Birds of Prophecy (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 3)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "Many an invasion has been launched with that justification," I said.

  "It's true. The king is worried that America prepares to attack England," he said.

  "That would make no sense. The Federalists have control of the government. They wish a closer relationship with England," I said.

  "Then why do they build up their fleet of airships? Our spies witnessed a display of a terrible weapon this summer. If America possesses such a weapon, then no country is safe," he said.

  His spies had seen the Brave Eagle destroy a hillside. It was true, if America possessed such a weapon, it could destroy any other country with impunity. Occupation was another issue, but what did it matter if your country had been wiped out.

  I wished I could tell him that the Brave Eagle no longer possessed the weapon his spies had witnessed, though I had no guarantee that Ben Franklin had not handed it over to the government. My gut told me otherwise, but lately my gut was frequently wrong.

  "You are a French spy, are you not?" he asked.

  "No," I said.

  "But your accent? If you worked for the American government, you would have turned us in already," he said.

  I had already, in a way, but had made Simon promise not to reveal his information until after the solstice. I was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake.

  "The truth makes liars of us all," I said.

  As we neared the forest in which the Gamayun resided, I turned the vehicle away, heading down a different road.

  "Not this way," he said. "Always trying to deceive. I would ask your name, but I don't think I would hear the truth from your lips."

  With a smirk, I replied. "Katerina."

  "Speak no more unless I have asked, and turn this vehicle around. I want you to take me to the birds," he said.

  "You don't want to see them," I said.

  "I will be the judge of that. I'm not some beetle-headed common worker with the sense of a paving stone. I am a physician."

  Even an earned title was no replacement for cold logic. Only in this case, with the prophecy pulling the strings, I couldn't be sure logic would prevail.

  "Do you know what you ask?"

  "Gamayun," he said boldly, like a child proud of his early fumbling writings.

  "What do you know of them?" I asked carefully. "Tell me or I will let you shoot me before taking you to them."

  "They give prophecy. True prophecy, not the mad ramblings of hedge witches," he said with a bit of wonder.

  "They're also harbingers of doom. To hear them is to earn death," I said.

  "With any great power comes danger," he said.

  "You're a fool if you want to see them," I said.

  He laughed contemptuously. "So you have seen them?"

  His barb struck true. "I can at least claim ignorance to their danger when I visited upon them. To go willingly is to court death."

  "I'm willing to take that risk if it gives me answers for England," he said. "I will give my life for King and Country."

  "It will give you only death and misery. The Gamayun do not offer their words for your wisdom, but only to spread their discord. Take my advice and turn away from this path," I said.

  He poked me in the neck with the pistol. "Take me to the Gamayun."

  I blinked hard. "Wait. Why did your fellow spies see the Gamayun and not tell you?"

  "They did nothing of the sort. Once again your lies expose you," he said.

  "I found evidence they'd been to see the bird-women," I said, my voice trailing away to nothing as I tried to reconcile the contradiction.

  "Turn this carriage around before I put a hunk of lead in your neck!"

  This time I believed him, not wanting to test the prophecy. I found a place to turn around and headed towards the glass shop.

  So many thoughts rushed through my head. The doctor knew about the Gamayun and that I was taking him to the wrong location, but he didn't know exactly where they were.

  His fellow spies had to have visited the Gamayun, since at two of the locations I found evidence in the form of a feather. Their curious deaths reconfirmed my thinking, since it was unlikely to have that many connected accidents.

  As we reached the location from which I usually made my watch, I was sure I was missing something critical that connected all these events. The only link seemed to be the investigation itself.

  As the thought solidified in my head, a sharp pain came like a cold shard of ice being driven into my chest. For a moment I couldn't breathe.

  I was the link between them all. I was the one spreading the infection. Showing up at their doors and causing them to investigate further, eventually leading them to the Gamayun. I hadn't been the one to start it, someone else had led Albert Hold to the Gamayun, but I was the carrier for the others.

