by Carol Berg
The artifact was blessedly easy to recognize, a small paper cone, totally unremarkable unless one could visualize the tangled knot of spell-lines that dangled from it in garish disarray. One by one I detached each tendril and destroyed it. When all was done, I crumpled the paper and stuck it in my pocket.
I fell asleep in the saddle, as my young guide was telling Devil how fine it would be for the two of them to ride beyond the horizon to discover palaces and kings. On our return to the village, he elbowed me to get off. Trusting him to care for my horse, I crawled gratefully into my nest in the lambing shed, ignoring the horrendous clamor of Andero’s snoring. It had been a very good day’s work.
Yet, as I sank into the straw, my satisfaction was blighted by imagining Portier captive…buried, perhaps, for another whole day. The voices of the aether wailed in wordless hunger, as if my magics had reopened the wound in the Veil.
Surely through the next hours I walked the road of the dead. Every breath tasted of rosemary and ash. Fingers pawed at me like whispers: Daemon, daemon, daemon. One clearer voice spoke, too, gentle and firm. Pay them no mind. Thou’rt my worthy companion, stronger than you know. It matters not that you were born in darkness to another fate. His silken hair and long coat shifted colors with his stride, gold and gray. His smile that was not quite a smile soothed my fears. But when I woke once again to the everlasting dark, I was screaming.
CHAPTER 14
DEMESNE OF ARABASCA
The old doomsayer did not come to bid us farewell. Too bad. I wanted to tell him that this journey was about greed, arrogance, political power, and the truths of nature, not anyone’s myths of daemons and angels. He certainly wasn’t all that vigilant about his beliefs, as he hadn’t stopped me, the daemon, from helping Jono and his boy. Yet, locked in the dark with Anne’s image of the starving dead and my own nightmares, it wasn’t so easy to dismiss his words.
As we mounted up, the shepherdfolk showered us with gifts of honey and bread, and a barrage of hints and warnings about the road south. It was dreadfully difficult to sort out such busy conversation without being able to see the various speakers or judge which comment followed on another. Thus we were half a kilometre along our way before their meaning penetrated my thick head. “God’s teeth, we’re headed into Kadr!”
Kadr. The realm of the witchlords. A rugged, two-hundred-kilometre-long rampart that marked the boundary of Sabria and the remnants of Aroth. Certainly I knew Carabangor, the last refuge of the witchlords, lay in the deserts of the ancient empire, but somehow I’d assumed the route from Mattefriese would bypass the haunted realm. No wonder the shepherdfolk believed dead men walked this road and that the land ached from magework.
Nineteen years previous, Philippe de Savin-Journia and Michel de Vernase had chased the witchlords from their rocky strongholds and down to the ruins of the ancient city, completing the subjugation of the Arothi. Since then, King Philippe had repeatedly been forced to roust bandits or Arothi rebels from the caves and gullies of the witchrealm. It was in the aftermath of that earlier battle, of course, that Masson de Cuvier had first encountered the woman in white.
“Be careful,” I said. “Everything the shepherds said about water sources and not straying from the track, you must believe it. Untriggered spelltraps don’t just wear away through the years. The witchlords knew what they were doing. They considered anyone not of their own blood nonhuman and had no qualms about discouraging them in vile ways.”
The shepherds had told Andero and John Deune to watch for red markings on any water source and avoid any area that appeared blighted. Now I knew using magic wouldn’t necessarily transform me into something worse than a witchlord, perhaps I could do more to shield us.
“The whole place looks blighted to me,” growled Andero. “Looks like daemons gnawed away all the softness of the mountains and left only these rock bones. It’s no solid cliff, but a honeycomb where you’d never want to go. The creatures know. Haven’t seen a bird light anywhere.”
“Salvator—my teacher—told me that the witchlords would devour a land to feed their magic, and then move on. Supposedly they settled in Kadr because it was beautiful and fruitful, and corrupting it was particularly satisfying. I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
“I’m not averse to adventuring—like it for the most part—but damned if I would choose this land to explore.”
We used our water sparingly, but the road was steep, and though the air was cool, bright sun and dry wind left both men and horses thirsty. We stopped at every seep and mudhole to water the horses but dared not use any for ourselves.
As thirst sapped strength and spirit, my nightmares leaked into waking. Devil plodded onward, while in my dark world spectral beings pressed gaunt faces to walls of emerald glass. A never-ending tide, pushing and shoving each other aside, licking their colorless lips, their eyes wild and hungry. They licked the green glass as if their tongues might wear it away.
By our third night on the Kadr road, despite our care, three of our waterskins hung flaccid. One held only a few mouthfuls. One held perhaps a litre. We broke camp before dawn, unable to rest.
At midmorning, John Deune spotted a well a few metres off the road. He and Andero ripped away the weedy overgrowth to expose its crumbling stone. “There’s no red marks!”
“Wait,” I said when John Deune’s pot rattled. “We have to be sure.”
