by Jen Williams
‘You should get some silk while you’re here. More fetching than those bandages …’
There was a flicker of dusty light in the air above the table and her words died in her throat. The light hung in the air like a ball of bright cloud, and there were pictures moving on it. She could see a tiny version of Sebastian, as though she was looking down at him from some great distance. He was standing outside a temple, watching as a crowd filed through the door. Wydrin couldn’t tell whose temple it was – Ede was rife with gods and demons and nymphs – but it wasn’t for want of detail. She could see tiny brown clay lanterns in the dirt either side of the door, and fish carved into the stone of the roof. After a few seconds the light flickered out and was gone.
‘Now that is a useful trick.’ She was grinning with the wonder of it. ‘Imagine the trouble you could cause with this spell! The blackmail opportunities alone …’
But Frith wasn’t listening. She knew what he was about to do before his lips began to form the name.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘Fane.’
And there he was. The man who had ordered the murder of the Frith family, who had tried to kill them all in Pinehold, the man who had worn a demon-enchanted helm to cheat death …
He was a little thinner than Wydrin remembered, his chin shadowed with stubble, but he was smiling and laughing. He sat in a tall throne carved of some dark wood, and there were grey stones rising behind him, partially covered by a ragged standard showing a black tree against a pale blue background. There were small white shapes in the branches that could have been fruits or stars.
‘He is in my home!’ Frith stood, sending the Chik-Chok board and its pieces flying. The vision of Fane stuttered and vanished.
‘Hold on a minute, princeling.’
‘He is in my castle.’ Frith’s face was contorted with rage. ‘I would know that throne anywhere.’
He threw the curtains back and stormed out.
‘You can’t just go!’
Swearing loudly, Wydrin hurriedly gathered the pieces of the eggshell together and threw them back into their sack. She stumbled out of the booth in time to see Frith leaving through the front doors, his back rigid.
‘You are leaving so soon?’ The man with the jewelled face appeared at her side.
‘It looks that way, doesn’t it?’ Wydrin pressed a handful of coins into his perfumed hand and ran out the door.
72
Outside it was early evening and the streets were full of Verneh’s citizens just starting their night of revelry. She saw Frith some distance away, spotted the flutter of black wings descending towards him.
‘Oh, great.’
There was a rush of wind and several startled screams from onlookers, and the griffin rose out of the frightened crowd at an alarming speed. Frith didn’t look back as he rose into the sky like an errant shooting star, and then he was lost in the gathering clouds.
Wydrin, the sack still clenched in one fist, raised her arms and then dropped them. ‘Oh, great,’ she said again. She had a moment to note that only one griffin had left with Frith when something sharp jabbed her in the lower back. She spun, Frostling drawn in her free hand, to find herself face to face with Roki once more.
‘Oh no. Was that your pretty lord leaving you all behind?’ he said. His face was oddly yellow, and she wondered if he was ill until she realised it was simply the light from an oil lamp. Wherever he was truly, he was standing near one. ‘Maybe you’ll be mine to play with now.’
The crowd were still gathering where the griffin had appeared, none of them taking any notice of the two people with their weapons drawn. Sebastian was out there somewhere, but he was too far away to help.
‘I don’t have time for this. Why don’t you just piss off, Roki?’
‘And why should I do that?’ The sleeve of his shirt on his wounded arm was pulled right up, so she could see the red ruin of the stump. It didn’t look like it had healed properly at all. ‘I can find you wherever you are. You can use those weird feathered creatures to go to the furthest corners of Ede, and I’ll still be able to find you. I can haunt you for ever.’ He raised the stump, and Wydrin grimaced.
‘It’s true I wouldn’t relish having to look at your ugly face every day,’ she said, keeping Frostling pointed towards him. ‘It must have been doubly annoying for your brother, having to look at your face and his face in the mirror every day, poor sod. At least he doesn’t have to put up with that any more.’
Roki nodded. Not in agreement, but in acknowledgement that he expected nothing better from her.
