Elisha Rex

by E. C. Ambrose

  Elisha circled the archbishop’s body and crouched near the head, glancing down into the open eyes rimmed with darkness and shot through with blood. The force of a dead witch’s fury was nothing to be taken lightly, especially for her murderer. He found the talisman of his own hair and blood that the mancer had used to such advantage, rolling the hair between his fingers. How had he gotten it at all, and how had he gotten so much? Elisha’s hair had not been so long since he was hanged and the executioner cut off his queue, discarding it on the ground. Where someone took it for a talisman. Brigit.

  She met Morag atop his own grave and caught their interest, the more so when they learned, through the archbishop, no doubt, that Elisha’s mourner, Alaric’s wife, was pregnant. Was she using them, or they her? She must have given them the hair around the time of the king’s kidnapping. Then Elisha was crowned in Thomas’s place, by the mancer archbishop. Brigit sought him out, offering him one last chance to ally himself with her. She would be queen. Not a threat, a promise. And his rejection had brought them to this. Like the blow to his heart, when the shock passed, he knew, this would be an agony.

  Shifting his grip on the knife, Elisha hacked off a clump of the dead man’s hair and wet it in the blood that trickled from the open mouth. The archbishop’s deception gave him a slender plan, a thread he might cling to as he walked the dangerous path before him.

  Elisha bound the archbishop’s relic with the strands of his hair before stuffing it into his medical pouch. The dagger he stuck under his belt. To complete his guise, he worked the heavy ring from the archbishop’s finger, then rolled the mancer and found his fleshing blade. Finally, Elisha stripped off the thick embroidered surcoat that marked his royal station and replaced it with the mancer’s bloody cloak, layering the resonance, confusing his own presence with that of the dead man and the woman he had killed.

  Mists of Rosie’s shattered presence drifted along the floor, tracking the marks of her blood. He must put aside the dead and find the living. He centered his awareness again and searched not for Thomas, but for himself.

  From the tendrils of awareness that spread through the early dawn and stretched across the land, the archbishop’s body tugged at his attention, but he cast aside the lingering pain. His mind raced yet further out, ignoring the dark interior to trace the edge of the sea as if he followed the map Pernel made for him. Thomas coughing, marked with black streaks. Like a coal miner. Elisha ignored the churches, the castles and dungeons, and sank his awareness toward the earth, toward the mines.

  There! A tenuous presence flared to life, a long way off yet steady. Focusing on it, Elisha felt a slicing pain and nearly fled the place. Catching his breath, his hands clasped, Elisha reached out again, gingerly, and found the source: the tempest of Rosie’s death still swirling where she had been killed.

  There were few deaths Elisha knew so intimately. Although his stomach rebelled, he could all too easily imagine himself there. Thomas himself would be guarded well. If Elisha extended his thoughts toward the echo, he caught the chill of the others there, hovering at the fringe of his awareness. He would face the mancers, in the place where they had killed so many, at the heart of their domain. He defeated the archbishop with the aid of Madoc’s contact and Rosie’s dying rage. Now, once again, Rosie provided the opening, the contact that he might use to carry this fight to their lair. That locked-away part of himself cried out—should he become like them, use the dead without regard? Elisha pressed his hands over his eyes: if he would defeat them and free the king, there was no other way.

  Before he went, he focused on the archbishop, on all that he knew of the man; he remembered his mannerisms, the way he spoke, the way he smiled, the careful manipulation of his presence that allowed him to pass as desolati while projecting holiness, the subtle and terrible control that allowed him to claim Elisha’s own presence when he slew Rosalynn. How long could Elisha maintain a similar deception? He had no way of knowing. Contact would make it stronger, but would the mancers allow him that close, even if they believed he was the archbishop? If not, he must be prepared to act quickly, to pray that surprise at his arrival could give him the opening he needed.

  Elisha reached out along the terrible arc of Rosie’s pain that connected her flesh and blood with the place where she had died. Death to death. Contact. He pulled himself through to a place he had never known but through her terror, and it was terror that drew him on.

  Waves of dread assaulted him as he crashed through the space between living and dying. Fell voices wailed around him, resonating through his bones. His passage felt nothing like the golden glow the mancers summoned, but he recognized the shrieking. His eyes frosted over, slender ferns tingling across his vision, but he dared not shut them. His skull squeezed with the pressure building all around him and spirits streaked through his heart as if his wound gaped open to every demon who inhabited this special hell. The armor he forged so carefully quivered with the forces assailing him.

  The talisman of Thomas’s hair, so long dormant, trembled against his skin as if translating the other man’s fear. In flashes he saw Thomas’s face, the sudden brilliance of his infrequent smiles, and felt the swift strength in his long limbs. Their last moments in the garden before Thomas rode off to be king and Elisha to be buried: Thomas brought him scissors and a razor, though Elisha barely trusted himself not to kill another king. They spoke of what would come, and Thomas’s words echoed back to him, “If anyone can survive this, it will be you.” Thomas Rex had offered a weapon to a regicide in quiet, simple faith.

  Elisha clung to that, driving away the cold with his determination. He who was struck through the heart and yet lived, he would be turned by fear no longer.

