The Arkhel Conundrum (The Tears of Artamon Book 4)

by Ash, Sarah

  He blinked as she said Morozhka’s name. Had she guessed correctly? Determined to learn the truth, she asked, “What did she do to you?”

  A sigh escaped him, a slow release of pent-up breath, almost as though he was relieved that she’d guessed his secret. “She told me Khezef had left memories with me. And I don’t know how else to make sense of them. Night after night I see these places in my dreams. Places I’m certain I’ve never visited.”

  She let go of him and went back to the stack of canvases. “Don’t you recognize any of them?”

  A confused frown flickered across his face. And then he squatted down to pull out one that showed a stark moonlit mountain ravine with a rugged peak towering behind. “This reminds me of Mount Diktra. It’s the tallest peak in the Larani range that marks the border between Smarna and Muscobar.”

  “Smarna? So you have been there.”

  He gave a terse nod; the memory was evidently not a pleasant one. If creating these images was meant to be therapeutic, then the therapy was not proving very effective. She pulled out another canvas. “And this?” His blue eyes narrowed as he peered at the landscape which portrayed a mountain lake surrounded by crags from which a white waterfall tumbled into the gray waters.

  “This one I don’t recognize at all.”

  “And this?” The third canvas was completely different from the others; it showed a vast expanse of sand, an arid golden desert from which arose strangely twisted rocky towers.

  He shook his head. “No idea. Although I read in my father’s diaries that he and Khezef once traveled to visit the Arkhan of Enhirre. And Enhirre is mostly desert. There may be a connection.” He opened the leather-bound volume he had brought from the kastel, placing it flat on the floor so that she could see it was an old atlas.

  “My father’s. One of the books I rescued from his study after the Tielen bombardment.”

  She squinted at it, getting down on hands and knees to take a closer look. The yellowed pages showed a map whose ornately lettered title she slowly spelled out. “‘The Western Quadrant’. Is that Azhkendir?” she asked, tracing the outline of the country, lingering over the place where the Kharzhgyll Mountains met Kerjhenezh Forest.

  “And Tielen is over there, to the west.” He took up a small paint brush, dipped the slender tip in some scarlet paint and—to her horror—marked a little cross on the map, and then another.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m marking the places in the paintings that I can identify. Morozhka’s Round in Azhkendir. Mount Diktra in Smarna.” His brush hovered above the southern lands of Enhirre and Djihan-Djihar, darting down to make another neat cross. “Ondhessar. That’s the name my father mentioned in his diary. An ancient fortress in the desert.”

  “Places that Khezef knew?”

  “Places that were gateways,” he said, staring at the pattern of crosses he had made.

  “Between this world and the Ways Beyond? Or that Gate beyond the Serpent Gate?” Kiukiu had helped to open a doorway to the distant aethyrial realm, using a Sending Song to dispatch the Drakhaouls beyond the mortal world once and for all. “Did he mean you to follow him? Or does Morozhka want to go there too? Surely it’s too late.”

  “She said it was for me. Does that mean that anyone who’s been possessed by a Drakhaoul falls apart once the Drakhaoul has left their body?” He seemed to be talking to himself. “Eugene, Prince Andrei, Oskar Alvborg . . .” Had these worries been troubling him since the dreams began? She reached out to touch his hand and he looked up at her, his eyes dark with concern. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, Kiukiu? If I began to behave irrationally?”

  She reached out to hug him to her, stroking his hair. “You’ll be all right, Gavril. Morozhka’s been putting ideas in your head. She’s using you. She wants to find the Gate for herself.”

  Chapter 20

  “Come at me again, my lord,” Bogatyr Askold ordered, raising his wooden blade to a defensive position across his body.

  Gavril wiped away the sweat dripping into his eyes with his sleeve and gripped his practice sword. Askold had blocked every move he made, repelling him with ease, sending him stumbling backward across the hall.

  I’m not going to be beaten. There must be a way to get under his guard.

  Day after day, since his encounter with Morozhka, Gavril had sparred with Askold in the kastel hall, beneath the stern gaze of his father’s portrait. Determined to learn something of the druzhina’s fighting skills, he put on padded practice armor and began to learn the training rituals the Bogatyr put his men through daily.

