The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “You really shouldn’t be playing in here,” Villar said. “It’s dangerous. That’s why there’s a cover over this. And it’s about to rain. This thing fills up fast in a downpour.”

  “It’s okay.” The little human smiled at him. He had red fleshy cheeks, the sort mir never had, the kind gained from an abundance of everything. In that smile, a sickening confidence bloomed, an absolute assurance that the world would always take care of him. He hadn’t the slightest fear, not the hint of a doubt that Villar would save them. “If it rains, the water will lift us up and we can just climb out.”

  He was right. Even without the rope the two might survive—if it rained hard enough.

  They thought he was joking when he closed the lid. The laughs stopped when he secured it with the metal rod the kids had originally removed. With the top closed and the growing roar of rain, no one heard them. Villar regretted that one was a mir, but that was what came from associating with the wrong crowd.

  Villar was back before dawn to collect his prizes, and neither Dinge nor Nym asked where he had gotten the hearts.

  Turned out mir hearts worked better—at least for Villar. The human heart resulted in a vague, hazy, intermittent connection. The mir organs formed a clear coupling. The novice summoners speculated that the more similar the heart was to the individual conducting the ritual, the better the connection. Villar became responsible for obtaining hearts for Erasmus and Griswold as well. He spent one heart to gain two or three, four if he was lucky. The dark, twisted streets of the Rookery were ideal for killing the unobservant. Not only did hearts of the underclass work better, hunting them had another advantage: Few cared about the death of young mir, Calians, or dwarves. This point was driven home as more and more children died while the city guard did nothing. The poorly run investigations aided Villar’s efforts in provoking people to revolt. Witnesses, when there were any, were ignored or told tales related to the Morgan myth.

  Villar glanced at the blue drape across the doorway of the old ruin. He could tell by the sunlight on the cloth that it was nearly midday. The feast would be starting soon. Erasmus was dead. If the foreigner was able to deliver the cow’s note to her husband, and if he agreed to changes, Griswold would sit the party out. So would the others. They didn’t have the courage of conviction that he had. The citywide uprising he’d hoped for wasn’t going to happen, but a single golem—the right golem—let loose at the right place and time could still do the job.

  So, before he could crack the next box of remnants and set up his ritual, he needed to take care of one other thing. It was time to kill the Duchess of Rochelle.

  Genny didn’t like the way Villar looked. She never had, but now he was worse. Something had happened, something bad. He had blood on his chest and a cold expression on his face that suggested he’d suffered more than a bad night’s sleep. Then he started tearing the place up, and she knew.

  She’d guessed something wasn’t right the night before when he arrived alone. Villar had never before visited when Mercator was out, and it scared her. Never once did he call Mercator’s name. He knew she wasn’t there. Genny had almost asked about the letter, but kept her mouth shut. The sense that this isn’t right, that something had gone wrong, shoved her heart to her throat. Instead, she had watched as he opened a box and checked the contents: something the size of a shriveled apple, gravel, some leaves. To this, he added a few strands of his own hair. Then he closed the box and set the whole thing on the cook fire.

  Villar took a seat on the floor and spread out a blanket as if he planned to take a nap. He waited for the box to burn, until it was mostly consumed. When the wood became ashen white, he lay down and started talking, chanting words Genny didn’t understand. A cloud belched forth from the smoldering box.

  Villar’s eyes were closed as he continued, and she watched bright-white smoke snake up from the box, then stream out the doorway as if it had a mind of its own and places to go. Villar stopped muttering and appeared to fall asleep. Five minutes later she saw him jerk and twitch. His eyes remained closed, and it seemed like he was having a bad dream. He lay like that for some time, and then his eyes flew open, he gasped in shock, and lay panting.

  “How?” he said, and then fell asleep.

  She waited for a long time. Then curiosity overwhelmed her, and she took a chance and tried talking to him, but he didn’t hear.