‘As annoying as that would no doubt be,’ continued Wydrin, ‘I still don’t see why you don’t just kill me. I know you can do plenty of damage, even in that form.’ She nodded towards the sword in his left hand. ‘So why not just kill me?’
Roki shifted his weight, his lips twisting as though he chewed a tough piece of gristle.
‘It is better to haunt you, to slowly pick at your mind, and experience the pleasure of watching you fall apart. You’ll never know a moment’s peace, and I will enjoy every—’
‘Hold on.’ Wydrin gestured with the dagger. ‘I don’t buy it. You wish to irritate me to death from a distance, when you could just run me through with that sword? No, I don’t believe it.’ She took a couple of steps forward, putting herself in range of his weapon. It was dangerous, but it would confirm what she suspected. ‘Is it because you can’t smell me, Roki? Because if you kill me now, in this fog form of yours, you’d never get to taste my blood, or feel my heart slow under your fingers?’
She saw from the way his eyes widened that this was the truth. This could be useful, thought Wydrin. I need to draw him out into a real fight, one where he’s solid and I can run him through.
‘Wouldn’t that be best, Roki?’ She leaned in as though about to kiss a lover, close enough for him to see the pulse in her neck, and stopped. He could strike her down, but if she was right, he wouldn’t. He would miss too much. ‘You like to taste the fear, don’t you?’
‘You know nothing about me!’ There was sweat on his forehead now, yellow under the lamplight.
Wydrin stepped back. ‘I don’t think you’re anywhere near us now, not with the effort it’s taking you to reach me. Am I right?’
Roki said nothing.
‘Come and meet me in the Blackwood, Roki,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘I will be there, waiting. Come and find me there, and bring more than this ghost version of you. Then we’ll have a real fight.’
His lips twisted, as though he wanted to say more, and then he vanished. Wydrin let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and pushed Frostling back into its scabbard.
‘Just one disaster at a time,’ she muttered. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’
73
The Blackwood passed below him like a storm-darkened sea. There was a roaring in his ears, although whether it was the wind or the churning of the Edenier, Frith couldn’t tell.
He is in my home.
The vision seemed to hang in front of his eyes, immovable. The man who had ordered the invasion of the Blackwood and the murder of his family was now sitting on the Blackwood throne. My father’s chair. Lord Frith had sat there, listening to the concerns of his people, or reading documents, or doing any of a hundred tasks that demanded his attention. And Leon should have sat there next, and then his sons, if he had them, or Frith, if he did not. Instead, his brother had bled to death in his own dungeon. In the vision provided by the Edenier, Fane had been lounging in the chair, grinning at his guards and whoever else he’d assembled there. Grinning, thought Frith, because he got away from me. Because he escaped before I could have my vengeance. I could have killed him in the tower at Pinehold, I could have, but the opportunity was snatched away from me.
He dug his fingers into the thick black feathers around the griffin’s neck, urging the great animal onwards, until he saw it; Blackwood Keep rising out of the ocean of trees, grey as the skies above
it, a solid formation of smoke-stone and glass, flags and lead.
‘Home,’ said Frith. The word was torn from his lips and scattered to the wind, but it remained on his heart.
They flew over the smattering of buildings that nestled outside the castle, beyond the first set of tall grey walls and landed lightly in the outer keep. There were shouts from the guards on lookout, and one or two arrows shot past Frith to clatter against the flagstones, but they seemed oddly distant. The griffin became a bird again and flew up to the higher reaches of the main tower, and Frith absently threw a wall of flickering white force up to the men with the arrows. There were screams, followed by a handful of thumps and crunches as they landed in the forest beyond.
Frith flexed his fingers, and remembered.
They had been taken entirely unawares. Lady Bethan’s men were experienced woodsmen, travelling through the trees in silence, their faces smeared with mud and hidden easily under a cloudy night sky. There was a fierce fight at the southern gate, waking him from a deep sleep – Frith had been out late that night, and had fallen asleep still clothed – and he’d gone running to the window. He’d seen the carnage in the courtyard below and stared, unbelieving. It had seemed unreal, like a waking nightmare.
