Book Read Free

The Rising Scythe

Page 30

by S G Dunster


  All except, Umbra had declared solemnly, magicks that were conceived in blood and death. The destruction of innocence. But, she had taught Thessaly, such things could breed powerful workings, and a wytch who dealt in such things could be strong indeed.

  And rich.

  Thessaly shook her head. Again, she was seeing magicks everywhere. It was likely that some of these girls went off on ships, some ran away, some were eaten by beasts in the forest.

  Wasn’t it?

  But from the way she was hearing it told . . . .

  And she had seen workings, and strange things, ever since she sailed into harbor here. There were wytches here, people with magicks. From whence did they obtain their powers?

  This Fydoler fairly ran with gold in his veins.

  The circle around the hill was bound magicks. Was it also meant as a shield from prying eyes? These Dumenon, they could have old practices. Old magicks. And wytches, who worked them.

  Thessaly rose, fear and purpose thrumming through her. “I’m tired,” she said.

  Something in her tone caused all of them to turn toward her, and none of them to argue. As one, they left, and walked back to the abbey. The men escorted Thessaly and Rosalie and Beatrice up their stairway.

  Back in their room, Thessaly, Rosalie, and Beatrice sponged themselves off with the tepid water that had sat in the basin all day. They changed into clean chemises.

  “Thank you for letting me borrow from you, Thessaly,” Beatrice said, pulling the shift down over her body. The pale cotton gleamed against her dark skin. “I’ve worn the same smallclothes for two days.” She paused, and gave Thessaly a steady look. “T’was a good time, tonight. But that . . . what the barwife said, about the girls going missing. I’ve a feeling,” she touched her chest. “There’s oddness to it. I want to see if I can look into it.”

  “Maybe wolves ate them,” Rosalie offered.

  “There aren’t any wolves here,” Beatrice said. “Only sheep, and ponies.”

  Something about the words Rosalie had used twinged inside Thessaly. Wolves, and eating. Preying.

  That’s what it was. That’s the feeling she had about this. And that was the edge of her worry for Guzal—a sense of prey, and a predator. Something greedy. Something that wanted.

  Her head suddenly seemed to split open with cold. She stumbled and sat on the edge of the bed, closing her eyes tight.

  “Thessaly! Thessaly,” Rosalie said, kneeling next to her.

  “I’m well,” Thessaly said. She blinked and stood. She’d unfettered again—loose floes, the floes of seeing. Vision.

  She’d seen it just for a second—something dark, something ravenous—a shadow leaning across the ground, touching the death-pale toe of a naked girl, barely more than a child. She lay in the dark, blue with cold. Thessaly could feel the slow, feeble beat of her heart.

  It was real, Thessaly thought. It was real. I saw truth. Past, present, or future? She did not know. Did it mean that the woman at the bar was right, and someone, something had taken away girls from the village?

  Had someone taken Guzal? The cold, stinging mass inside her conveyed a feeling, glowing bright through the mass of silver as well—of urgency and suffering. Fear. Running.

  Predator.

  Prey.

  Something, Thessaly thought, is taking girls away from mothers in this place.

  Someone.

  The certainty solidified and brought a picture of a face she well knew, not predator but prey: pale almond eyes and winged, dark brows. Tangled, gold hair. Sweet, curved lips.

  Guzal. Someone has taken Guzal.

  It struck her then, the edgy nerves she’d felt for two days, aching inside her like a bad tooth. She’d pushed it away, ignored it, but now it rose up, rotten and real, seared through her by a wave of ice, then a wave of fire.

  Guzal was in real trouble.

  She must go and look for her. She must search. She was the only one who would, the only one who could.

  Slowly, as the others drifted off to sleep, she undid her fetters, let the magicks blaze through her. She closed her eyes and waited, and when she was certain they were gone to sleep, she rose.

  Thessaly went into Guzal’s room and closed her eyes tight. She touched the bed where the girl slept.

  She poured silver magicks into it and thought hard. Power flowed through her in a heady rush and ate through the straw—the cool unbound floes would not set it afire, Thessaly reminded herself. She was not going to burn down the abbey in doing this working.

