to carry him … but he might have lived if she had let Evenna pray over his wounds instead of calling light to illumine their battle.

  Lived, and then died at the teeth of the maelgloth. She’d made the right choice in ordering Evenna to conjure light instead of healing Falcien. Sometimes one had to be sacrificed to save the rest; any wet-eared novice knew that. But the Illuminer’s death was a grievous loss, and not only because he had been a friend.

  Falcien was the best scholar among them. If anyone had a chance of deciphering the solaros’ writings and finding the truth of Carden Vale’s curse, it was him. Without his knowledge, their chances of learning what had happened here dropped precipitously.

  Why did the maelgloth choose that moment to attack? Yes, they were vulnerable as they stumbled out of the smoke and confusion of the temple’s trap … but they had been even more vulnerable when they split up to investigate Carden Vale separately. The maelgloth could have picked them off one by one as they wandered the unfamiliar streets. Why hadn’t they?

  Asharre picked at the question, finding no answer, as she collected two sacks of papers, wrapped a hand around Falcien’s shrouded legs, and led the battered survivors back to the Rosy Maiden.

  The inn was eerily peaceful. There was not a whisper of sound save the echo of their own footsteps in the empty streets; even the clouds seemed to have stopped moving.

  Asharre slowed, then stopped, a stone’s throw from the inn. She couldn’t see anything amiss. Nor could she smell it, not with the maelgloth’s bile clotted on her clothes and her own wounds barely healed. And yet … it was too quiet. They’d left the animals behind. The oxen should be lowing, the horses whisking their tails against the walls.

  “Someone’s been here,” Asharre said. “The animals.” She laid the dead man in a doorway, drew her caractan, and went to the Rosy Maiden’s stables. Evenna followed, and her lantern showed blood on the straw.

  The animals were dead. Only one survived, a gray mare trembling in a patch of sodden straw between two overturned water troughs. The others had been torn open from throat to tail. The horses had kicked the walls and the oxen had rammed their horns against the wood in panicked attempts to break free, leaving bloody dents in their stalls. There was a dead maelgloth among them, a skinny child-size thing with enormous bony claws dragging down its wrists. A horse’s kick had crushed its skull.

  Evenna went to the mare, soothing the animal with murmurs and gentle gestures. There might have been a touch of magic in her words; Asharre had never seen a terrified horse calm so quickly. Soon the mare’s agitated breathing steadied and it let Evenna stroke its nose, whickering into the Illuminer’s hand.

  “Why was that one spared?” Asharre asked.

  The younger woman’s lips were pressed to hold back something she didn’t want to say. Her big eyes were even darker than usual, filled with … fear? Foreboding? Evenna stretched out a booted foot, shaking away manure and damp straw, and nudged a toe at the spill between the troughs.

  It took Asharre a moment to see what she meant. The water had splashed into a peculiar pattern on the muddy floor. It resembled a snowflake … or a sunburst, eight rayed, with puddles at the end of each arm that mimicked the variant she’d seen scrawled on all those windows in the abandoned town. The image was lopsided and stretched to distortion, barely recognizable—but once she saw it, she could see nothing else.

  That pattern couldn’t be accidental. Asharre tried to work it out, imagining ways that the troughs could have fallen to create it. If they fell one after the other just so, splashing into each other, their contents diverted by the straw and manure piles on the stable floor, maelgloth and frightened animals tracking water to and fro in their struggles … was it possible that the sunburst had been created by chance?

  She didn’t think so. Judging by her shock and silence, neither did Evenna.

  “But it worked,” the sigrir said aloud. “It saved the horse.”

  “Maybe,” Evenna said. She led the horse gingerly around the puddle, keeping her own steps clear of it. “Just as likely they left to attack us instead.”

  Asharre slid her sword back into its scabbard and followed the Celestian out of the blood-spattered stables. Under other circumstances, she might have tried to salvage some of the animals’ meat, but she had no appetite for anything maelgloth had touched.