  Light broke over him with a spectacular silence. His knees scraped rough stone—colder than any stone wrought by the hand of men—and Rosie’s last moments shot through him once more. This time, Elisha did not fear them, remembering the sweetness of her smile.

  Slowly, he lifted his chin and faced the growing day. The courtyard filled in around him, still shadowed, but he recalled it only too well through Rosie’s memory as he knelt on the stone table that had ignored her tears. He rolled his shoulders, stood, and turned.

  Over the walls and a broad swath of rough grass, the steely sea broke white upon rocks to the east. Inside, a low storehouse took up one wall, where a wood and metal brace stood over the black hole of the mine. Harnessed to the apparatus, a cob horse stood cropping up the meager grass. The gate opposite him hung open; indeed, one hinge tilted at the wrong angle, and none had bothered to repair it. Two men stood talking softly in the growing light, one keeping his face to the road while the other inspected the fingers of a flap of skin which had once been another man’s hand. A third mancer, a tall woman, leaned over a well in the other corner, hauling on the rope and finally bringing up a bucket. She groaned beneath its weight, and half-turned. “William, lend me a—Christ upon the Cross!”

  Both men jerked in the gateway and spun, their eyes flaring as they saw Elisha standing upon the table.

  With a slight nod, and a smile, Elisha told them, “I’ve come for the king.”

  Chapter 21

  The mancers gaped back at him, startled by his arrival, but not leaping into action at the appearance of an enemy. Drawing up his knowledge of the archbishop, Elisha affected his manner. He sighed, glancing at the heavens. “Surely you must know better than to leave yourselves open like this, and now I am able to surprise you? Really.” He affected the slightest drawl, and toyed with the heavy ring upon his finger.

  The tall woman stepped lightly nearer, then planted her hands on her hips, gazing up at him. Elisha felt the casual stroke of her awareness, inquiring into his, and he smiled, projecting nothing, allowing nothing to pass his wall. Dark hair tumbled down to her waist, nearly concealing the skin that hung against her back—a small, slender child’s skin that made Elisha’s stomach churn. He prayed they would not
notice the sweat that streaked his palms.

  “You’ve been perfecting that guise,” the woman said. “It’s hard to feel you separate from him.”

  “When you’ve got a man’s blood on your hands . . .” Elisha shrugged.

  “You were not even sure he could be killed—is that not what the whole charade of his coronation was about, setting him up for disaster?” the bearded man demanded, his pronunciation foreign, his expression suspicious.

  “It’s high time we were rid of the barber, though the little game was fun while it lasted.” The woman dangled something on a chain, a bit of skin that showed the weathering of premature age. She had slain the men Elisha marked after Martin’s death. “And now we can be sure nothing he ever said will be believed.” She cocked her head with that coy smile. “I was right then, Jonathan? It was her death that broke his defenses? Oh, he must have been a tasty one.”

  “Yes, what did happen back there?” The bearded man strode up, pushing the flapping arms of his talisman back over his shoulders.

  The third, a stocky blond, wore the skin of his victim slung about his hips like a dancing belt. He hooked his fingers over it now as he slouched up to join them. “What about that, Your Grace? I lured off the guards like you said and left you to it, but I could sense there was trouble.”

  “Trouble indeed. You don’t know half the night I have had,” Elisha said, letting the edge of cold flow through his voice. “Even with her death in my hands, the barber put up a struggle. I hope today will run more smoothly, starting with one of you fetching me the king.”

  “Poor thing,” said the woman brightly. “Have you suffered much? Will you share?” Her tongue darted out, pink and moist, to stroke her lips.

  Elisha stifled his revulsion. He had made this nasty little show, and now he had to play his part. “Later, my love, don’t you agree that anticipation is half the fun?”

  She tossed back her head with laughter. “The invasion must be going well, then, if it’s time to kill the king.”

  They knew about France, and the invasion triggered the next stages of their plan—whatever that might be. Every question asked might give him more information or reveal him as an imposter. Focusing on Thomas, Elisha grinned ferociously. “Let us say that many men will be surprised this morning. And many will be dead.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t bring any of the damned French with you. But at least they’re better than these dreadful Germans! Ugh!” She gave a mock-shudder, staring at the bearded man, then she spun a half-circle and beckoned to the blond. “C’mon, Wills, let’s bring the guest of honor. I think the festival’s beginning.”

  “We should wait,” said the bearded man. “I assure you, the Germans will not be happy with any change of plan. Besides, we still believe it wise to work with her. There is no reason not to also adopt her plan.”

  Her. That, at least, Elisha knew. He leveled his gaze at his inquisitor. “She’s not the queen.”

  The man gave a tilted grin, and a slight nod, like a gentleman acknowledging a challenge. “And you are not the king. That guise will not help you with the desolati, it only works on those of power. No matter what you think of her, it is not wise to alienate the other magi by rejecting one who might sway them.”

  Elisha gave a casual shrug. “I may well be regent by midday. With a few laws, a few words in the right ears, I might sway them myself.”

  “Ruling the church is not enough? No other of us can make himself a king, why should you?” The man took two steps nearer and leaned slightly forward, his nostrils flaring. “This does not feel right.”