  Slowly, but distinctly, an image came to Thessaly of a dark place—a damp place, smelling of old dirt, of close breath, and filth.

  She is being kept somewhere, Thessaly thought.

  More images came—frightened faces, pale limbs, tangled hair, and then a great, wracking pain took Thessaly. She gasped and drew herself in, but not before something stared back at her, eyes glittering, searching.

  Dark eyes. Almond-shaped.

  The Fydoler, Thessaly thought, her body going numb. “Vinculum,” she hissed to herself, and the magicks trickled, with an odd slowness, back to her core. She felt clumsy as she fumbled with her fetters.

  Whatever that was, whatever had just stung her, it had made her slow, stupid.

  A spell, Thessaly was certain. A working. She’d looked where she wasn’t welcome and had been touched.

  And seen.

  Well, then, it was time to depart. Time to look.

  She took some of Guzal’s clothes to wear—a simple linen chemise and a sleeveless overdress. She wished again for boots, slipping into her sturdiest leather slippers. They banded across the arch of her foot, and so they were less likely to slip off.

  And, she thought, creeping along the hall toward the stair, they have the added virtue of keeping my footfalls silent.

  The front door was guarded. Thessaly froze at the top of the stairway and slipped into the shadows.

  Father Raymund. He sat there on a stool beside the door, a book in hand, a lamp on the floor casting light through the hall. He looked up sharply, and Thessaly retreated further.

  Had he been the one? No, he had pale eyes, not dark. He hadn’t looked back at her through this spell. But perhaps . . . perhaps someone had sent him.

  Trembling, Thessaly waited, her mind racing.

  If she had to, she thought, creeping back down the stairs. If she had to, she could hurt him.

  Burn him.

  Father Raymund rose up off his stool, watched her for a moment, saw the direction she headed, and sat again, picking up his book.

  Well, then. He did not seem to care where she went as long as she didn’t move toward the quarters where the men slept. That was a relief.

  Why didn’t he care? Hadn’t he escorted her up the stairs before? He was an odd one, certainly.

  She did not want anyone seeing her leave the abbey. Likely someone watched, now. She’d frightened someone with her vision. The sting of the response still sang through her body.

  Thessaly climbed the other stair, past the nun’s quarters, to the frigid little room with its sitting-holes carved out of wood. She shivered and went to the outside door, moving carefully down the stairs. They were narrow and of uneven stone.

  The night breeze blasted her, crusting her nose with salt and the scent of wet earth.

  She began walking along the road. The moon was just above the horizon; she hoped she would be there in time. It would be an hour’s walk at least, back to the hill where the dancers were.

  She would take him.

  She would burn him, she thought grimly, until he told her where he kept Guzal and all the other girls.

  Just below the hill she stopped, sat, and closed her eyes tight again. She let loose the unbound floes, allowed their silver to move over a wide space, and felt.

  Odd. There wasn’t anything. None of the darkness and dank and close feelings, none of the fear.

  She sat and focused on the area around her and tried again.

  Nothing.r />
  Well then. Somewhere else?

  She ventured further into the forest, to the mine’s pit, and nodded to a man who stood at the door of the tower. He nodded back, his face wrinkled in concern. “You’d better not venture into the Exmoor on your own,” he called after her. The way he formed the last word sounded as if it had two syllables: Ow-un. Owen. It echoed in her mind.

  She sat again, taking a deep breath to contain her fear. Could she follow it? Sense a direction it may come from? It was strong indeed. Would it thicken like a foul scent as she drew closer? If so, she must open herself to it entirely, in spite of the pain.

  Immediately, she felt it—the misery, the fear, the stink of bodies close.

  It was not coming from the hill.

  Nor the forest.

  She stood, and followed, carefully, the path, back through the village. Past the village.

  The Tor. That’s what she was walking to.

  The Tor? Why would the Dumenon hide girls right on the property of the DuCarnes?

