The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  What had she been doing all morning?

  Thinking of the feelings she’d had the night before. The circle. The pleasure, the pain, and what a wonderful pleasure it would be to join them again.

  And she’d been thinking of Guzal, she reminded herself firmly. Guzal, and the other girls.

  She struggled to concentrate. She felt so good. Warmth and cool flowed through her, throbbing beautifully at points—her chest, her neck. Where her legs came together. Where her arms joined her body. The bend in her elbow. Her hand. All felt like they throbbed power, a benevolent force, waiting for her.

  It was like having a plate of ripe fruit in front of her. She thought of how it would taste, using those pools of floes—bound, unbound. How it would be to touch something, to infuse something. Anything.

  She managed to eat food, but not much of it. Rosalie and Beatrice decided to skip another day at the manner, and Thessaly was glad, and worried. With this much time away, the DuCarnes were bound to send someone after them, and perhaps they would no longer have the freedom to miss days after that. Also, there was the real possibility of Lady DuCarne writing Thessaly’s father.

  Still, she couldn’t face the possibility. Not after what had occurred the night before. Would she know? Sense the magicks on Thessaly?

  If she was a worker of Magicks, there was no doubt she would. And if it were the DuCarnes involved in the girls’ disappearance, it would be a tipping of cards.

  She must stay away.

  But, a voice edged in Thessaly’s mind, Guzal is there. Perhaps she is simply being imposed upon. Perhaps DuCarne . . .

  She couldn’t force her thoughts along all the worried directions it could take.

  Also, she’d seen. Guzal was not safe. And not in a sumptuous dwelling, nor even a bare room of Dunne’s Tor Manse. She was somewhere dark, filthy, and cold. And she was frightened.

  Thessaly had felt it.

  Hadn’t she?

  “Are you quite all right, Thessaly?” Father Raymund’s voice startled Thessaly out of her musings, and

  the real world morphed around her cruelly and harshly. Scents from dinner—onion and chicken broth, normally so appetizing—made her stomach twist and rebel. The close air of the stuffy little room where they had class.

  “Thessaly.” Father Raymund’s hand was suddenly on the back of her head, and Rye and Robert at her sides. It was like moments went away, and Thessaly was suddenly in a next scene.

  “Help her up to her room.” The priest’s voice seemed to stretch, to elongate strangely, and the warmth of the two men’s arms through hers was immensely comforting, but also jarring. The world swam and lurched by—the stairs to her room, and she fell into the soft mattress with a shock like cold water.

  She felt better when she woke, but it was nearly supper. She had slept the entire

  afternoon away. Am I sick? she wondered.

  She glanced through the window and saw the sky was cloudless. It would be another

  night of bright moonlight.

  Would they be back in the woods?

  A sudden anticipation burned, flowing with her magicks, stirring them so they sparked and cracked.

  Power could hurt, she told herself. But it was not evil to itself. It was just strong.

  She left, again, after the two girls fell asleep, again passing Father Raymund, who must have guarding the men’s quarters at the beginning of the night as one of his duties, Thessaly thought, nodding at him on her way to the garderobe.

  She slipped from the abbey and followed the road up to the Tor, almost running.

  When she arrived at the place, they were there already, gathered in a circle. They wore white, Thessaly realized. She hadn’t paid attention to such details the night before, only the feelings she’d had, looking for Guzal, and then the intensity of the pleasure that broke over her when she found the sisters.

  They beckoned.

  Wordlessly, the girl from the garden handed Thessaly a garment—it was light, delicate. Thin, finely woven cotton, Thessaly thought, fingering it. She tugged on Thessaly’s collar. Thessaly nodded and peeled off the overdress, chemise, and hose.

  She stood naked under an almost-full moon, bright enough for all the world to see, and yet she didn’t care a whit. It was an odd feeling. Comforting. Drifting. Warm.

  She pulled on the garment. It fell over her like wind and clouds, settling at her ankles. It felt like nothing.

  They danced again. The fire and flesh flew around them, bound in the circle, and speared through the middle, refracting from woman to woman, burning with pleasure.

  A woman stepped forward, dark and strangely bulbous under her robe. Was she holding something?

