by Sean Russell
“It is a difficult question to answer, Father, for I am not exactly sure. I seem to have trouble remembering. It was a man named Bryce or perhaps Price . . . ?” He pressed a hand to his forehead, which pained him suddenly.
The others nodded, and Samual Hayes touched his arm.
“Don’t tax yourself attempting to recall, Captain James, it will only bring you suffering. The man’s name, for your comfort, was Bryce. Percival Bryce.”
“Mr. Hayes,” cautioned Clarendon.
“Mr. Hayes has offered you good advice, Captain,” Deacon Rose said. “Trying to remember will gain you nothing. Better to know as little as possible. That’s my counsel. And do be careful whom you take into your confidence on this matter.”
“I am an officer of His Majesty’s navy,” James shot back, “not a gape-mouthed fool.” He had not meant to speak so forthrightly, but the pain in his head made his temper flare.
The priest gave him the thinnest smile and a nod. “Of course,” he said.
“It seems a bit odd to have us all gathered in one place,” Kehler opined. “Would it not be more efficient to have us spread along the coast? Why on earth does it take the four of us and Captain James as well to identify the woman? Certainly one person would do.”
“I think it was merely a mistake,” Captain James offered, speaking softly now, the pain subsiding. “This young woman seemed very promising—she went by the name of Ann Fairfield, did you know?—and we were all summoned with the idea that someone would get here quickly, no matter what delays the others suffered.”
A midshipman came quickly into the room, glanced around once, and crossed directly to their table.
“Captain James? And your companions, sir: Clarendon, Deacon Rose, Hayes, and Kehler?”
The captain nodded. What now? Another woman he must rush off to see?
“I’m to deliver this gentleman to you so that you might hear his story.” The young man turned and looked back to the door where a rather unkempt Farrelite priest stood, looking somewhat abashed. At a nod from the midshipman he approached the table, though not quickly. James was oddly struck by the softness of the man’s eyes, the modesty of his demeanor, as though he were not concerned about his place in the world. A glance back at the priest named Rose revealed a great contrast. There was no question in James’ mind who was the true follower of Farrelle.
“And who are you, Brother?” Deacon Rose asked.
“Brother Norbert—of the Blessed Springs Monastery,” he said. “In the Caledon Hills.”
James exiled the midshipman to a distant corner of the room, and a chair was provided for the monk.
“Well, Brother Norbert,” Rose said, “don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Men came searching into the hills these few days past, and dragged me from my home and my pursuits,” he said, though if this were an accusation, it was stated very mildly. “They were searching for news of a young woman—Anna Fielding by name. I told them of a visitor whom I had found wandering lost, and apparently she fit the description.” He looked up. “She was a woman of singular appearance—red-haired, vivacious. One might almost describe her as vivid.”
James noticed the others glance at each other, a bit surprised.
“Not pale or faded?” Hayes asked.
“Not at all, sir. She had been riding beneath the sun for some days and had the color of it, but no, she was vital, even . . . vibrant. A most unusual woman.”
“And what was she doing in the Caledon Hills, and what name did she offer?”
“She did not offer her name, and I did not ask. . . .”
“You didn’t ask her name!?”
The priest shrugged. “No. It’s only a word and seems very unimportant to me. Too much stress is placed on names, I think, which is why we brothers of the church give up our given and family names. I did not ask; she did not offer.
“She claimed to be writing a book of her journey through the hills. That is why she was visiting the out-of-the-way places. As she explained, readers would hardly be interested in localities that had been visited by half the people in the kingdom.”
“And she traveled alone?”
“She did, though she had set out with a guide. A young man named Garrick Lake. He had taken a tumble off his horse and broken his neck. She was most distressed at this loss—most genuinely distressed.”
“And when did you meet her, precisely? The date.”
The priest considered a moment. “The morning of the twelfth.”
Clarendon, who for the most part seemed unhappily quiet, interjected, “That was before the gorge, so it means little.”
The others nodded.
“Did she say anything else, Brother? Did she tell you where she was going?”
“To Wicken Vale.” Brother Norbert considered a moment. “In truth she said very little, especially about herself.” He thought a moment more. “Though she did pose an odd question as she left. She asked, if her spirit appeared to me one day, if I would forgive her sins and help her find peace. I said that I would, and she asked, ‘No matter what I had done in life?’ and I said, ‘Yes, no matter what you had done.’”
“Very generous of you, Brother, but you did not know what atrocities she had committed already in this life.” Deacon Rose seemed to dismiss the priest from his thoughts then, looking at the others.
“But she seemed a kind, good-hearted young woman to me,” Brother Norbert said mildly. “She shed tears for her guide and wondered if the rites she performed would bring him the peace of Farrelle.”
“Which of course they wouldn’t as she was no priest. And likely the rites that she performed would damn him for all time. You do not know whom you are dealing with, Brother. Have you anything more to tell us?”
Brother Norbert opened his mouth to speak, reconsidered, and then shook his head.
There was a tense silence following Rose’s berating of the kindly priest, and then Clarendon spoke.