  Or. Had she been misdirected all along? Lady DuCarne had talked of magicks alone, but there was the barrier. The mistletoe. Perhaps she’d been wrong to set aside concerns and thoughts over the Lady of Dunne’s Tor.

  The road sloped up. She was at the foot of the hill.

  She turned from the road then, following the scent of fear, and found herself along the sea’s shore, the marshy area at the foot of the DuCarne’s holdings. The water lapped silver in the moonlight, the choppy waves gleaming like clusters of diamonds.

  She was starting to feel something new—a tug at her silver floes, bound magicks. It beckoned and tasted musty. Warm.

  Flesh, Fire, she thought.

  The feeling grew stronger, buzzing, then warming her bones. Her floes seemed suddenly to depart her, reaching for something, wanting to join, like a puddle wishes to run to the sea.

  The trees thickened, the moon’s light above casting queer shadows that seemed to move and blink and slither through the trees and along the uneven ground as if they had life.

  And then suddenly, she came into a clearing. Soft, even grass, and an opening above, where the swollen crescent above spilled strong light down on the entire scene.

  They wore loose, flowing garments of white. The material was sheer, so their forms were clearly visible beneath—women, slender, young. In a circle. Dancing.

  Something about it drew her. It was strange, powerful, like feeling the warmth of a fire, and wanting to draw closer so the skin prickled with pleasure.

  In spite of her own misgivings, and the niggle of caution that edged her mind, Thessaly walked so she stood just outside the group of them. The pleasure strengthened, and made her shiver as she stood there, looking on them.

  They were beautiful. Unearthly. Long falls of hair, rippling like magick down slender forms. The angelic whiteness of their gowns, made even brighter by the pouring moonlight, was still fragile enough to reveal the supple forms beneath, and their graceful, athletic movements as they moved around, whirling and bending.

  Slowly, they stopped and gazed up at Thessaly, standing on the rise slightly above them.

  “You’ve come,” one of them said, and pulled the hood off her face.

  Whomever she was, she was lovely, strong, sharp bones in her face gleaming. Her hair rippled down her back, silver-blond. “Come,” She said. “You have questions. You have magicks. Come join us, and we will do workings.”

  Thessaly’s mind was fuzzing, warming, chasing itself as if the ale she’d drunk had been far more potent.

  They drew her, the circle.

  So beautiful.

  So much power—she felt it in them; the warmth. The fire. The pleasure of it, as it burned through the circle of them.

  Slowly, dazed, Thessaly obeyed. The others moved to make a space for her. A few of them looked familiar as well—faces from the manor’s staff, Thessaly thought fuzzily. Wytches, all. Where is Lady DuCarne, then?

  They closed their eyes and began to sway. The one who had invited Thessaly took her by the hand. Heat immediately flared through her, singeing her so she cried out, and then rebounding, warming, and tingling through her in a way that made her cry out again, only softly, differently.

  They swayed and sang, each taking up a tone. It wasn’t a song; it was resonance, finding a plane on which to place floes. Thessaly found hers and brought in a low hum—a vibration that churned through them and began to shake the ground.

  They all gasped and the ground inside the circle rose up, hunching like a boil, and then exploding in a hiss of steam. The heat. Thessaly felt the heat inside it, smelting, boiling. The pleasure was impossible. Unbearable.

  That was when Thessaly realized. The pain she’d been feeling ever since she had chosen was not pain.

  It was pleasure—pleasure so intense it felt like pain when it caught her unawares. But if she followed it, if she allowed it to take her over, if she drowned in it . . . .

  They were moving, now. Dancing. Caressing. A hand touched her shoulder, another touched her neck. There was a great red wave. Thessaly saw it approach and thrilled to it. Waited, waited.

  It broke over her, washing her to the ground, pouring over her. She screamed but did not hear herself. It was too much for noise, too much for feeling. Too much for a world of things one could touch. It was all feeling.

  The earth rose up and seemed to swallow her, cradle her, pleasure her.

  “That is right,” a sweet voice whispered to her. “That is right. Let it take you. You are one of ours, now, Thessaly. One of ours.”