  She reached into a fold of her garment and held up a silver scythe—small, curved in a curious arc, engraved at the hilt. She held out a hand. The robe flowed tight over her figure, and Thessaly saw that the bulge was her body itself—a massive distortion. Tumor, possession, infestation, Thessaly thought blearily as she stepped forward, the ground swinging with her movement. Infection . . . I must help her . . . .

  Thessaly stretched her arm out and she took it, slicing through the meat of her palm. She cried out, and the woman lowered her face, bringing her lips to the gash. Thessaly fell to her knees as pleasure roared through her even while blood was drawn out of her.

  In turn each woman drank and then knelt. “We are one,” the woman intoned. “We are fire.” The others repeated, “we are fire.” Thessaly’s lips moved, too. “We are flesh,” the woman said.

  “We are flesh,” Thessaly said aloud, her voice loud in her ears.

  The world seemed suddenly to go dark. Thessaly lost the ground and the sky. She floated through an odd, comforting space. All was soft, all was pleasure. Warm. And the power inside pulsed fierce, hot. With each throb, Thessaly gasped.

  It was too much.

  Too much.

  She woke lying on a bed of moss. She was naked, but the clothing she had worn to meet them was neatly folded, placed above her head.

  Reeling slightly, she pulled on her chemise and Guzal’s overshirt.

  Guzal. The thought flashed through her. She sat, hard. She’d forgotten. How had she forgotten? She was going to ask them. She was going to have them help her find Guzal. They were going to burn down the Exmoor.

  We are one.

  Thessaly closed her eyes, tried reaching out, but couldn’t find any of them. They were gone, not just from eyesight, but from the inner sight as well.

  She closed her eyes and tried harder. Workers of floes were easy to spot—they tended to have a sort of shimmer, a halo. They tended to have stronger floes running through them. They lit up like torches on a moonless night.

  But she couldn’t find anything.

  A twinge of heat. An odd throb. She felt something, but it wasn’t floes. It was . . .

  Pain, Thessaly thought, grabbing her chest. Pain inside.

  Smoke curled out from her fingers. She lifted her hand. The overdress—Guzal’s—was scorching. A brown scar spread over her chest, up her arms.

  What was wrong? What was happening?

  “Vinculum,” she gasped, but the floes did not obey. They stayed, rayed out and steady, two wide, blinding orbs inside her, bright and at peace.

  The overdress was smoking. Quickly, she took it off, threw it over her shoulder, and ran for the abbey. The cold struck her hard through her thin chemise and shift.

  She was looking for Raymund. When she got to the abbey there was no sign of him; not at the door, not in the refectory, not even in the cloister as she peered through the archways.

  She ran right into him.

  Not Father Raymund.

  The fydelor.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and regarded her with startled, but laughing dark eyes.

  Thessaly stared up at him for a moment, sure she was dreaming on her feet again. “How comes it to be you’ve got such black eyes, when most all your kinsman have blue?” she blurted out. “And where is my
maid? Guzal? What have you done with her?”

  Then shock thrilled through her as she realized she was not dreaming, that she had actually spoken, and he was actually there. She took a step toward him, narrowing her eyes. Here he was. She could burn him and make him tell her. Make him. Burn him.

  “I got them from my dear ma,” he answered, his voice echoing oddly. “The eyes. And I’ve no idea . . . no idea . . . .” His expression changed, then, to something different. The laughter fled. He looked serious, alarmed.

  “You’re under glamor,” he murmured. “Did you know? You’ve been put under a glamor.” He grabbed her arms and shook her. “What’s your name? Who’ve you been with? Tell me.”

  She stood there, thoughts thick, running through her head like freezing water. She shook her head. “Tell me where Guzal is,” she said, only her words came out wrong. Strange.

  Something lifted her. Confined her. Something carried her outside. Green grasses, grey cobbles. Her eyes found them, but no meaning in them. She thought only of the question she wanted to ask. Guzal. Her face. And the circle, the sisters.

  She realized, after a while, that she was being carried. Through the forest. Up a hill—the hill. The hill where the dancing had been done.

  And then back down, into trees.