“Has her spirit appeared to you, Brother?” he asked, his voice quiet and serious.
Brother Norbert looked at the small man in some surprise. “It has not.”
Clarendon nodded at this news. Saying nothing more, he turned to his food.
Forty
Erasmus walked among the overrun gardens, occasionally looking out across the sound to the mainland beyond. Fishing wherries and coasters heeled to the breeze, stained sails among a smattering of small, white crests.
He had left Anna poring over Halsey’s writings, stepping out to get some air. There was only so much time a man could spend reading—or making love, for that matter. He was going a little stir crazy. Escape from Eldrich did not seem such a bargain at that moment. In exchange, his life had been reduced in size until it seemed bounded by the walls of the garden—an area he could encompass in a quarter hour. Too small.
“I have exchanged all the world for this,” he said aloud.
He looked out to the boats under sail, sturdy, seagoing little ships, and all he could think was that perhaps one of these could carry him away—over the horizon and into the great unexplored world.
“I am being locked up in this fair prison,” he said aloud.
At least he was not alone, and though Anna spent many hours in study and contemplation, she was, the rest of the time, quite attentive to him. He had even begun to wonder if her affections for him were real. Whether real or feigned, they took great, if somewhat desperate, pleasure from each other, and that was making his captivity bearable.
Anna’s chough landed on the top of the stone wall that topped the cliff. It eyed him, jealously, Erasmus thought.
“Chuff,” it muttered in disapproval.
“There you are,” Anna’s voice came to him, and he turned to find her brushing aside the branches of a laburnum. Although she carried Halsey’s book and looked the part of a dutiful scholar
, she favored him with a kiss that was anything but dutiful.
She held him at arm’s length, gazing at him closely. “You are prowling about like an animal in a cage, Erasmus. I have begun to feel as though I have locked you up here, and against your will, too.”
“It is . . . an adjustment. The world seems to have shrunk to this two acres, and I have not yet become used to it.”
“You need to find some endeavor to occupy your mind. I know I have said this before, but can you not pursue your interests here? There is an old glass house that we could put into repair. Certainly horticulture can be studied as easily here as in Locfal?”
Erasmus disentangled himself from her and they both perched on the low, stone wall. “For some reason these things don’t seem to draw my interest at the moment. Perhaps in time . . .”
“Well, you could assist me. I will try to propagate the king’s blood. I will have need of it in the future.”
This elicited an uncomfortable silence from Erasmus.
“It can’t be helped, Erasmus, I am becoming habituated even now. You cannot imagine the agonies of giving it up. It is even said that it has never been done.” She gazed at him intently, worried by his response.
Suddenly Anna offered him her hand. “Come with me,” she said simply, and led him off through the garden and out a wooden gate set into the wall.
“Where are you leading me?” Erasmus asked.
“Astray, my dear Erasmus. You will see.”
They followed a path that wound up the wooded hill behind the enclosed gardens.
“Whose lands are these?”
“Mine. Ours, now. Perhaps forty acres, or thereabouts.”
They continued to climb, stopping to rest once, for it was not really so long since their ordeal in the cave and flight through the Caledon Hills, and neither of them had yet fully recovered.
Finally they came up onto a narrow, natural bench cut into the hillside. This sloped up gradually into a dense thicket of holly and gorse. They made their way slowly, leaving bits of hair and skin and clothing behind on the many thorns.
“I hope this is a vista worth the blood,” Erasmus complained.
Anna laughed but said nothing, leaving Erasmus to wonder. Finally they burst through the thicket and found a stand of mature trees, evenly spaced, on a kind of natural terrace. A small spring spilled from the rocky bluff behind, and with the sun filtering through the leaves, it was a place of great charm indeed.
Erasmus turned to look out toward the mainland, but the view was almost entirely hidden by the branches of trees. He began to go forward, thinking to quench his thirst, but Anna restrained him with a hand. She seemed very solemn, suddenly.
“Before you go forward, you must first perform this short rite.” And she made a motion with her hand, chanting a string of Darian.
“A nance,” Erasmus said, realizing what he saw. It was akin to the ruin on Farrow, though made up of natural elements. Instead of columns, seven trees; two chestnuts, a pair of hawthorns, two silverleaf oaks, and a single black walnut. The trees were arranged in a half-circle radiating out from the rock wall, each tree opposite its mate, the black walnut opposite the wall.
Erasmus copied Anna’s ablutions, and moved into the center of the trees, their boles standing straight, the many branches reaching up, supporting a green roof.
“You did not tell me of this,” Erasmus said.
Anna shook her head. “No.” She whispered as though they were in a place of worship.
“Is this a gate as well? Like Landor’s Gate and the Ruin on Farrow?”
