The Pagan Night

by Tim Akers

  It was not the gheist he hunted.

  “Drawn by the corruption…” Lucas whispered to himself, but the gheist heard him, and rose onto its hind paws, towering over the clearing like a mountain of sunlight and life. Its face was not that of a bear, but more like an eel, a wide mouth of scything teeth that gaped open, slick with blood. Black blood and bile.

  “…and corrupted yourself,” Lucas added. He had hoped to leave this gheist alone, to let it go about the business of renewing the forests of the north, repairing whatever damage the rogue god from Gardengerry had wrought. Most of his brother inquisitors would never have considered such a mercy, but Lucas had spent enough time in both Suhdra and Tener to know that total suppression of the gheists could harm the land. He suspected that the church’s rigid suppression of the gheists in the south was at the root of the current blight, an opinion that would have gotten him branded a heretic in Heartsbridge. So if this one had been drawn by the corruption and sought to repair it, that was all the better.

  Yet the corruption had tainted the god, and so the demon it had become had to be culled, the land set back to rights.

  The gheist gasped out a long, mournful sigh, and the sickness of its jaws flooded the clearing. The grasses withered at its breath, the sweet air turned sour, and the dappled light that danced through the trees shivered and dimmed. Lucas drew his staff in front of him, then called upon Lord Cinder’s gift of naether.

  “I will break no peace with you, demon,” Lucas muttered, “and ask for none in return. Return to your realm, and you will find no argument with me.”

  The gheist dropped to all fours and charged toward Lucas. Its slow, rolling gait shook the ground. The haze of its fur, now floating in the air, streaming behind it like a banner, squirmed with embers that danced through the seeds and stitched the air in lines of amber and gold. Lucas planted his staff and twisted the air around it, lacing shadows together, binding his flesh to the fog-thick essence of the naetherealm.

  Lucas’s blood chilled as his spirit left the mortal world. The gheist’s fiery charge brushed Lucas aside, but instead of crushing the priest, it passed through him as if he were a wisp of smoke.

  Once the bear was past, Lucas threw aside the skeins of shadow, leaving them to ground harmlessly into the forest like dark-veined lightning, kicking up puffs of ash and silt where they struck. He whirled on the gheist, pulling power from the naetherealm and attempting to bind it to the rogue god. Shadows snapped against the demon’s flesh, scattering the downy spore from its back, catching on its limbs and snarling its gait.

  Slowly the gheist turned, lazy, heavy, its slabs of muscle and fat breaking the bonds Lucas summoned. Lucas could see the god’s eyes, saucers of golden light shot through with dark veins, as if the corruption that had claimed its jaws was slowly working its way into the brain.

  The demon lowered its head and lumbered again into a thunderous charge. Its gaping jaw dragged through the grass, leaving a trail of pitch-black spittle that bubbled and hissed in its wake. Its back rippled with the rolling gait of its muscles.

  Lucas assumed a stance of meditation, balancing his frail frame on one foot and leaning against his staff. He touched his forehead to the staff’s focusing icon, then dropped his mind into the naetherealm, leaving his body dangerously exposed in the mortal world. Yet he had no chance of defeating this beast with flesh and blood. His strength was of the mind, and his hope for victory lay in thought and deception.

  The world changed around him, and time slowed down. The clearing lost its amber sheen, the vibrant life replaced by the cold weight of the naether. Lines of force and energy, the inevitable charge of the gheist, arced out from its body, etching a path that would tear through the frair in a matter of heartbeats.

  Untethered from his body, Lucas examined his attacker.

  “Nature spirit, as I thought,” he said to himself. “Restorative. Some aspect of spring, come to undo winter’s damage.” His spirit floated past the gheist. “But it is not winter that has broken this land, and so you are driven mad.” The demon’s form was like fog, insubstantial in the naether, shot through with its own magical energies as well as the darkling tendrils that had corrupted it.

  “A spirit of unrest has settled on your mind,” Lucas whispered. He traced the presence from the gheist’s jaws into its skull. The black strap of darkness writhed and bucked. “And there is little I can do to save you—even if that were my calling. And so, I must find some way to end you. Or perhaps help you end yourself.”