  She began to fight, jabbing with her elbows. She was being taken, too. Because she’d asked. Because she’d said Guzal’s name. The man, the Fydoler, he was taking her, like he’d taken the other girls. “Let me go,” she screamed, only she didn’t—words dribbled from her mouth like spittle, and she was limp. She couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t move, she realized, panicking suddenly. And he was taking her.

  She was being taken.

  Guzal, she thought, as the world spun.

  No. She couldn’t let this happen. She couldn’t be taken. She had to save herself, save Guzal.

  She dug deep, though her mind didn’t want to hold in place, though it didn’t want to stay, though words fled her. She dug into the mass of silver, the fire, and pushed it out. Out, into the arms that grasped her, into the body that carried her.

  A shout, and the ground rose up to meet her. Her nose met dirt.

  She breathed it in, feeling the ricochet of the fire course through her, and stood.

  Then she ran.

  She ran through the woods, stumbling, falling, up over the hill, down toward the streets.

  There was the mine, its tall tower. There were people all around there, and none could take her. None.

  She hid there in a copse of trees until nightfall, and as the hours passed, her thoughts coalesced and sharpened. Fear began to beat a tattoo in her body.

  The Fydoler.

  He’d had her.

  But she’d escaped.

  He had Guzal, too. And the others.

  She had to ask them, tonight. The sisters, they had to go and get the girls from wherever the Fydoler had hidden them with his magicks. His were loose magicks—gold. The sisters had a large body of the bound magicks. The two were natural enemies, as Thessaly had cause to know.

  Please, Thessaly muttered under her breath, again not realizing she was actually speaking the words aloud. Please. Please. Let Guzal be still alive when we find her.

  Let Guzal still be alive.

  Let her death not be on my head.

  As the moon rose, she began to shiver. She took from her store of magicks and allowed it to lick along her veins and warm her.

  She waited until long after the night’s bell sounded and men poured out, then into the tall tower. She waited until she heard the voices descend and then go silent as they went deep into the earth.

  She left her hiding place and walked down the road again, looking all directions as she did, sending out a bit of her loose floes to see.

  She didn’t sense the Fydoler.

  In fact, she sensed no magicks at all.

  Anxiety stirred in her middle. She hoped they would meet again tonight. She hoped.

  As she neared the Tor, she began to feel them. She ran and found them already, kneeling in a circle.

  “Welcome, sister,” the dark, bulbous one intoned. “Kneel with us. Tonight, we partake of the sacrament.”

  Thessaly knelt with them, and immediately filled with fire and warmth. She struggled against it.

  Guzal, she thought. I must ask them to help me.

  The first of the women, the one who had invited her, began to murmur. Thessaly did not recognize the language, but the words felt odd. Crawly. Itchy. They settled badly in her stomach. “Now you repeat,” the woman said softly.

  “I shall,” Thessaly replied. “But—“

  “Repeat. After sacrament, we shall attend to the business you bring us.”

  They already knew, then? Or did they just sense her need, her disquiet? Hope flared. They would help her.

  Obediently, the women in the circle repeated the words, Thessaly murmuring with them.

  The unpleasant feeling grew as they said many strange words.

  The bulbous woman held out a scythe and slashed at each hand in turn. Each woman squeezed a spattering of blood onto the ground. Thessaly offered her hand as well. This time, the slash was only pain, only a shock of pure, sore, opened flesh. Keeping her face calm, her eyes unfocused like the others, she overturned her hand and squeezed out blood.

  The ground opened.

  Thessaly gaped, unable to believe what she saw. “Guzal,” She rasped. “How are you here?”

  Chapter 16

  T

  here were three of them, bound, gagged, filthy with dirt. Guzal’s fair, thick braids had been undone. Her hair was wild, lank, ragged. Her eyes wide and fearful. They widened still more, seeing Thessaly there.

  What was this? Thessaly blinked. No, she wasn’t dreaming.

  What was this?

  Guzal, and the two other girls—both with the broad, pale faces and night-dark hair, the summer-blue eyes that marked Dumenon girls—were dragged out, each lifted by two of the women in white. They were brought into the moonlight.