  And I was about to do it again. I was fulfilling the prophecy.

  I couldn't let that happen.

  Before the steam carriage could slow, I leapt out the door. Boots slipped as they hit and I tumbled, sending snow down my neck and packing around my wrists, before coming up in a full run, headed straight for the protective trees.

  A pistol barked as I stumbled down the slope. The lead whizzed past my head.

  Why, oh why, hadn't I brought the repeating pistol I'd stolen from Brassy's guard?

  I was too far from the trees. Dr. Nottinghouse steadied his arm and prepared to fire.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A blast thundered in my ears.

  I was thrown to the ground at the bottom of the hill before the waiting trees. I couldn't move my right arm. Tentative investigation brought bloody fingertips.

  Dr. Nottinghouse stumbled down the slope, kicking up snow as he tried to maintain his balance. Dazed, I scrambled into the forest, climbing up roots to place the thick trunks behind me as a shield from further shots. Hanging frostbitten moss scratched my face as I stepped carefully across the maze of roots, keeping my right arm against my side.

  The cold had dampened the cloying air of the forest, but it still choked my throat.

  Dr. Nottinghouse pursued, climbing across the floor of roots after me. He was hampered by the pistol in his hand as I was with the wound in my shoulder.

  A brief check revealed the meat of my arm had been pulped by the bullet. I was thankful that it hadn't hit bone, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to flee.

  Dr. Nottinghouse shouted after me, "I don't want to kill you. Take me to the Gamayun and I won't harm you."

  Continuing to move across the treacherous roots, watching where I set my feet, I replied, "By the blazes, you've already tried to kill me."

  We were well matched in our contest, like fox and hound. I could not shake the doctor while he could not catch me, nor get a good line to take a shot. A few times, I tried to circle around so I might make it back to the steam carriage, but he drove me deeper into the forest.

  The forest grew warmer, which was both pleasing and worrisome. My hands were numb from clutching frozen branches, but the raised temperature indicated I was close to the center of the woods.

  I thought about summoning my fledgling magic, but after the Magdelen House, I doubted that it'd answer my call. The buried light in my head seemed less accessible, as if I'd overused it.

  At some point, I lost the doctor, or he realized he couldn't catch me and readied himself for ambush. The gnarled trees grew thicker and my vision was reduced to twenty or thirty feet. It was as if they sought to confuse.

  No wind reached the center of the woods. I tried to move my arm, but lifting it even a hair brought considerable pain.

  Leaning against a misshapen trunk that looked like a melted wax candle, I tried to determine which direction would lead me out of the forest. In case Dr. Nottinghouse was still following, I had no intention of returning to the Gamayun. Answers or no, it would be foolish to lead him there, though I might have done so already. It was conceivable that he'd unknowingly sniffed the arcane deeper in the forest and headed in that direction. Or the Gamayun
drew him to them using unseelie magics.

  "Oh, Moist Mother Earth, what have I done?"

  In my youth I'd been too wrapped up in the intrigues of the court to ponder the animism of the region, though I was aware of the myths by name. Mati Syra Zemia. The Mother Goddess.

  Somehow this forest recalled to my mind those myths. Were the Gamayun of her bosom or were they beings of darker forces like the Winged One that the Empty Men spoke about?

  Or maybe they were as simple as Rowan explained: they were forces of discord and chaos wanting only to revel in the destruction of those around them.

  Preparing to return to the steam carriage, I placed my foot on a moss covered root, speckled with frost. Something shiny in a gap between the roots caught my notice.

  Carefully climbing to my knees, keeping my right arm at my side, I peered through the gap. Warmth bubbled up from the ground, the shield of roots keeping the cold at bay. If I were stuck in the forest, I might find comfort down there.

  The object of my interest lay on the blackish earth. It was my lantern from earlier in the autumn, when I'd found the Gamayun. The glass had shattered, and a fat spider the size of a crab apple crawled across the brassy shell. Glistening webs sprung from the sides while beetles skittered through the broken leaves.