“No, it is a memorial. The gates are ancient sites, used in ages past. This is no older than the trees you see. In truth, it is more like the field outside Compton Heath. A Stranger appeared here once. My people traced it most carefully. She came into our world on this very spot, some two hundred years past.” Anna put her arm out straight. “And along this line lie Compton Heath, Kilty’s Keep, and the ruin of Tremont Abbey.” She gestured in the opposite direction. “And far out to sea, Farrow sits, though it might not lie on this same fault—this line of power. You are standing at a place where the worlds meet, Erasmus Flattery. Or at least met in the past. On that day the earth trembled, and a great storm appeared to sweep down out of the sky. The worlds intersected here, and a Stranger appeared: an elderly woman. She did not live long—a year or two—but long enough to prove something that had been in doubt for a thousand years. The other worlds, the worlds of ancient stories, existed, and they could still be reached.”
Conversation ceased, and they both remained very still, listening to the mumbling spring, and the breeze sighing through the trees.
Erasmus thought of Clarendon and his story—of seeing a man and woman disappear under moving stars—worlds intersecting. He was coming to believe it himself.
“You have never told me what you learned in the field outside Compton Heath,” Erasmus said.
She crouched down with her back against a tree. “I could feel the world turning,” she said. “And then I saw the heavens.”
“In broad daylight?”
She nodded. “Yes. But there were no constellations I recognized.”
Erasmus turned to her, surprised. “What does it mean?”
“That Eldrich has long planned to escape this world. It is why he is so desperate to complete his task. The worlds are drawing closer, aligning in some way, and there will be a chance to open the gate between—perhaps the last chance for centuries, perhaps forever.”
Erasmus crouched in the center of the nance so that he could look directly into her eyes.
“What do you hope to do, Anna? What do you truly hope?”
She considered this a moment, biting her lip gently. “To live, Erasmus. That is the only purpose for both our lives now. To live, for surely Eldrich will destroy us if he can.”
Erasmus asked the question that had weighed upon him ever since he had woken in the gorge and found Anna was his savior. “But what of this vision of the mages? This cataclysm? If we escape Eldrich, will we bring this catastrophe upon man?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know the answer to this. I do know that the mages were not of one mind regarding it, as perhaps I have said. The more powerful mages overruled their fellows. Certainly Halsey was never able to see this alleged vision of the apocalypse. But in all honesty, Erasmus, I cannot say what will happen. Perhaps even Eldrich is not sure.”
“But he does not seek our death for his own amusement. . . .”
“No, he does not, but that does not mean his reasons are right. What have we done to deserve such an end?” She looked suddenly as if tears would come, but she turned and looked away, her jaw tight. “He could offer a truce. I would listen to reason. I am the only follower of Teller left in this world, and I renounce his aims. Let Eldrich convince me, and I will renounce the arts. Do you think the mage could be convinced to do that?”
Erasmus did not need to consider this. He shook his head quickly. “No. He will seek your death—and mine. Eldrich treats with no one.”
Anna met his eye. “No one but another mage—”
The question must have been clear on Erasmus’ face.
“There was this stricture among the mages. They could not take the life of another mage. It was more than a law, it was a curse, and a mage’s curse is a deadly thing. There was one moment in the ritual which created the mage when the emerging mage could be killed, but beyond that they were immune to any threats from their fellows.”
Anna met his eyes with a gaze of great intensity. “He cannot harm you, Erasmus, if you undergo the transformation—if you become a mage.”
Forty-One
“If I didn’t know it was impossible, I would swear that he’d played a joke on us.” Eldrich shook his head and continued to stare at the canvas. Walky stood a pace back, tilting his head to one side.
Eldrich glanced up at her and then at Walky. He looked annoyed, and the countess was not quite certain if it was with her unexpected arrival.
“No,” Eldrich said. “Indeed; perhaps you can make something of this painting for us.” His attention slid back to the canvas.
She came around the easel, taut with anger which appeared to go completely unnoticed by the mage. The story that Hayes had told her—Erasmus’ story would not leave her in peace.
He used children! One of whom was set aflame to fulfill his ends. Set aflame!
Walky made a hasty bow, not nearly so insensitive as his master.
“By your leave,” the little man whispered. The door closed behind his retreating form just as the countess’ gaze came to rest on the painting.
She felt her balance give way oddly beneath her, and her anger toward Eldrich evaporated. “Is—is it a Pelier?”
The mage shook his head, apparently unaware of her reaction. “No. It is an Averil Kent, though painted under an enchantment that I hoped would allow him to imitate Pelier in more than just style. But what in this round world does it mean? That is the question.”
Mean, indeed. The countess braced herself mentally, the same disturbing feelings that the Pelier had engendered coming over her. The painting was of a storm, or so it seemed; leaves and broken branches and detritus from the forest floor all airborne and awhirl. Rain, in streaks and torrents, spun on this same dervish wind. She could almost taste it, feel the breath taken from her, the leaves and dirt forced into her mouth and lungs. It was unbearable.
For a moment she shut her eyes, but the painting did not disappear, and in her mind’s eye she could see figures in the maelstrom.
Her eyes flicked open. Yes, there they were—a woman and a man. And was that a white blossom in her hand, or merely something carried by in the torrent? The man braced himself against the wind, reaching out a hand to his companion. The countess could not tell if the woman had hold of the man’s hand or not, but both of them looked as though they would be swept away at any moment.