I touched the warm stone and dived into the aether. Spellwork enveloped the deep well. A clean-water spell, slender threads like dew-laden spiderwebs reflecting the rays of the morning sun. Spells of abundance, thick lines that frayed into a million parts all looping back on themselves. Spells of protection to prevent children and the feebleminded from falling in. All common, benevolent things one might find at any ancient well.
“I think we’re all right,” I said. Yet, just as I was about to release my inner seeing, I glimpsed a small gray thread tangled deep in the tracery of well magic. A single touch set my teeth on edge.
“Stop!” I snapped. “Don’t!”
The pot clattered to the ground in a splash.
“Don’t drink it. Don’t touch it. Leave the pot where it is. Something’s not right.”
“But we must have water,” said John. “There are no marks.”
I plunged once more into the well magic, peeling away the layers of spell threads that lay between me and the gray line, disentangling the energies that created it. When all lay exposed, I felt sick.
“Not this water, John Deune. Drop anything that’s touched it into the well.”
I’d seen the spell before. It was a particularly virulent form of a memory block, exactly the kind Finn had read from my notes back at Pradoverde.
“It doesn’t kill you,” I said. “You’re alive but with no memory of yourself. No memory of your past or your friends or why you do what you do. No memory of what makes you laugh or weep, or what books you enjoy, or what you consider good or beautiful. Only the knowledge that you cannot remember. Better to be dead.”
There was little to be done for the victims of such witchery. In my first days after collaring, I’d tried removing such a block from an old pikeman who had survived the Kadrian wars. Arrogant, stupid, I was sure I could manage what Salvator’s hedge-witch friends could not. And indeed, I had removed the block. But excising it had destroyed so much of the man’s underlying nature that he was left only a hollow shell, no person at all. Naught could repair my error. A terrible lesson.
“It would take me days to counter a witchlord spell,” I said, “and undoing them often triggers another layer of traps. We cannot delay so long.”
John Deune took the news hard. He fidgeted and moaned, digging in his packs until he’d spread pots and linens everywhere. “How in the wide world are we to mark the well? Some unwary traveler will have his mind destroyed, all for the lack of something red. It’s kin to murder.”
“There’s always a solution.” Andero piled rocks on top of the well and drew his knife. I laid a
spell of stasis on his blood offering to keep it fresh and red. It seemed fitting.
KADR
None of the water sources along the Kadrian road were drinkable. We watered the horses at the least questionable spots, then dismounted and led them to preserve their strength. We limited our own intake to a few drops every two hours and blessed all gods it was not summer. Another day or two should see us off the mountains.
On the second evening from the poisoned well, the road curved round a cliff or high embankment and the land fell away in front of us. The fragrant smoke of wood fires drifted past.
In the space of a moment, I might have been coming in from a day of fence mending at Pradoverde, ready to set Anne a new lesson. Or she might have been waiting to pounce on me with a passage from my notes, insisting I explain about aerogens or magical spheres of influence or itching to talk about why all spell keywords were Aljyssian. Anne’s mind was her truest magic, sparking and pricking as brilliantly as her sister’s enchanted pendant.
Silly that such a common scent could rouse such vivid memory…and the associated weaknesses of mind and body I had worked so diligently to banish. It was not mere concern for Anne’s reputation that had kept me sleeping in the guesthouse these two years.
I hunched my cloak tight against the settling cold and summoned words from the dust of my mouth. “What’s down there?”
“A tidy place,” croaked John Deune with palpable excitement. “I’m sure I see a pond.”
“A vale a quarter the size of Raghinne’s, green and shallow,” said Andero, his parched bass scarce more than a whisper. “A dozen buildings scattered. Plowed fields. A few sheep. A few cows. They’ve trees that aren’t stunted, and the grass is dormant, but not gray and patchy as that I’ve seen on the way.”
“Good. Very good.” Andero’s reports must have been invaluable to his legion.
We descended slowly, so as to give the residents fair warning. A dog picked up our scent, his bark as excited as John Deune. Three persons came out to greet us when we reached the settlement.
“Who might you be traveling this road?” The young woman’s greeting felt much cooler than the shepherds’.
“Manet de Shreu,” croaked Andero, “my master, Talon, and our servant, John. Foolish inexperience has left us short of water. A supply for ourselves and our horses would put us forever in your debt, though we could offer reasonable payment as well. A shelter for the night, even barn or shed, would be welcome. But we’re willing to move along so’s not to disturb your peace.”
“Polite spoken,” said another woman, older and more authoritative. “Travelers are rare in Hoven. Caravan routes go round the longer way. But we welcome strangers who bring no evil and promise to move on within a sun’s turn. Subsistence is yet too fragile to support any but our own.” She sounded a well-educated woman.
She introduced herself as Zophie and her companions as Krasna and Tesar. The settlers had built their homes around a healthy spring, and they invited us to drink our fill. One of their boys took charge of the horses, promising that he knew how to keep thirsty beasts from gorging on water.
Krasna said they were accustomed to travelers arriving thirsty. “From time to time one who’s drunk of the poisoned wells wanders through here. It’s terrible to see.”
