Death of a Darklord

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Jonathan nodded, leaving the door half open behind him. “I may be needed in the other room. Silvanus does not know …” He let the thought trail off.

  “That all dead rise again as zombies,” she finished.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, taking her offered hand.

  “We must try and find their bodies, Jonathan. We can use fire to destroy them so they won’t rise.”

  Jonathan could not meet her eyes.

  “Husband, look at me,” she said.

  He raised his head and met her dark gaze. “You were always braver than I.”

  “I am more practical. That isn’t the same thing at all, Jonathan. The thought of … of watching them burn. A new zombie looks living. It would be like burning them alive.”

  “They won’t be alive, Tereza.”

  “We must do it for the sakes of their souls, but …”

  “You are too ill to move from this bed. I will do what is necessary.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Averil must be treated the same way.”

  “What I can’t understand is why the villagers haven’t been burning the bodies, themselves.”

  “They may not know that fire destroys the body completely,” she said.

  “The undertaker should have known. Any keeper of the dead in Kartakass has to be aware of how to keep the dead from rising.”

  “Perhaps it is the old dead that fill the streets.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I will find out today. Before another night falls, I will have answers.”

  “So quickly?”

  “We have lost a great deal in one night. I will not lose anyone else. We will find who is behind this.”

  “You have some ideas. I can see it in your face.”

  “Yes, I have some suspects.”

  “Who?”

  He glanced back at the open door. “Later. Let me see how Silvanus fares. I promise to come back and tell you all my theories. You know that I do my best thinking while explaining things to you.”

  She gave a small smile. “I know.”

  He kissed her cheek and left, closing the door behind him.

  Konrad had shooed the idle gawkers away. He stood guard over the door, hands on chest, and wore a forbidding expression. Suddenly, his face changed, a look of astonishment crumbled it into lines of shock. He was staring at something over Jonathan’s shoulder, something coming up the stairs.

  Jonathan turned. Elaine was ascending. He felt his own mouth drop open with surprise. She looked as she always looked. Clothes covered in dirt and blood, but it was her.

  She was a few steps from the top when Konrad broke and ran for her. He lifted her bodily up the last steps, whirling her around in the narrow hallway. He put her down, and they were both laughing. Konrad was laughing. It was the first joy Jonathan had seen in him since his wife died.

  Konrad set her on the floor and hugged her again. “Elaine, Elaine, Elaine.” He seemed unwilling to let her go.

  Jonathan stood there with tears running down his face, mingling with his beard. Her blue eyes glanced at him. He held his arms wide, and she ran to him. He hugged her to his chest, burying his face in the top of her hair. Her arms held him as if she would never let him go.

  “I am so sorry for all I said, Elaine.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She pushed away from him, enough to look up into his face. There was something in her eyes, some knowledge that left Jonathan frightened. He was suddenly cold all over as if he’d been dropped in icy water.

  “Where’s Blaine?” His voice was choked and soft. He knew the answer. It was there in her eyes.

  “Gone,” she said. One word, not even the right word. Gone, not dead. Mustn’t say that word aloud. Gone.

  “Are you sure?” Konrad was with them, hand on Elaine’s back. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, burying her face against Jonathan’s chest. She did not cry, as dry inside as a seashell left on a high shelf to gather dust and dream of lost paradises.

  He had believed them both dead, or said he did, but Jonathan realized now it was a lie. He hadn’t really believed. It was true for one of them, and he couldn’t think. One question came to his mind. “How?” he asked. Somehow that seemed important.

  She took a deep shuddering breath and stepped away from him. She stood in the center of the hallway, hands close against her body, tight as if afraid to touch anything. “He was trying to save me. He died saving me.” She raised her face and looked at them. The hatred in her eyes pierced him to his soul. Self-hatred was the hardest wound to heal.

  “We were trying to climb onto a roof to get away from the dead. He fell.” She held out her hands to the empty air. “I tried to save him. I offered him my hand, but he wouldn’t take it. Why wouldn’t he take it?”