  Chapter 15

  S

  he woke quite suddenly. Sitting up, she looked around. She was alone. The sea lapped up against the soft dirt, and rays of sun filtered through the trees above. She stood. Her knees trembled, so she leaned against the slope of the hill she’d been lying on for a moment, then walked around it.

  The top was charred, and a hint of smoke hit her nostrils. Just past it was a strange old structure; a dolmen with a roof made of turf. The shadows inside seemed extra-black, like something more concentrated than darkness lay inside.

  She walked to it, then ducked under. She breathed in deeply. The air was thick and sweet. It was like a meal, nourishing. She stopped shaking.

  Had it been a dream?

  No. It had not.

  I must stop dismissing these feelings, she thought. Her head pounded. She was still reeling a bit.

  She walked home, her mind a whir of magicks and wonder.

  There was something hanging on her. Something that niggled at her, tormented her.

  She didn’t realize until she came to the abbey door that she was not counting steps, nor was she moving waves inside her.

  She closed her eyes and looked inside.

  Bound and loose, the twin masses of floe inside her had stilled and calmed. They burned like sun and moon at her core sending brilliant rays of silver and gold through her entire system, touching her periphery. Lovely, orderly, and in complete harmony.

  Thessaly shouted, jumped, then put a hand tight over her own mouth as a disgruntled pigeon took off from the roof, calling agitatedly.

  She made her way partway around the building toward the garderobe stairs, and then stopped short.

  She was what she was, and nobody could do anything about it. Nothing could touch her. She had harnessed bound and loose floes, and there was nothing on earth that could do anything to fetter her.

  She walked in the front door instead of going around to the garderobe stairs. She entered boldly, nodded at Father Raymund who still waited there, and made her way up the stairs without apology or comment.

  She entered the room. Both Rosalie and Beatrice were still asleep, but Nur, resting on her perch in the corner, turned her wide yellow eyes on Thessaly.

  “It has been too long since we’ve flown together,” Thessaly said. “Come.”

  Nur took a step back, ruffled up the down on her chest, and tucked her head under her wing.

  �
�Perhaps not,” Thessaly said. She went to the washbasin and worked on her arms, her hands, her face. Her hair had bits of leaf in it.

  As she took off the overdress and lowered the sleeves of her chemise, she stopped still.

  There were burns on her shoulder.

  She touched her neck and found more. One at her nape. One more on the back of her shoulder.

  The floes of the women who had touched her—they had burned her. Where they’d entered her, they’d burned. But the angry-red spots didn’t hurt when she touched them, she realized, probing carefully.

  Her exultation began to ebb as she donned clothing for mass, and as she sat before the altar with its hundred candles. Again the prick of worry, purpose, determination took over.

  Guzal. She needed to find Guzal.

  This vision of hers. She had to follow it. And it seemed Guzal was being held somewhere. With the help of these powerful women, she could find her missing friend.

  Perhaps, Thessaly thought, these women were fighting whichever dark force was taking these girls. Whether it be Dumenon, or Dunne’s Tor. Perhaps they had already taken the cause in hand. Perhaps they already knew about the missing girls. Well, having claimed both magicks, she could help them in their cause, while they helped her in hers. They had to have knowledge of anything mystical in the area.

  She would go back to the women tonight, Thessaly decided. Together, they would make a working, and make them bring back Guzal. And the other girls that had been taken. Any that were still living.

  The wytches she’d met, the wytches she’d formed an unbendable sisterhood with—together they were powerful enough to burn down all of the Exmoor if they needed to. She’d found her teachers, her advocates, and her fellow-pupils. Papa was right to bring me here.

  “What?” Rosalie asked her, prodding her shoulder.

  “Did I speak aloud?” Thessaly murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  Beatrice bent over Thessaly suddenly. “Thessaly. Are you all right? Perhaps you’d better lay down. You didn’t even brush through your hair this morning, and you’re still wearing your dress from mass.

  “I’m fine,” Thessaly said, putting her hand to her head and realizing, with surprise, that Beatrice was right.

 

‹ Prev