I was content to let Andero carry on the introductions and our business. He could make easy conversation with strangers as if he’d known them all his life. As we sipped their sweet water, dipped from the stone font they’d built to capture the spring, he introduced me as a teacher of history, bound on a tour of ancient ruins in the desert.
I squirmed a little and hunched my cloak higher at the lie. But enforcing the Concord was unlikely to be important in such a remote place, and the omission of my true profession certainly kept matters simpler. Indeed, it was Andero who caused a sensation.
“Five families settled Hoven four years ago, five more in the year just past,” said Tesar, a man whose voice rumbled through a chest that must have rivaled Andero’s. “But all who knew aught of smithing died that first winter.”
“If your forge is in decent repair, I’d be pleased to give you a few hours’ work in exchange for the water.” The words were scarce free of Andero’s tongue when Tesar bundled him off to examine the forge, talking excitedly of coal supplies and broken wheels and worn-out tools. Our welcome assured, Krasna and Zophie hurried off to consult the other families about a meal. John Deune filled our water containers and carried them off to wherever the boy had taken our horses.
Left alone in the heart of the settlement, I spun in a slow circle, reaching out to learn what I could. There was no trace of enchantment about, no Kadr magic, but also none of the small wards and benevolent blessings one found about any farm community. It was curious. No matter Camarilla penalties, no matter the reasoned explanations of alchemists, physicians, and biologists about what benefited plants and animals, old ways died hard among those close to the land.
Yet, indeed, the peace of Hoven was profound. A meadowlark trilled and chirruped, and nightmare and terror receded. Would I could just stay somewhere like this.
I bent to dip my cup once more, only to discover the font was not where I thought. Extending my staff failed to locate it. I removed my left glove and felt the earth for dampness. Nothing.
I spun one direction, then the other. The burbling spring could have been on any side. Distant voices, the clatter of pots, hammering, bounced off the surrounding structures. Five steps could impale me on a fence or send me plummeting into an abyss. On the verge of panic, I planted my staff, touched my copper bracelet, and summoned power. “Oraste.”
My seeing spell came together with all the speed of frozen honey. Ghostly blurs and blotches—trees? houses?—rose all around. Black ridges between might be walls or hedges or rivers or distant mountain ranges for all I knew. I shoved more power into the spell.…
“Daemon!” The scream was cracked with age and vitriol. As it scorched the dark, something large and heavy slammed breath from my chest. The next blow struck my head, toppling me into a bottomless chasm.
APPROPRIATE THAT STRAW SCRATCHED MY FACE, for a cow stood over me making cow noises. Surely an entire herd of cows had been dancing on my head. Back. Chest.
I tried to tell the beast to speak more slowly, but the words spilling out were not at all what I intended. “Mmlrff.”
“Dante! Earth and sky, are you all right? Never saw a woman could throw so straight and so hard. And she’s as old as Tark’s Spine. Must’ve gotten off a barrow load before I could get to you.”
“Mmlrff. Sppttt.”
“Here, sit up and mayhap your wits’ll settle into place. You’ve the face of a rotten turnip.”
He plumped me up like a chair cushion. The black world spun, and my arm flew to my mouth to convince my stomach to hold onto its contents. Every bone and muscle wailed. “Night’s daughter!”
“ ’Twas rocks.”
I squinched my forehead in question.
“Rocks. A whiskery gammy who ought to be dandling her children’s children’s babes clobbered you with a cartload of rocks. She didn’t want to kill you right away, though we’ve a deal of convincing to make sure killing’s not next up.”
My crime floated atop the murky slops in my skull like a broken branch. “My collar. Are they Camarilla? Temple?” How unlucky could we get?
My brother crouched in front of me, his breath tight and harsh. “ ’Tisn’t that you hid your collar, but that you used it—used your magic. Sorcery is anathema here. They’ve vowed to kill anyone who works spells.”
Truth glimmered. “…no spells…”
“Well, they say you did.”
“No. It was— They’ve no spells here. I wondered.”
“Gather your wits, little brother. They’ve locked us in a barn and swear they’ll slay us all should you so much as blink your eye. I hope you’ve no such ideas; they’re quite serious-minded.”
Anger rippled through my veins, sw
eeping away some of the muddle. “Might not have much luck with that.”
“I’ve mentioned so, but they’re saying your magics likely won’t work as you expect, neither. Zophie says they’ve spent years fixing this valley to block spellcraft.”
Certainly there were things one could do to interfere with spellwork. Hedges of whitebud laurel, fences of cypress wood and iron. The lack of enchantments should have told me. Anger yielded to relief. It wasn’t my own incapacity crippling my spellbinding.
Andero pressed a clay mug of strong beer to my mouth. I drained it.
“So what now?” I swiped my sleeve at my mouth, nearly missing it.
“I’ve got to convince them you’re not a danger.”
“I can explain. I got lost. Dizzy.” Humiliation bled from my pores like liquid fire. “I panicked. You’ve seen it. I’ve made this wholly ridiculous little spell.…Gods, I was trying to see. That’s all.”