  Inside, Heradion stirred up the fire, but it held little warmth. None of them was in the mood for talking, or eating. Evenna tethered the surviving mare in the common room; she thought the animal would be safer inside.

  Asharre was too tired to ask questions. She laid Falcien’s body on a pallet by the door, then trudged up the stairs. She kept her caractan at hand and her boots on her feet, and was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

  Sunlight roused her out of uneasy dreams. Asharre lay on the bed awhile longer, staring at the maze of cracks in the ceiling plaster. It took her a moment to recognize the weariness she felt. Not battle weariness; not wounds. Evenna had healed the gravest of her injuries, and what remained was no worse than she’d suffered a dozen times before.

  It was fear that exhausted her: fear of the cursed town and its cursed inhabitants. Fear of losing Evenna and Heradion as she had lost Oralia and now Falcien. She had pledged to protect them—but how? This valley lay deep under Maol’s shadow. She didn’t understand it, and she didn’t know how to defeat it. If it could be defeated.

  Her own clan revered the spirits of the wild: ancient deities, remote and faceless, though sometimes they took the forms of snow-white beasts or showed their red eyes in storms. The gods of the White Seas could be cruel; they took tribute in blood and blessed their followers with fury. But they were not evil. The evil she’d seen in Carden Vale was something for which she had no answer.

  Lying in bed wouldn’t help her find one. Asharre threw back the blankets.

  Downstairs Evenna was already awake. She’d set a kettle over the fire and sat upon a three-legged stool, gazing into a teacup. It did not seem that she had slept, although she had changed out of her filthy clothes into a tunic and breeches left by some forgetful guest. Her ink-black hair hung loose over her shoulders, trailing almost to the floor.

  “Restless night?” Asharre took a knotted rag from its hook near the fire and wrapped it around the kettle’s handle to pour herself a cup of tea. It was bitter, boiled down to dregs. Whitebriar tea, brewed to stave off weariness. Evenna had laced it with vigil’s friend to intensify the effects. It tasted abysmal, but Asharre drank it anyway.

  “No time to sleep,” Evenna said. The shadows under the Illuminer’s eyes were nearly as dark as her hair, but she managed a wisp of a smile. “Too much to be done.”

  “We’ll need to make a pyre for Falcien. And one of you will have to go back.”

  “I know,” Evenna said.

  Asharre set her cup down in surprise. She’d expected an argument. “You do?”

  “One of us will have to tell the temple what happened. If the rest of us don’t return. There’s a good chance of that. Something about this place … I could almost imagine that the town itself conspires against us. First we lose Falcien, then we lose all our animals—all but one, so we can send only a single rider back and have to split up again … it’s convenient, isn’t it? Too convenient. Something’s toying with us. And yet, after all we’ve seen, and all we’ve lost, I still can’t leave the people
of Carden Vale.”

  “You think there are people left in Carden Vale?”

  “Not in the town. I don’t believe anyone’s here anymore. But I think there might be some in Shadefell.” Evenna brushed a hand over the papers stacked by her stool. “I spent the night reading the solaros’ diaries. Falcien would have been able to glean more from them. He was the one who studied the fell gods. I did what I could, but … well, the last few entries are plain enough. The solaros took the survivors to Shadefell, hoping his scholar friend could protect them and, if he succeeded in his search for Aurandane, help him unlock the sword’s magic. He wrote of the man as a wizard.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Evenna shook her head. “No. Not truly. I don’t believe this Gethel was Blessed, so he couldn’t have had any true magic … but a scholar might know enough to protect people. And if they did find Aurandane, he might know how to use it. Even if the sword isn’t there, the survivors might have escaped Maol’s corruption, or at least limited its effects, if they left this place. Maybe they delayed the madness. Maybe they outran it altogether.”

  “Then they’ll be safe.”

  “For a while. Not forever. They’ll need our help.”

  “Your help,” Asharre corrected.

  “I can’t reach them alone. The maelgloth would tear me apart.”