  Konrad stepped toward her, gently, as he would approach a wounded animal. “If he had taken your hand, would you both have fallen?”

  She looked at him, eyes stricken. She nodded, then hid her face in her hands and said, muffled, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Konrad touched her shoulder. She flinched, but did not step away. He encircled her in his arms, and she let him.

  “Tereza needs to see you, Elaine,” Jonathan said. His voice still sounded distant, as if someone else were speaking.

  She looked at him, pain so plain in her face that it was like a physical force. “Must I keep telling it over and over again?”

  “Let her see you are safe, then I will tell her.”

  Elaine took a deep breath, leaning into Konrad’s body, seeming to take strength from his touch. Even through his numbness, Jonathan looked at the two of them and saw something he hadn’t before—a couple. He shook his head. Time enough for that.

  He opened the door, forcing a smile on his lips. “Tereza, Elaine is safe.”

  Konrad led her through the door, arm still protectively around her shoulders. Tereza’s cry of, “Elaine” and her reaching hand were pure joy.

  Jonathan stood back and let his wife have her reunion, her moment of relief and happiness, before it occurred to her that someone was missing. He watched the happy tears and waited.

  “SO, BLaINe IS DeaD,” teReZa SaID. SHe WaS tHe fIRSt one to utter that most final of all words. Jonathan had been thinking them, probably everyone had, but it was Tereza who had the courage to speak.

  “Why would the creature carry off his body?” Konrad asked. “And why didn’t it kill Elaine?”

  Elaine was sitting in the room’s only chair. Jonathan sat on the edge of the bed. Konrad leaned against the wall. He was frowning. After the initial surprise at finding Elaine alive, he had gone back to his more typical behavior: frowns, suspicion.

  “I don’t know why I’m alive,” Elaine said. “It could have killed me or let the others do it.”

  “You’re sure the other dead obey some of the better-preserved zombies,” Jonathan asked.

  She nodded. “I saw it three times, with three different undead. The normal zombies obey the others.”

  “Why did the female zombie take Elaine to see the cemetery?” Tereza asked.

  Jonathan stood and paced to the far wall. He turned and looked at them all.

  “You know something,” Tereza said.

  “Why? Why would anyone raise the dead, kill off a third of a village? Why?”

  “Whoever it is is mad,” Konrad said.

  Jonathan shook his head. “Even madness has a logic, just a peculiar logic.”

  “Do you know why?” Elaine asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Jonathan, no games, just tell us,” Tereza said.

  He nodded. “What if he is trying to make a better zombie?”

  Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Tereza gave a snort of laughter. “Jonathan, why would anyone kill so many people just for that?”

  “Remember what Konrad said, that it is madness. Perhaps to a madman, perfecting his undead is worth the cost.”

  Elaine shook her head. “No, there has to be more to it than that.”


  “Why, Elaine?” Jonathan asked.

  She looked up at him, face solemn. “Because Blaine died. It has to be more than making a better zombie. That’s …” She stopped, then said, “A ridiculous thing to die over.”

  “It is the blackest of arts to raise the undead, Elaine. Blaine died to save this village. He died to save you. Those are good reasons.”

  She stared at her lap and said softly, “There are no good reasons to die.”

  He knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. Her skin was cold to the touch. “Elaine, you know what we are, what we strive for. It is a worthy goal to destroy evil. It is worth dying for.”

  The look she gave him was so bleak he flinched. “Blaine was worth more to me than this cursed village. I beat on a door. I screamed for help, and no one helped me. Not a single door opened. They don’t deserve our help.”

  “Elaine, Elaine, we do not help them for their sakes. We help them because it is the right thing to do. We do the right thing, even when others do not.”

  “I say, let them die.”

  He was so astonished at the cold hate in her voice that he didn’t know what to say.

  “I say we find out who is raising this army and kill him instead,” Konrad said. He knelt on the other side of Elaine. His face softened, almost the old Konrad looking up at her, a gentleness in his eyes that surprised Jonathan.