  That was when Genny knew she had to get busy. She took out the coins and the key and set to work. She didn’t know how long she had, so she worked with haste. She had tested the coins on single hairs, and they cut just fine, but when it came down to the wholesale hacking of locks, they proved a lot duller than she would have liked. Listening to the deep breaths of Villar just outside the door, she pulled out as many hairs as she cut.

  She wanted to believe Mercator was alive, but the fact that Villar was here and Mercator wasn’t made that a hard sell. As long as Mercator acted as her jailor, Genny believed she might survive. Now that there had been a changing of the guard, it was time for her to execute her plan. Like all jailbreaks, it was an all-or-nothing shot. She would either escape or die. That kind of pressure made it hard to hold her fingers steady on the coins.

  This isn’t going to work! This is crazy. What am I doing?

  Something. I’m doing something, and something is oh so much better than nothing. I may die, but I’m not just going to sit here and give up. It’s a chance, damn it! So quit thinking and cut!

  Turned out there was no rush. Villar slept through to the morning.

  When he finally woke, he was in a bad mood. He washed, then began looking around, going through Mercator’s things, and Genny had a sinking feeling she knew what he searched for.

  Villar came to the door of the cell. He grabbed the latch, but it wouldn’t move. Mercator had asked Griswold to make locks for the door and the collar. They opened with keys; keys he didn’t have.

  No knife. No key. Mercator is dead and still causing me grief.

  Villar turned over crates once more and threw aside folds of linen and wool. His frustration turned to anger, and he began smashing things in his search. He even kicked the suspended pot, knocking down the tripod of metal poles, which clanked and scraped across the stone.

  Villar went through the barrels and shook out rags.

  Why is this so hard? Did she keep the key with her, too? Why would she take it? Why not leave it in easy reach? Hang it on the wall—

  He saw it then. A shiny key was dangling from a hook just to the side of the door. Why he hadn’t seen it before he had no idea, except he wouldn’t have expected Mercator to act in such a rational way. After the missing knife, he had assumed she wouldn’t be sensible about the key. By the time he snatched it off the hook, Villar’s blood was up. He was ready for murder. Still, the idea of actually strangling the noble bitch, of touching her, was awful. Then he remembered the metal poles. Better to beat her to death. I can do that!

  Returning to the pot and its stand, he saw a blade in the bottom of the empty container—a small one, not much bigger than a paring knife. Mercator had left it where she used it the most. With a grin, Villar took it. Holding the little knife in one hand and the key in the other, he returned to the locked door. He was so enraged his hand shook, and he had a hard time putting the key in the lock. He was forced to put the knife under his arm as he used two hands to steady the key.

  Watch it not work.

  He turned and felt the tumblers engage. The bolt slid free.

  Ha! Finally, something went right!

  Pulling the door back, he spotted the duchess. The lazy bitch was still asleep on the floor. She had one of Mercator’s blankets over her such that only her head was visible, and only the top of that. He could see the chain looping from the wall to the collar, which was lost below her long sandy locks of hair. That had been Mercator’s idea. She needed to be able to feed the cow, and that meant opening the door. Without a chain on the big woman, she’d be able to overpower Mercator the moment
she popped the lock. Chained up by the neck, she was helpless.

  He took a step into the room, then stopped.

  Something wasn’t right—a lot of things in fact.

  The figure underneath the blanket was too small. He could see her hair peeking out from where her head should be, from where the chain led, only there was no bulge, no head—just hair. For an instant, he thought all the days of starving had magically shrunk her to the size of a skinny dwarf, but that wasn’t possible.

  A kick revealed all: One blanket was laid over straw and another bunched up to look like a body. There was a pile of cut hair, and the collar—the empty collar.

  He turned and caught sight of her bolting out the door. She had waited just to its side when he entered. Out she went, trying to slam the door closed behind her—trying to lock him in! The old bovine was no match for a mir. Villar kicked the door wide, throwing her flat on her back.