  “Which part? Your not listening to me?” The flash of anger that escaped him needed no projection, and the other man straightened.

  The winch squealed as the woman clucked the horse into motion, hauling up the platform meant for miners or coal. Elisha forced his attention to stay on the argument.

  The bearded man thrust his finger at Elisha. “You are not the king here, Jonathan, not even the bishop. We all know how you won that appointment. Even should the French grant you the papacy, among ourselves, we are an electorate, and do not forget it.”

  Was that like a coven? Each new sign of his ignorance made the pulse pound in his ears. “Then let’s don’t forget that I am the one taking the risks.”

  “You ripped the queen. That does not confer the right—” The man broke off, his gaze sliding to the side.

  The tall woman led the way. Wills and two others followed, with a heavy burden slung between them. The horse stamped and returned to its grass.

  “Out of the way, Master,” the woman purred, “we’ve got work to do.”

  Two mancers carried out the king, and Elisha’s stomach nearly betrayed him. An iron bar passed across Thomas’s back with his elbows hitched up over it, his wrists chained across his chest and linked to the chains at his ankles. A second bar behind his knees—padded like the first—provided the anchor for a pair of leather straps that circled both bars, binding the king into a brutal pose. As Rosalynn revealed, they had not hurt him; they shed no blood that might lead a would-be rescuer, even to padding the bars and lining the fetters with fur. Elisha spied the point of an ermine’s tail that poked out by Thomas’s chained ankle: the fur reserved to royalty. Something in his chest burned.

  Thomas’s head dangled, his pale brown hair concealing his face as they carried him out like the main course at a cannibals’ feast.

  Elisha’s throat echoed with the name he dare not cry. He checked the horror that reeled through him and twisted it back into his fury. His teeth locked together so hard that his jaw ached.

  “Master? You’ve got to come down,” the woman sang out, holding up her hand.

  Move. Somehow. Maintain the projection for as long as he needed it: he had to set Thomas free.

  “Darling,” she sighed through him with a stroke, “We need not do this now. Have you already spoken across the water? The French will want to share this one. And Bardolph’s friends will be angry.” She tipped her head toward the German.

  “Bardolph,” Elisha replied, letting the truth gleam through, “is really starting to irritate me.”

  “I know precisely what you mean.” She squeezed his arm as she released him.

  Elisha tossed away the dead man’s cloak. If he could convince her, the dead man’s lover, then surely he could convince the rest of these. He needed only enough time to establish contact. If he could get through to Thomas and get them both out of here—

  They set the king down on the stone table, as gently as if they cared, and Thomas’s head jerked up. Darkness rimmed his eyes, so bloodshot they looked more red than blue.

  Elisha wanted to leap up to the table and take back the king. But two mancers leaned against the stone, a stout woman with her hand on Thomas as she loosened the gag, and a man with a broken nose, at her side, ready to aid her. Elisha’s muscles tensed in the struggle between mind and spirit. He had to wait, he had to.

  For a moment, Thomas stared at him through glazed eyes, then he sagged forward, as if all strength left him, and his forehead bumped the stone.

  The stout woman chuckled and winked at Elisha. Wills, the blond man, slapped Thomas’s exposed bottom. “What a king, eh?”

  Fury blazed through Elisha, and he sought for death, the cold power flowing all around him in this God-forsaken place. Each mancer wore the skin of a brutalized victim, and the empty fingers swayed in a breeze that did not ruffle the grass. Five mancers. And him.

  Bardolph lifted his head, his eyes flaring in Elisha’s direction.

  Snaring the cold, Elisha gathered it in his mind and smothered his fury. If before he had been armored, now he forged himself like a blade—molten in the fire and quenched in ice, waiting his time to strike.

  Grateful that Thomas’s head remained bowed, Elisha grinned. “Well?” He gestured to the table.

  The stou
t woman produced a key, bending toward the king to find the locks.

  “Let me,” Elisha offered, but Bardolph’s hand shot out, forestalling him with a palm set against his chest.

  “Do not let him touch the king. He has too much power already.” He forced Elisha back a step, wedging between him and the stone, blocking his view. The contact held the cool tingle of the mancer’s awareness, probing him. Elisha projected arrogance and held murder in his heart, but Bardolph stared at him a little too hard. Tempted to guide his power across that touch, Elisha shifted back, breaking the contact, forcing himself to wait until Thomas could be freed.

  “What if the French invasion is not enough to break the barons? We might still need her—we should still bring her in.”

  “What,” said Elisha, “will she do the deed herself?” He had no idea—perhaps she would, perhaps this is what she had been working toward.

  But a few of the others laughed. “She still han’t gone that far, Master,” said Broken-nose. “She wanted to do the barber, but she han’t got no stomach for the real stuff, eh?”

  Elisha let himself relax just a little. He felt a tremor in his strength. He remained weak from his earlier battle, and he could not long maintain his projection. “Well then, she won’t do it, and our friend here won’t let me touch him. Who here is strong enough to kill the king?”

  “I would,” Wills offered, jumping up on the stone and sliding out one of the rods that held the king as the stout woman pulled free the second.