  Elaine stared into his face. Jonathan wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, but it seemed to satisfy her. “Yes, we’ll find who did this, all of it, and kill him.”

  “We are agents of justice, not mere revenge,” Jonathan said.

  Elaine and Konrad looked at him, and their expressions were almost identical. They said quite clearly that he was a fool. He had become accustomed to the bitterness in Konrad, but it was chilling in Elaine’s lovely face.

  “We have the same goals,” Tereza said suddenly. Her voice startled Jonathan; why, he wasn’t sure. “We all want this evil to end. We all want the person or persons behind it stopped.”

  “We are not vigilantes,” Jonathan said. “If we can bring the sorcerer to prison for trial, we will do so.”

  Konrad and Elaine exchanged glances. Jonathan knew in that instant that they would kill the sorcerer if they had the chance. He did not find it surprising, coming from Konrad. He believed the fighter could kill in cold blood, but Elaine, little Elaine—could she kill for the sake of vengeance?

  He looked at her bleak, pain-filled eyes and believed she could. Some piece of her heart had died when Blaine died.

  If Jonathan allowed her to kill in cold blood, that piece would never live again. He would stop her, if he could. But he hadn’t been doing a good job keeping his people safe of late.

  There was a soft knock at the door, but it opened before anyone could speak. Gersalius stood in the doorway. “I felt your thoughts, your grief. I am so sorry.” From the wizard the empty words seemed to mean something.

  Elaine nodded. “Thank you.”

  “If you are well enough, I would show you a spell I have found.”

  She looked up at that. “What do you mean, found?”

  “There is a spell on almost everything in this village. It is subtle, like a trip spell, but it is there. I thought Jonathan might trust my news better if you saw it and explained it to him.” The wizard didn’t seem offended by that bit of truth.

  Elaine glanced at Jonathan, either for permission or confirmation.

  Jonathan nodded. “Go with him. Learn what you can and report back.”

  She touched his face, fingers gentle. “So there is room in the brotherhood for a wizard, after all?”

  He glanced back at Gersalius, startled that she had spoken in front of him. “He can read my thoughts, Jonathan. It’s hard to keep secrets that way.”

  “My word of honor that all secrets accidently overheard are safe with me,” the wizard said.

  Jonathan looked back at Elaine. Her face was calm. She had faith in the wizard. Jonathan had faith in Elaine. “Very well, go with him. Report back as soon as you can.”

  “Night will be falling in a few hours,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, “and we must have answers before then.”

  Elaine looked down at her lap. “I can heal Tereza’s arm.” She looked up at him, glancing toward Tereza.

  Jonathan exchanged a look with Tereza. He loved Elaine, but he would not let her heal again. It was magic, and it was evil. He believed that. He still believed that. But it was Tereza’s arm.

  “Thank you, Elaine, but no,” Tereza said. She made her voice gentle, as inoffensive as possible.

  Elaine took a deep breath. “I am not evil.”

  “Child, I know that,” Tereza said.

  “Let us agree to disagree on this one matter,” Jonathan said. With his eyes he tried to ask her, please, please let this not stand between us. He had thought her lost for all time. She was back, and he did not want to lose her again, not so soon.

  Elaine nodded. “Very well, I think you are both being foolish, but it is your right.” She leaned forward and kissed Tereza on the cheek. She brushed her lips on Jonathan’s beard, giving it a tug as she had as a child.

  “We will not let this stand between us,” she said.

  Jonathan smiled. “No, we will not.”

  She gave her hand to Konrad, and he raised it to his cheek, not kissing it, but it was an intimate gesture.