Now, as he stood in the courtyard of a home he hadn’t seen for months, a guard came straight at him, a spear gripped tightly in both hands. Frith looked at the man’s face, oddly constricted under the leather cap he wore jammed down over his ears. Had he been here, that night? Had he charged the inner keep’s doors? Had he been the one to drag Tristan from his bed?
Frith saw the word for Fire in his mind and that seemed right, so he held up his hand and the guard was a churning mass of light. Frith heard the screaming, could even smell the flesh boiling off the man’s bones, but distantly, distantly.
He moved on. The gate to the inner keep had already lost its small contingent of guards – they’d seen what was coming and had quite wisely decided to relocate to another part of the castle – but it was a thick, heavy door, and barred from behind. Frith stopped to consider it.
On that night he’d run down the great stairs and found his father and his brother Leon in the main hall, both hurriedly strapping on armour. Lord Frith was shouting instructions to the castle’s men, and the huge door was shuddering as something enormous pounded on it from the outside. Frith had seen swords shining under the lamplight and felt instantly foolish. Where was his sword? His armour?
‘Aaron,’ his brother had called. ‘Go and find Tristan, he’ll be frightened.’
But Frith hadn’t done that, had he? He had wanted to fight, wanted to stand with his father and the men from the castle. When the door had shattered into a hundred splintered pieces he’d watched his father’s face become rigid with anger, turning his scholar’s eyes cold.
Now, Frith brought forth the words for Force and Control and punched through the thick wooden panels. The metal hinges twisted and buckled, and he was through into the inner keep, the towers where his family had lived and died rising above him like a monument. Here there were more guards.
‘Stay right where you are!’ shouted one. Frith felt his eyes settle on the man, taking in his ruddy face, the scuff marks on his leather armour. They were all brandishing swords and shields, although as yet they seemed reluctant to rush him.
‘I am one man. And I’ve not drawn a sword,’ he pointed out in a mild tone of voice. The guard who’d spoken gave a strangled laugh.
‘Such as you don’t need swords. You’ll put those hands of yours down or we’ll cut your bleedin’ throat.’
‘These hands?’ asked Frith, holding them up, and the Edenier rushed out of him like a tidal wave. Ribbons of green light slammed into the assembled men and sent them flying against the stonework behind. There were cries as bones shattered, and when the moaning continued Frith sent a shower of ice shards at them, each with a point as deadly as Wydrin’s daggers. The moaning stopped.
And finally, he was here. He pushed open the doors to the great hall and was greeted with a thick, metallic smell. It was so familiar that for a moment he couldn’t tell if it was a memory leaching into the here and now, but no, the stench was here too, the stink of …
… blood, flying in a bright shout from his brother’s temple as a huge man, bristling with plate armour, threw a gauntleted fist at his head. Leon stumbled backwards, still raising his sword, his eyes unfocussed. There were strangers in the hall now, so many that Frith had already lost sight of his father, and the castle guard with their pale blue surcoats were like flecks of snow on a black field. He could hear a woman’s voice, shouting orders from beyond the door, and in the back of his mind was the knowledge that the castle was surely taken, but still Frith snatched a sword from a fallen body and cut the throat of the man in front of him. It was the first time he’d killed a man, the first time he’d ever wielded his sword in anything but a lesson or a competition, and then more men surged forward, red faces painted on their shields like an army of demons. Frith gritted his teeth as a fierce rage filled his chest. They will all die, he thought, they will all die under my sword!
He’d never seen the man who struck him.
Now, looking down at the flagstones where, no doubt, he’d fallen, Frith could only remember a sudden thunder-clap of pain and a burst of light behind his eyes. After that, nothing. Darkness and then the dungeon, and the cunning fingers of Yellow-Eyed Rin.
A rising tide of whispers brought him back to the present. Frith raised his head and looked at the ruin of the hall.