  A fire roared to life in the middle of the circle they formed—a fire without fuel or spark to start it. A fire of magicks alone. It stunned Thessaly in its beauty, its power.

  Thessaly closed her eyes. The power there was warm, enticing. She couldn’t let herself go. She couldn’t. Guzal’s fearful face. These girls, bound and dirty.

  The fire. So much pleasure there. So much she could do. Her fingers tingled with warmth. Floes were slipping from binds.

  Slowly, as if they drew her with fetters of their own, Thessaly joined the women in the circle. She joined hands, and gasped as her floes sprinted through the circle, touching and filling each of her sisters. Unfettered.

  Guzal was only a pile of . . . something. There in the middle, with the others. A small, ragged pile of flesh and blood.

  Fuel. The word came to Thessaly’s mind. Fuel.

  Guzal. Thessaly shook her head and tried to break it. The trance, whatever it was that had her dancing with them, around these three pathetic figures. In contrast, the sisters she held hands with, they were pure joy, pure beauty. The power of them crackled at her core, filled her with fire, swelled her with pleasure.

  The dancing stopped, and the moon glinted off the sharp, small curve of the silver scythe. The dark, bulbous woman—the chief of them, Thessaly knew by now—took the scythe to each of the sisters, waited for a moment. As she approached each woman, her face would light with pleasure, hope, and something else. A desire. A flare of pure desire, like someone with a great thirst being taunted by a goblet of wine.

  Finally the bulbous woman came to Thessaly, hesitated a moment, and handed her the scythe.

  “Take one,” she said, pointing to the girls in the center. “Spill her to the fire.”

  The others moaned, as if in envy, but moved close to the girls, as if waiting.

  Waiting for her to spill.

  No. Kill.

  For her to kill.

  Thessaly’s ha
nd trembled. She wanted to. She felt the warm floes in them, the youth, the sweetness of them, welling and ripe at their skin. The hot moonlight burned all of them pure, all of them in the circle, and the fire waited for the incense of their blood and flesh. It would be a savor far sweeter than jasmine, even more cleansing than sage.

  She closed her eyes. She could see it—a swift cut, and sweet, dark juice bubbling and thickening in the fire.

  She took a step forward.

  “Thessaly,” Guzal choked. “Please.”

  Thessaly opened her eyes.“Spill her,” the mother said.

  “Spill her,” the sisters answered.

  Thessaly’s lips formed the word—the word she’d kept tucked deep in her brain with the little bands of floe she’d secreted there with them.

  Thessaly gathered her floes, where they emanated from her, and felt as if all her system, all her body and spirit trembled. She took a deep breath. “V-vinculum,” she whispered.

  The mother moved toward her swiftly, eyes narrowed.

  “Vinculum!” Thessaly shouted it the second time. All the sisters gasped as floes were whipped away, drawn back to her core, carrying a few alien floes with them in a tangled, ruddy mass. She looked at the scythe in her hand, shuddered, and whirled, hurling it toward the sea. It gleamed, turning under the moonlight, and fell into the water.

  They all ran for her, hissing. Eyes black with fury, with greed. Thessaly felt an edge of their thirst. They wanted her now.

  Well, Thessaly thought. Ask, and ye shall receive.

  She looked at Guzal and the two girls huddled there to provoke the feeling she needed: the anger, the horror.

  Fire on flesh. It poured from her hands in a great pyre. The women stumbled to a halt. One trail of soft cotton sleeve caught the edge of the flame Thessaly wielded and immediately flared, sparking from one woman to the next. They shouted, screamed, and smoke filled the air, bright flames dancing over them. Veils and hoods of fire where thin, pale linen had clothed them. They collapsed on the ground, writhing, crawling, sobbing.

  Breath, with blood. She felt the tingle of wind and summoned it, a flow of it with her own floes, stirring the great licks of salted water that touched the shore. She sweated, bringing the great mass, the great burden of it closer, closer, up onto the soil until it washed over it, a great sheet of foam, dancing through their feet. More, and more. A flood of water, carrying with it small creatures, rocks, things inert and alive. She found the scythe, gleaming silver with bound floes, and brought it in with the surf. Thessaly fell to her knees. She was dizzy, empty. Weak from the effort.