  Elaine stood and followed the wizard from the room. Jonathan watched her go, watched Konrad watch her. In the midst of every disaster were the seeds of hope. He knew that, but it was good to be reminded.

  geRSaLIUS LeD eLaINe OUt INtO tHe StReet. tHeY had found her another cloak. It was brown and stiff, but warm enough. It wasn’t until she was outside that she realized she hadn’t taken time to clean off the blood. Gersalius had offered her breakfast, but she had refused; though she felt light and empty, it wasn’t food she needed. What she needed was to see Blaine’s face, hear his voice, feel the touch of his hand. She needed his death to not be true.

  Konrad had hugged her. The softness in his face that she had always longed to see was finally there. What would Blaine have thought? Would he have been happy for her? Or would he have been jealous? She would have given up Konrad’s newfound love, if that was what it was, to have Blaine back.

  Konrad returned her feelings, at last, and it was ashes in her heart. She walked down the snow-covered street. The cold air touched her face. There was a hood on the borrowed cloak, but Elaine left it down. She wanted to feel the cold on her face. Her hair fell unbound around her shoulders. She hadn’t even thought to tie it back. It was so like Blaine’s hair. She would see a shadow of him in every mirror for the rest of her life.

  Gersalius led her to the town square. There was a fountain in the middle of the paved area, and the water within it had frozen to solid white ice. The ice coated even the figure in the center, making it unrecognizable, though a thin trickle of water still played through the ice. The soft sound of water moved oddly through the silent courtyard, echoing off the two-story buildings that hedged the paving.

  “It was a large town once. This is the center of an ambitious town,” Gersalius said.

  Elaine stood by the frozen fountain and let her breath out in a white cloud. Huge fluffy clouds hung low in the sky, pale gray, as if they held not snow but rain. But it was far too cold for rain.

  The gray clouds cast everything in a sameness. The day was as dull and downtrodden as her mood. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Gersalius turned to her. His smile died as he looked at her. “I know that right now you won’t believe this, but it will hurt less as time goes by.”

  She shook her head. “Why are we here?”

  “This is the heart of the town. It wasn’t the first thing built, but it was the center of all their hopes. A fountain in a courtyard, very cosmopolitan. This is the heart of the village, and here is where the spell was laid.”

  Elaine looked around. “I don’t see any
thing.”

  “Look at the fountain, Elaine. Open that inner sight and truly look at it.”

  It seemed like such an effort that she wanted to say no, I can’t.

  “If we can trace this spell back to its owner, we will find the person responsible for all this misery,” Gersalius said. “Then you can have your revenge.”

  Vengeance, was that enough? No, nothing would ever be enough. But revenge was better than despair.

  Elaine took a deep breath of the frigid air and closed her eyes. She held the breath, willing herself to be calm, to quiet the maelstrom in her mind. She opened her eyes slowly. The fountain ran with colors, as if someone had melted wax in the water before it froze.

  Elaine brushed her hands over the ice. A line of sickly green, red the color of burned skin, the purple-blue of bruises; one line was iridescent, with many colors. Elaine couldn’t decipher it at first, until she remember a drowned man she’d seen once. The last line was the color of a drowned man’s skin, mottled and putrefying.

  The thin line of free water that still coursed through the ice picked up the colors like a river picking up the dirt of different fields. The water ran black as it pooled in icy pockets, deep enough to dip a small bucket into, deep enough to drink from.

  There was a thickness on the water’s surface that held all the colors like an oil slick, but sparkling with some inner light that had nothing to do with the weak winter sunlight.

  “He poisoned the water,” she said, at last.

  Gersalius nodded. “Indeed.”

  “Is it poison or magic? It gleams like a spell.”

  “Both,” he said.

  Elaine shook her head. “If it is in the water, then why does everybody rise from the dead, even strangers?”

  “Most strangers don’t die as quickly as Averil and Blaine. Most have time to drink the water before they die.”

  She turned to him. “Blaine won’t rise as a zombie.”

  “No,” Gersalius said.

  “Will Averil?”

  “I fear she was given water to bring down her fever.”

  Her relief that Blaine would rest now forever was spoiled by the thought of Silvanus’s having to watch his daughter become a shambling corpse.