  I struck the thought from my mind that I might find comfort beneath the roots. Down there, I would only find death as Moist Mother Earth tried to reclaim me for the soil.

  Using my belt knife, I marked the tree and circled the area. I wanted to find the fallen bird so that I could determine which direction lay my escape from the forest.

  I heard a voice croak.

  "Katerina."

  Taking tiny steps and using a hanging branch, I turned in a full circle, seeing nothing.

  Am I going mad?

  "Katerina."

  The second time I knew from which direction it came, though I didn't recognize the voice. It was not Dr. Nottinghouse, or the Gamayun. It sounded like the scratch of a nail across steel wire.

  "Katerina."

  The body of a dead raven lay in a gap in the trees, stretched across the roots like a crucifixion. Its flesh had been picked apart, and the glossy black plumage was patchy with rot. Bits of bone in its wing poked through the flesh. The wings had broken upon impact. If I'd dared inspection I knew I would have found maggots crawling through its flesh, decomposing the body for its return to the earth.

  When the head of the dead raven turned and its beak croaked out my name, I nearly fell from my perch.

  "Katerina."

  It spoke in a way that indicated familiarity. Though I'd seen many things these last few years, the dead bird's speech hit me the hardest. I could neither flee nor speak as the head turned on its broken body, its black eyes regarding me with an alien intensity.

  "What are you?"

  The words fell from my mouth, disturbing the sacrosanct air.

  "You must not," said the dead raven.

  "Must not what?"

  "You must not see the birds of prophecy," it croaked.

  I slumped against the trunk, holding my body against it despite the frozen bark sending its tendrils of cold into my gut.

  "You're too late for that warning. Too late by months. I've already seen them and heard my doom," I said.

  The raven's head sunk against the root and I thought it was done giving its warning, but it looked to me again.

  "I have failed you," said the dead raven.

  "Failed me? Who or what are you? How do you still live?" I asked.

  What had become the strangeness of my life that a talking bird was not even questioned?

  "Came to warn you," said the dead bird.

  The voice was old and tired, as if it had traveled a long distance or the effort of speaking from beyond the curtain of death had taken its toll.

  "Is that what that was before? I thought you were attacking me," I said.

  "Warning."

  "Are you from the other place? Otherland?" I asked.

  "Yes." It paused. "And no."

  "Are talking birds common to Otherland?"

  The bird's head slumped before lifting again. "Not important. You must stop the Gamayun."

  The cadence of its speech was slow and deliberate, like a clock winding down.

  "I don't understand."

  Its beak jawed lethargically. "Stop the spread of their name."

  "I'm trying, but it's not working," I said. "But why don't the Gamayun just tell others about themselves? Why can't they just fly to people's houses and give them prophecy?"

  "It doesn't work like that," said the raven. "They must come unbidden. You must stop them."

  "Tell me how then," I said.

  "You must defy their power. It is your gift."

  I moved to wipe a strand of hair from my face, forgetting my arm was wounded. Pain shot through me. Once I recovered, I grimly chuckled.

  "My gift? Can you explain how that works? I am not unused to delivering difficult news to power, but I don't think that'll work in this case. The Gamayun have already ensnared me in their web. Unless you're suggesting that the web can be broken."

  "You must defy them."

  The pained smile on my lips was almost a grimace. "Oh, Catherine, if you were only here, you would find great irony in this. For once, I don't know how to cause a royal headache. Bird, can you tell me how I might accomplish this task?"

  The dead bird was silent, as the dead should be, but there I was, hoping it would speak again.

  "Nothing? What good are you to me if you can tell me nothing but what I already know?" I lectured the maggot-eaten corpse. "I suppose it's fortunate that I made this journey alone, not counting Dr. Nottinghouse, who probably has found his way to the Gamayun and further dooms our fair city, because should someone else be at my side I might discover that this bird does not speak as I presume, but the voices are all in my head."