  She screamed, thrusting her hands out to ward him off.

  “Time to die, you fat cow!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Haggling

  “Explain something to me, Royce,” Hadrian said as the two struggled up the slope. “Why did Maribor create picker bushes?”

  “Did he?” Royce asked, fighting through a thicket of fallen deadwood, high grass, and a wicked snarl of the thorny bush Hadrian was taking issue with. “Thought he was just the god of men, not flora.”

  “Oh, you might be right. Bet Evelyn would know.”

  “With any luck, she’s long gone. I don’t think we’re going to find this place.” Royce paused to wipe his face with his sleeve.

  That was when Hadrian knew it was hot. He, of course, was soaked with sweat. His shirt stuck unpleasantly to the center of his back. Worse, the material of his pants clung to his thighs, making it hard to move. Royce rarely perspired, but that day his hood was back, his forehead slick and shiny, his hair sticking. Two days before, it had felt like it might snow, but now summer appeared to have leapfrogged spring. Trudging uphill across sodden grass and through brambles as formidable as castle walls didn’t help.

  “I get the strong feeling we’re wasting our time,” Royce said, waving a hand before his face to clear away the mini-storm-cloud of tiny black bugs. He turned and looked behind them to where the city of Rochelle spread out below. “It wouldn’t be this far out, would it?”

  Hadrian shrugged. “We’re coming into a forest now.” He nodded at the staggered line of pine and spruce that grew just up the slope. The trees were gathered in small groups as if chatting about their neighbors, but farther on, they marshaled en masse, forming a dense forest that covered the base of a coastal mountain. “Was there a forest on the map? Do you remember?”

  Royce shook his head. “No, but these trees are, what, thirty, forty years old? Probably been cut for firewood for generations. That map goes back hundreds of years. No telling what this place might have looked like then. The only positive thing is that it does make sense for Villar to be out here. The seclusion is ideal. I can’t imagine too many people coming up this way if they didn’t have to.”

  Hadrian took advantage of Royce’s pause, and plopped down in the grass. At least the puddles left by the previous days of rain were cool. He scooped up a handful and wetted the back of his neck. Then he lay back and stared up at the blue sky and white clouds. “Beautiful day. Doesn’t seem right.”

  “What doesn’t?” Royce asked, scanning the way ahead and not looking pleased.

  “That such awful things should happen on such nice days.”

  “You’d rather be up here in the rain?”

  “I was thinking more about the people down there. You saw them this morning, all dressed up in their finest clothes. Been a long, dark winter. They just want a little happiness. And on the first good day in months what happens? It’s not fair.”

  Royce gave Hadrian a puzzled look. “That’s so odd.”

  “What?”

  “Here we are, fighting brambles and slick, muddy slopes while trying to find a madman before he massacres hundreds, and your thoughts are focused on how unfair it is for the people having a grand time at a festival?”

  “Why is that odd?”

  “Why wouldn’t you think about us struggling in this heat against these thorny vines while breathing in these tiny black flies? Isn’t that unfair? Why can’t we be eating pork and dancing with ladies on such a fine day?”

  Hadrian chuckled.

  “What? Why is that funny?”

  “It isn’t. It’s just I have this image in my head of you dancing. Can’t get past it.”

  Royce frowned. “I’m just saying it’s strange that you feel sorry for them rather than us.”

  “Well, I do feel sorry for you, if that makes it better.”

  Royce clapped his hands together before his face, trying to kill some of the swarm that plagued him. “Why?”

  “Because you can’t understand why it is I would feel sorry for them. Makes me think your world is very small.”

  “Oh,” Royce said, sounding disappointed. “I thought you were going to say something else.”

  “Really, what?”

  Royce made a pfft sound, spitting as if the flies had invaded his mouth. He stepped back from the brambles, waving his hands before his face as he retreated. “Miserable little horrors. Why do they do that? Fly right into our mouth, eyes, and nose. It makes no sense. They can’t like it; I certainly don’t. There’s no benefit to be had, and yet into my mouth they go.”