Always a wide, empty place, with windows too close to the ceiling to give much light and four great fireplaces lining the walls, the hall was now filled with suffering; an abattoir with marble pillars. Fane sat on the throne, just as Frith had seen him, although now he was rising from his seat. To all sides were frightened men and women and children, bound at the ankle and wrist with steel cuffs, while the guards stood at their sides, swords ready. In the centre of the room was a huge iron cauldron Frith recognised from the kitchens – it was the one the cook only ever used at festivals and celebrations, when huge numbers of people needed feeding. As he drew closer he saw it was filled almost to the top with blood. Other shapes floated in the crimson soup, shapes Frith didn’t care to dwell on. Instead he looked at the prisoners. Did he recognise some of their faces? He thought he did. He saw the open wounds on their arms and legs, the bloody stumps where limbs had been removed. He saw the blank, exhausted terror on their faces, written in bruises and scars.
‘The prodigal son has returned!’
Fane was stepping down from the dais, an eagerness to his steps as though he longed to greet a cherished friend. The half-helm was already wedged over his ears. Frith said nothing.
‘I’m sure your people are glad to see you.’ Fane gestured at the prisoners chained to either side of the hall. Frith doubted they even knew who he was; all sense looked to have been beaten out of them a long time ago. ‘How does it feel to be home?’
‘You have not taken very good care of my castle.’ As well as the cauldron of blood the floor was smeared with gore, and all four of the fires were alight, so that the smoke and heat were oppressive, even in such a large room. Fane approached the cauldron and tapped the edge of it with one fat knuckle.
‘Offerings to Bezcavar. Your good people here have been helping to feed the cauldron.’ The guards by the prisoners were restless now, watching the two men closely. Their leader had given them no orders to seize the man who’d walked into the hall, but no doubt they’d listened to the sounds of his approach and were nervous. Fane, however, looked unconcerned. ‘Your offering will be gratefully received, no doubt. The suffering of those with power is prized by Bezcavar, Prince of Wounds. Oh, that reminds me, we have a friend of yours here.’
Frith watched as Fane went to the line of prisoners and dragged a body out from behind them. It was a woman whose chestnut hair was now caked with blood and filth, and her eyes were wide and sightless. It took Frith a few
moments to recognise her, and then it slotted into place. The last time he’d seen her he’d been tied to a rack, and she had been looking down at him with a mixture of contempt and exasperation. The Lady Bethan.
‘You killed her?’
‘A trusted ally is a fine sacrifice to Bezcavar,’ said Fane. He pushed the hair from her face almost fondly, and then dropped her to the floor. ‘Although I think I can tell you, Lord Frith, that she’d long since outlived her usefulness. Istria was always her cause, not mine, and when we couldn’t find that vault of yours –’ he shook his head and smiled, as though at a poor joke – ‘well, she started making demands of me.’
The strange veil of distance that had been hanging over Frith since he stepped off the griffin disappeared, and all at once he was furious. Frith felt the Edenier rise up inside him, and he had to clench his fists to keep it from pouring out in a tide of rage. She was mine to kill!
‘You had no right to do that,’ he spat, before taking a deep, steadying breath. ‘I’ve come to put an end to this, Fane. You’ll die here, now, under my roof and by my hand.’
There was a stirring from the guards then, but Fane waved them down. Instead he drew a sword from the scabbard at his waist. The blade was still smeared with blood from some earlier kill. He does not even keep his weapons clean.
‘You forget.’ Fane tapped the helm lightly with his free hand. ‘You cannot harm me while I wear this. I only bleed for Bezcavar.’
‘And you forget what I am capable of!’
A guard made a run at him, short sword in his hand, and Frith supposed he must look an inviting victim; he carried no obvious weapons and wore traveller’s clothes, not armour. He tossed a hand towards the man, not quite looking at him, and pictured the word for Cold in his mind. The guard gave a strangled scream as his hands twisted in on themselves, blue with ice. More came at him, abandoning their posts at the sides of the prisoners, and Frith knocked them aside as though they were pine cones. Here it was, finally, the control he’d needed the last time he’d faced Fane, when his body had burned with a fire he could not direct.