  With a steadying breath, Lucas reached into its mind. It was a realm of chaos, so unlike the minds of blood and light that he was used to fighting, a tumble of instincts and urges that nearly swept the old priest away. Lucas bore down, focusing on his task, reminding himself that the gheist had nearly reached him. He untangled the beast’s senses and found its vision, stained by corruption but still bright, holy in the pagan way, seeing the world in terms of life and death, health and decay.

  Vertigo swept over him—it came with seeing himself through the eyes of this creature. He barely recognized himself, and felt a flutter of revulsion go through him. And then Lucas pushed through. He bound the gheist’s eyes to the naether, surprised at how quickly the corruption welcomed the binding, how weakly it surrendered.

  Then he pulled free of the gheist’s mind.

  “Gods, but what a madness this one holds,” he muttered. Tethers of shadow trailed from his hand, linking his will to the gheist’s vision. Exhausted, he took a moment to still his own mind…

  …then returned to his body. Lucas gave a startled gasp as air filled his lungs and the warmth of the sun scorched his eyes. He stumbled back, but was able to glimpse the fragile threads of shadow that strung between his hand and the gheist.

  Only a moment had passed, and the demon was thundering forward, a bellowing, rampaging, terrible force of nature. Lucas fell to the side, jerking the shadow threads, pulling at the bear spirit’s perception and balance. It rumbled past him, folding to the ground with a gasp. It struggled to its feet, turned and charged again, but now Lucas had it well in hand, drawing it to the side whenever it got close, bending the gheist’s vision to baffle its mind, to make a maze of the grassy clearing.

  As the gheist stumbled around, letting out droning bellows of confusion, frustration, and despair, Lucas slowly sapped its strength. He drew shadows from the forest to entangle it, formed increasingly confusing puzzles in its mind, spiked shadowy darts into its thick hide. With each step the gheist weakened, its divinity dissipated, like light from a guttering candle.

  Finally, pitifully, it fell.

  The gheist lurched forward, front limbs buckling, snout and shoulders plowing into the ground. It dug a trench with its bulk, coming to rest at the center of the clearing. A final cloud of firefly seeds rose up from its back, floating aimlessly in the shafted sunbeams, before disappearing into the everealm. Lucas stood at the beast’s shoulder. He untangled the deception of naether, clearing the god’s vision. The gheist stared up at him with one eye, a shimmering pool of wet, golden light, shot through with dark corruption.

  “Such is the cycle, my friend,” Lucas said, patting its shoulder. It was warm and thick, the muscles twitching with exhaustion. “Such is the way of your life. Whatever drew you to this clearing, I must escort you out. Have peace, little god. Go home.”

  He raised his staff and struck the gheist a sharp blow between the eyes. He was an old man, and such a blow would never hurt a creature of this size if it didn’t carry with it the banishment of Lord Cinder, the god of winter and death. The gheist’s body collapsed, folding open like a split purse, bleeding light and heat and the thick, musky stench of new spring growth.

  Lucas stepped back and watched as the creature’s body melted away, sinking into the ground as though it were water. The grass sprang to new life, the air cleared, and a wave of vibrant energy washed out from the gheist’s dying breath. The trees all around the clearing grew a little, the grasses rustled and spro
uted, suddenly reaching Lucas’s waist. He couldn’t help but laugh at the change in the air. It was like stepping outside on the first day of spring, the first birdsong in your ear, the promise of summer in the air.

  “And so it goes,” he said. “You return to the everealm, and I return to my search.” He rubbed his face, a momentary revulsion shivering through him as he remembered how he looked in the eyes of this little god—the revulsion it felt. He shook it off.

  With his staff, Lucas parted the grasses at the spot where the gheist had fallen. The vegetation was incredibly green and hearty, little spears, broad of leaf and sturdy. It took some effort to find the ground.