  That was true. Oralia had sworn the same oaths when she became a full-fledged Illuminer: to serve the goddess faithfully, to help those in need without regard to pride or payment, and never to kill another person. That last oath probably didn’t extend to maelgloth, who were no longer human, but since an Illuminer with a sword was as helpless as a cat in the saddle, that was small consolation.

  And yet … “You did something to my sword. While I was blind. I could not see, but I felt it.”

  “Velaska’s Fire.”

  “How?” Asharre’s eyes widened. Velaska’s Fire was a healing prayer—one not often used, because it was not often needed, but she had seen Oralia summon its red flame on occasion. Velaska’s Fire surrounded a blade with cauterizing heat, enabling it to cut with less pain and helping its wounds heal faster. Incisions made with Velaska’s Fire seldom infected; it could cut away flesh that had putrefied too badly to be saved, and what was left would be clean.

  But it was not a battle spell.

  Evenna’s gaze dropped to her hands. She fidgeted with her clothes, plucking at the tunic’s drawstrings. “At the Dome of the Sun, they taught us that Velaska’s Fire originated with the Knights of the Sun, who used it to turn their swords into brands of holy flame. I’d never used the prayer to bless a sword before … but then I’d never faced maelgloth either. I don’t think it broke my oaths. I caused no harm—and if they’d truly been living things, instead of cursed ones, your sword should have hurt them less, not more.”

  That sounded like sophistry to Asharre, but she wasn’t the one who had to abide by Illuminer oaths. She only cared about one thing. “That was what killed the bile spitter?” It hadn’t been her work, certainly. She knew her swing was bad when she made it. Her caractan couldn’t have hurt it that badly unaided.

  “Yes. The fire melted its flesh. Like water on salt.”

  “Then we have some chance of reaching Shadefell alive.”

  “A fair chance. Better than fair, if there are not too many maelgloth and the Bright Lady lends us her grace … and a few of my other guesses are correct.” Evenna sighed. “I wish Falcien were still with us. I’ve been wishing that all night. I can’t tell you how much knowledge was lost with that man. But be that as it may, we have a chance. Not a good one, I won’t lie. One of us must go back. Someone has to tell the High Solaros the truth of Carden Vale.”

  “Heradion.”

  Evenna’s blue eyes lingered on hers, weighing. “Why?”

  “He’s a better rider. I’m a better sword. If you’re only taking one guardian, you should have the best, and he has a better chance of making it through the passes.”

  The Illuminer smiled at her hands. The expression was a little sad, Asharre thought. “I’ll let you explain it to him, then. You had better reasons.”

  “Did I?”

  “I was going to send him back just for the sake of a girl. One I’m not supposed to know about, at that.” Evenna gestured to her sun medallion, letting her fingers fall before they brushed its gold. “Our road can be hard, but I think it’s easier than his. You and I have no family, no obligations beyond the oaths we’ve sworn. It’s no accident that so many of Celestia’s Blessed come from the cloister children. We don’t have any loyalties outside the temple. You’ve made equal sacrifices to dedicate yourself to your calling—or greater ones. You gave up a family, a homeland. Most of us never had that choice. Heradion, though … he has a family who loves him, a woman who hopes for his safe return. He tries to hide those ties, maybe so we won’t doubt his devotion, but he has them.”

  “Good,” Asharre said after a moment’s reflection. “It will give him a reason to want to return to Cailan. Wanting helps, when the way is not easy.”

  “I get the uncomfortable feeling I’m being talked about.” Heradion came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes. He’d washed the old blood from his hair, but new blood had seeped in and crusted overnight, and he continued to treat his left leg gingerly. Nonetheless, he looked alert, almost cheerful.

  “You’re going back to Cailan,” Evenna told him. She stepped away from the stool and began emptying the pouches from her herb bag, counting her supplies and checking their condition with the precision of long practice. Oralia had done the same thing almost nightly on the road. Asharre looked away, remembering.