  “What was it you thought I was going to say?”

  “Oh.” Royce washed a hand over his face. “I thought you might be on the verge of apologizing for volunteering to be a martyr last night.”

  “Apologize? Are you kidding? I saved us.”

  “Is that how you see it?”

  “Is there another way?”

  “You put me in a very unpleasant position.”

  Hadrian sat up to face him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you the one tied up all night while a dwarf played with a knife, reminding you about his intention to slit your throat? ’Cuz I thought that was me.”

  Royce was struggling, trying to extract something from his tongue with two fingers, a fly no doubt. He got something, peered at it in disgust, and gave it a flick. “You’re supposed to be learning from me. You can’t do that if you don’t listen.”

  “Learn from you?” Hadrian said. “I think you’ve got that backward, pal. Arcadius teamed us up so I could teach you.”

  Royce, who had moved on to cleaning his eyes, paused. “Did you just call me pal?”

  “Yeah. It means friend—literally brother.”

  “I know what it means.”

  “So it’s just your hearing that’s going? If you want to talk about odd, that would certainly qualify. You have the most disturbingly acute ears of anyone I’ve ever met. Seriously, I don’t know how you sleep at night. The crickets must drive you insane.”

  “It’s not the crickets . . . it’s definitely not the crickets.”

  Hadrian smirked. “I would think that this job would have convinced you of the virtues of being a decent human being. Look at Roland. My friendship with him has helped us, not just once but twice. Being respectful to Evelyn has reaped huge rewards. And we lived last night because a long time ago I acted honorably.”

  “Was that the same night you helped slaughter a town?” Royce asked. “And it wasn’t that long ago, was it? You’re not that old.”

  “Because of nights like that, I feel old.”

  “So, which was it?” Royce asked. “Were you saved because of a kindness extended to a girl? Or were you in jeopardy in the first place because you and your compatriots killed most, but not all, of the people during that battle?”

  “It’s because I protected Seton.”

  “Are you sure? What would you have protected her from if the town hadn’t been sacked? And if you hadn’t been so proficient with your sword, the other soldiers might not have granted her to you. Which makes me wond
er, what actually made the difference, your kindness or your cruelty?”

  “Why is it you choose to see the darkness in everything?”

  “Because it’s there, and ignoring that fact invites peril.”

  “But light is also there, and recognizing it allows happiness.”

  “What good is being happy if you’re dead?”

  “What good is being alive if you’re miserable?”

  Royce paused, and for a moment Hadrian was certain he had won. Royce was stumped, but then he tilted his head.

  “What’s up, boy?” Hadrian asked. “You hear something?”

  “Wasn’t funny the first time,” Royce said.

  A moment later a woman’s scream came from up the hill.

  I’m not just going to kill her. Villar realized this with the perfect clarity that accompanied every mistake he had made while the noble cow hid to the side of the door. She had plotted to lock him in. He imagined her literally as a bovine with black and white spots. In his mind’s eye, he saw her standing on her back legs; a massive tongue licking the broad pink nostrils of her nose, waiting with hooves up and together, like a begging dog, hoping he would fall for the bait. The moment he opened the door, the second he rushed in so blindly, focused on her decoy of blankets and straw, was the same second she slipped out.

  He almost fell for it.

  The hair and the chain.

  His mind had registered those two things as incontrovertible evidence that she lay on the floor near the back wall. How could he conclude anything else? If her neck wore a collar attached to a chain secured to a wall, the odds were strong the rest of her was there as well. His eyes and his mind had joined together in a conspiracy to betray him. If the room was bigger or the cow smaller, the ruse might have worked. The realization of how close he’d come to a fatal mistake was frightening.

  As she lay on the floor screaming, Villar felt his heart pound from the near miss. He took a second to breathe, to calm down. Then he adjusted the grip on his knife.