  There, shivering in the dirt, was the flat black strap of corruption. Like a snake in the vines, it hissed as the sunlight found it. Lucas raised his staff and crushed its head, grinding the shadowy tendril into the dirt. It writhed against the darkwood shaft, whipping through the grass and trying to find purchase on Lucas’s boots. Finally, something cracked, and the corruption dissipated. It broke apart and bled into the dirt. The grasses sickened and died at its touch.

  Before he left, Lucas made sure the ground was sanctified in Cinder’s name.

  Something dark was growing in the trail of this demon from Gardengerry. Something Lucas didn’t understand, but something he was learning to fear.

  * * *

  The next day found Lucas well down the trail, and staring at a fork in his path. A second gheist had manifested, either alongside the demon from Gardengerry or in pursuit. Now two trails burrowed through the forest. There was no way of telling which belonged to the original quarry.

  The first trail turned sharply east toward Greenhall. It was good that Sir LaFey had traveled on ahead, to warn the duke and prepare the defenses, though she would be hard pressed to arrive before the fast-moving gheist.

  The second trail turned north. Straight into Tener. Straight for the Fen Gate.

  Content that Elsa could manage things in Greenhall, Lucas turned his feet toward the pagan north. His path led to the Fen, and House Adair.

  8

  MALCOLM LEANED HIS head against the cool stone wall of the doma and breathed deeply. Night had fallen, and he wanted nothing more than to curl into bed and sleep away the pain of travel. His spine felt like a cooking rack, searing the muscles of his back with each step, and the pain in his hips, his knees, even his feet, would not relent.

  The feet seemed like a particularly cruel joke. If Malcolm had walked from Houndhallow he could understand his feet hurting. His head was already pounding, and he hadn’t even spoken to the duke of Greenhall yet.

  “This is what it’s going to be like from here on out,” Dugan said. The knight was standing in the center of the doma, hands crossed over the hilt of his sword, staring up at the painted frescoes that described the movement of the stars and the seasons of the twin gods of the Celestial church. “Waiting in their holy places.”

  “Our holy places,” Malcolm answered. He stood by the door, resting against the lintel. “I see you at every high day, and hear your prayers at the solstice.”

  “The wine is good,” Dugan said. “Never fault the Suhdrin for their wine.”

  Malcolm shifted his weight to the opposite foot and settled against the wall once again. Dugan smirked.

  “What’s that for?”

  “You,” the master of the guard replied. “You look like my grandfather, right before he forgot all of our names and wandered off into the forest.”

  “Show some respect for your elders,” Malcolm said. “I could still beat you in the joust.”

  “The joust is a sitting man’s game. Try me in the melee, and see how we measure up.”

  “I’m tempted to try you in a court of law for such insubordination,” Malcolm snapped. Standing was no good. He tottered over to the altar and pressed his palms against the cool ivory. “I am still your liege lord.”

  “And I will follow you into the depths of hell, my lord, but if we get to the point where someone needs to help you with your toilet, I may have to reconsider.”

  Malcolm laughed. He was about to turn and give Dugan a good whack on the cheek when a priest appeared at the door. He was dressed in the black and gray of Cinder’s anointed.

  “The duke has been delayed,” the priest said, giving Malcolm a disapproving glare. Malcolm slouched casually into a standing position, removing his hands from the altar and clearing his throat.

  “He certainly has,” Dugan said sharply. “Though I mean the duke of Houndhallow, not your master.”

  “My master is Cinder, lord of winter and—”

  “Yes, yes, he meant nothing by it,” Malcolm said, cutting in. “I only wish to offer the duke of Greenhall my blessings and respect. As you know, I am here at the invitation of the high elector.”

  “The high elector does not rule in Greenhall. It is the duke’s invitation you should have sought,” the priest said stiffly.

  “And to whose whims do you attend?” Dugan muttered to himself. The priest bristled, but Malcolm stepped sharply between them.

  “I would hope that the word of the high elector would be honored in Suhdra, as it is in Tener,” he said. “We share a common faith, my frair.”

  “Your faith is common enough.” The man sniffed.

  “Will you please just fetch the duke?” Malcolm said, ignoring the slight. “We only want to offer the visitor’s gift, and secure the promise of honor from his lordship.”