  I wished for a staff to poke the resting bones of the bird, but did not want to leave the comforting embrace of the tree.

  "Nothing? You give me nothing?" I asked the bird. "Then I take my leave from your rotting presence, and should you determine how I might defy the Gamayun, please wing your way to my door and explain at length because I am quite out of ideas."

  The despair in my voice startled me. It was a bitter taste and I wanted to swallow it down, but it was getting harder. The Winter Solstice was in two days.

  Summoning my resolve, I pushed away from the tree, the bite of pain spiking through my arm. The cold had frozen the wound shut, but I needed to clean it and repair the flesh properly so it might heal, even if that was probably a pointless task.

  Before I left the small circle of trees that surrounded the body of the dead raven, it spoke one last time.

  "Katerina Dashkova. I have failed you."

  I didn't acknowledge it, but something in the way that it'd spoken left me with the feeling I should have known the voice.

  This thought I carried with me as I made my way out of the forest of the Gamayun. As the air grew colder, I knew I was headed in the right direction.

  It was only luck that I found Dr. Nottinghouse. I stopped to scratch my nose and, needing a free hand to do the deed, I leaned against a convenient trunk. With my head turned, I saw the body through the trees.

  If Dr. Nottinghouse had made it to the Gamayun, I would never know, but if he had, his prophecy would cause no harm. The doctor had slipped on a root and broken his neck.

  His glassy dead eyes stared at the canopy of trees. He appeared peaceful, except for the awkward way his neck twisted, as if his head had been screwed onto his head incorrectly. The pistol had fallen from his grip through the roots.

  Finding him only confirmed that I was the Accidental Killer in the third prophecy. If the doctor had never followed me he'd be alive; another accident to claim another life.

  After leaving the body, since I had no way to move it in my injured state, I found the edge of the forest. The climb up the slippery slope lef
t me reeling in pain, but eventually I made it back to the steam carriage covered in frozen mud and snow.

  Miraculously, the fires in the engine hadn't gone out, nor had the steam carriage crashed into anything when I'd leapt out of it while moving. The doctor must have reached in front and pulled the lever into the idle position and the vehicle coasted to a stop, the crunchy snow providing the friction.

  Driving back to the city with one arm and shivering proved difficult, but I managed the deed before the dim light of dusk faded.

  Despite my desire to slow time, the day before the Winter Solstice was going to arrive, bringing with it the second prophecy and my death. I had no wish to die, but knew of no way to stave off the eternal darkness.

  Chapter Twenty

  My father had never been accused of being a sentimental man. When the petty battles of childhood turned cruel, he would pull me aside and make me stand at attention like a soldier while he gave a stern lecture.

  He would remind me that when others lashed out hastily, it was a sign of weakness, a portal to their inner desires. He would tell me that I should take my beatings with an open eye, watch for that which would make them most vulnerable, and apply what I learned when the time was right.

  I applied this advice when Catherine's husband, Peter III, came to power, practicing his brutal practical jokes on the nobility, marking those who took the pranks the hardest. By these tokens I was able to assemble a conspiracy against the emperor by enflaming their swollen pride.

  This advice returned to me in the dim light of the morning before the Winter Solstice. The air had a grayness that made the world muted.

  But what could I do against the prophecy of the Gamayun? Their destructive pettiness was certainly self-evident. It seemed the bird-women cared for nothing except the void that accompanies nihilism.

  Those that the Gamayun had ensnared were dead. They could do nothing more.

  There were only two people remaining who had spoken to the Gamayun and survived, at least for now: myself and Rowan Blade. But this number would soon be one, as it was doubtful I would escape the prophecy.

  Leaving Rowan Blade.

  She was my one remaining link. Our last exchange had been a disaster. Yet, I could not face my death without speaking to her one last time.