  “Am I now.” Heradion peeked into the kettle, then covered it again with a grimace. “No breakfast? That is a sin. Well, while I find something more solid than tea to eat, perhaps you can explain to me why I’d do that.”

  “Someone has to tell the High Solaros what we’ve found. That someone is you. You’re the best rider among us, so you have the best odds of making it through the passes. Asharre and I will go to Shadefell and look for survivors from Carden Vale.”

  “If there are any,” Heradion said doubtfully. He replaced the kettle of oversteeped tea with fresh water. “I don’t mind the ride—really, there’s nothing I’d love better than to bounce up a mountain on horseback while my arse slowly turns to a block of ice—but I must confess I’m not thrilled at the prospect of fighting maelgloth alone. My expertise with the sword awes all the ladies, but these monsters don’t seem as easily impressed.”

  “You won’t be fighting them,” Evenna said, opening a tiny ceramic bottle and sniffing the tincture it held. “You’ll be running. The maelgloth don’t leave the town, and they don’t come out by day.” She exchanged an uneasy glance with Asharre. “They seem to be kept away by that variant sunburst we’ve been seeing too. Maybe. If they do come, you might try it. Anyway, if you leave soon, you’ll be out of the Vale by nightfall.”

  “Well.” Heradion gazed into the hearth, holding his palms toward the flames. “Nothing to hunt, no water but what I carry, monsters at my back, and madness in the mountains. Why, that’s hardly any challenge at all. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to cripple my horse first? Maybe tie my hands, give me a blindfold? Just to keep me from getting complacent, you understand.”

  “You’ll go?”

  “Of course I’ll go.” He looked up, grinned. “I could never refuse two beautiful ladies.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Evenna said crisply. “Best go as soon as you’ve eaten. No sense wasting daylight.”

  They saw him off after a breakfast of boiled millet and honey. A night in the inn had calmed the gray mare enough to take a saddle, and the animal seemed glad to leave. Asharre stood in the cold, watching them, until they were out of sight behind greening trees and rocky walls. Then she went to help Evenna build Falcien’s pyre.

  A dule tree stood outside the crumbling walls north of Carden Vale. Under its rope-scarred branches, the earth w
as bare and blackened. Most towns had a communal burning ground, and this one was little different from the others Asharre had seen. A bark-roofed wall of firewood, spotted with small white mushrooms, ran alongside the pyre pit. Soot flecked the wood and sat between the logs like little drifts of black snow.

  Asharre did most of the work, arranging the firewood in a cross-hatched pyramid. A proper Celestian pyre involved incense and prayers while laying the logs in ceremonial patterns, but Asharre didn’t know the prayers or the patterns, and if she made any mistakes in her ignorance, Evenna did not correct them. The Illuminer hardly seemed to notice what was going on; she often fell into fugues or started at sounds Asharre didn’t hear. The sigrir wondered how badly her companion was suffering for her sleepless night.

  By midday the pyre was ready. They laid Falcien atop the logs, still shrouded in his altar cloth, and Evenna scattered handfuls of herbs and flowers over his body. Dried chamomile, for peaceful sleep. Dandelions, yellow and ubiquitous as sunlight. There were others whose names and significance Asharre did not recognize. After tossing the last sprigs over the logs, Evenna doused them with lamp oil and thrust a torch into the pyre’s belly.

  The fire was slow to start, but once it caught, it burned with a sudden red fury.

  They watched it burn until sunset. Several times the wind turned, stinging Asharre’s eyes with smoke and bringing a nauseating wash of decay from afar. The smell of Carden Vale’s corruption, she thought. It stank of infected wounds and dead things rotting in mud, of sulfur and old urine and mold. But Evenna showed no reaction to the smell and never stepped back from the smoke, and Asharre’s pride would let her do no less. She ignored it, at least outwardly, and refused to blink at the windblown ash.

  After the first few times it was easy; by dusk she hardly noticed it at all. Weariness helped make her stoic. At sunset Evenna prayed by the smoldering remains of the pyre. After she finished, the two of them walked back to the Rosy Maiden to wait out the night.