  The priest bowed and exited without another word. Malcolm spoke to his master of guard without turning.

  “You have to be kinder than that,” he said.

  “I don’t feel that I do,” Dugan answered. “The priests the church sends north are decent enough, but this lot Halverdt keeps in his walls need a good punching.”

  “I think Halverdt may be more to blame for that than the church. Speaking of which…” Malcolm eased his way to one of the pews and began to lower himself. “If he’s going to treat us like servants, I’m at least going to have a seat while we wait. And see if there’s any wine.”

  A distant sound echoed through the doma, drifting down from the shuttered windows. Malcolm stopped himself.

  “Was that…” he said.

  “War horn,” Dugan finished for him, rushing to the door. Malcolm followed, the pain in his back forgotten. He threw the door open. The walls were alive with torches and the sound of soldiers. The horn sounded again, a low rolling blast that echoed through the canyons of the city and filled the air with dread. It was a familiar sound in the north, the universal warning given when the old gods stirred.

  Malcolm just never expected to hear it during the Allfire.

  “Gheist,” he whispered.

  * * *

  The horn brought Ian running, along with the rest of the occupants of the tavern. The mud streets of the tournament village were filled with drunken celebrants, most of whom were rapidly tipping into panic. Torches lined the city wall above them. The gate, held open due to the Allfire celebrations, boomed shut.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Martin shouted. His face was flushed with the wine, but even through the glaze of his eyes, Ian could see his fear. Before he could answer, the horn came again. The rolling panic of the crowd matched the surging sound.

  “Gheist, gheist, gheist…” Murmurs danced through the night. People began to run toward the safety of the castle gates.

  “They’ll never open up, not with a gheist out here,” Ian said. “Do you see anything?”

  “Nothing. Shouldn’t there be priests, or…”

  Hooves thundered behind them, coming down the street. Ian grabbed Martin and pulled him to the side of the road, up against the tent wall of the makeshift tavern. A trio of knights hammered past them, half-armored, half-drunk, flying the black spear and red rose of House Marchand. The crowd parted before them, though more than one reveler went to the mud with a horseshoe in his back.

  “Bloody lot of good that’s going to do,” Ian said angrily. “Come on.”


  Still in a daze, Martin followed him as they ran to the Blakley pavilion. A few of his father’s men were milling about, pulling on armor and splashing water in their faces. Sir Doone stood in the middle of the muddy lane, her face grim.

  “Where is my father?” Ian demanded, dragging her around. “Where is the duke?”

  “Not returned from the castle,” Doone answered. “These damned Suhdrin aren’t going to know what to do with this.”

  “No, they won’t. Which is why the gods have put us here. Fetch my spear and kit, and my father’s, as well.”

  “This is no hunt, my lord. They don’t blow the horn for a lesser god.”

  “This is Suhdrin land, sir. They blow the gheist horn if one of their horses farts too loudly. Now get moving!”

  Doone hesitated a moment, then nodded and disappeared into the pavilion. Ian started stripping down. Martin drew his sword, but didn’t seem to know how to hold it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Preparing,” Ian replied. “You should stay here. You aren’t exactly dressed for this.”

  “You aren’t exactly dressed at all,” Martin said as Ian’s tunic dropped into the mud. Sir Doone ran up with two bundles of leather, and two spears. She handed one bundle to Ian and set the other on the ground.

  The tree line at the edge of the tournament ground was alive with torches and the shouting of men. It was hard to see from among the tents, but Ian could hear the slow chant of priests and the hunting horn of the Marchand knights. He struggled into the pants Doone had brought him, then shrugged on the bulky shoulder armor and padded sleeves of his hunting gear. His chest he left bare.

  “You mean to hunt it?” Martin asked. “You must be insane.”

  “Hunt or be hunted, friend. I haven’t time for chain or plate, so this will have to do.” Ian took the spear and held it to the light. The head was long and sharp, the metal dull and red as rust. A rune carved into the shaft marked the spear as Ian’s, showed that it was his blood that had been used in the blade’s forging and sealed the spells. “Bloodwrought steel. As close to magic as we’ll get tonight.”