  If I make as if I’m going to attack his right side but lunge upward at the last moment to the left . . .

  Gavril launched himself forward, putting all his strength into a two-handed thrust. Askold parried so swiftly that Gavril forgot to plant both feet firmly and Askold’s wooden blade struck his aside. The blow sent judders up both arms and Gavril’s sword fell from his grip, rattling away across the tiled floor as he sank to one knee, humiliated and gasping for breath.

  “Not bad,” said Askold, “for a novice.”

  Gavril looked up and saw that Askold had extended his hand to him to help him up. He shook his head. “You don’t catch me that way so easily,” he wheezed. “You’re going to do one of your wrestling moves on me, aren’t you, and pin me to the ground with one arm behind my back.”

  Askold grinned. “Very good, my lord, you’re learning fast. But you’re still at my mercy.” He slid his wooden blade-tip beneath Gavril’s chin. “On the battlefield, I’d have slit your throat by now.” He mimed, the sword pressing painfully against Gavril’s throat. Gavril swiveled around and pointed his index finger at Askold’s head. “Bang! The closer you get, the easier it is for me to take out my new Tielen pistol and shoot you.”

  “Ah, but you have only one shot. And if your powder gets damp or the pistol misfires . . .”

  “So teach me how to get out of this situation. Without a pistol.”

  “If you’re wearing gloves, you could grab the blade and twist it aside; that’s a desperate measure. Simpler to roll away, reach for the throwing knives in your boot, and hurl those at your attacker.”

  “And if I’ve run out of throwing knives?” Gavril didn’t wait for Askold’s answer. “I’m dead, aren’t I?” His hands were chafed and sore from gripping the wooden hilt and his padded jacket was soaked with sweat. He felt demoralized. “I’d just be a liability if we were attacked.”

  “You’re faster on your feet than when we started.” Askold squatted down beside him. “But you need to practice every day.”

  “Or we need to buy more pistols and muskets.”

  “And how are you going to afford to arm all the druzhina with such expensive weapons?”

  Trust Askold to pinpoint the fatal flaw in his plan. “I’ll ask the Emperor.”

  Askold raised one eyebrow in an all-too familiar expression of weary skepticism. Gavril knew the Bogatyr had little faith that Eugene would expend vital funds on equipping the druzhina.

  “As part of New Rossiya, we need to be ready to defend the empire at all times.” But even as Gavril said the words, he knew how hollow they must sound to Askold.

  Askold merely saluted him with his wooden blade, indicating that the practice session was at an end.

  “Go and take a hot bath, my lord, before you start to stiffen up, or you’ll be walking like an old man by nightfall.”

  ***

  The Golden Scale.

  Kiukiu stared down at the strings of the gusly, fingertips poised, ready to play—and paused. “ Use it. But only when all else fails.” Malusha’s warning, hastily whispered before the Heavenly Guardian appeared to drive them apart, had been troubling her. “When all else fails?” she repeated under her breath. What had her grandmother meant?

  The Heavenly Guardians had warned Kiukiu and her grandmother never to play it again. So even to quietly tap the strings to remind herself of the complicated sequence of notes was a very
risky undertaking. If the secret Guslyars’ chant could still open a way to the Second Heaven, the ever-vigilant Guardians might become aware of what she was doing—and intervene.

  Larisa let out a soft little sigh beside her. After a fractious early morning start with much dribbling and a hot red cheek, she had fallen fast asleep on the bed. Which meant that she would be lively later on that evening when her usual bedtime came around, demanding songs and cuddles when Kiukiu was too tired to indulge her.

  “White feathers come tumbling down . . .”

  Kiukiu went very still, listening intently. There it was again, the eerie singing she had heard before, that made her go chill and cold.

  “ Tumbling down . . .”

  ***

  In the heat of the bath-house, Gavril lay back in the water, hoping that the steamy warmth would soak out the worst of his aches. But by the fiery light from the coals, he saw as he dried himself briskly, that his body was covered in bruises: mottled purplish contusions on his arms and shoulders where Askold’s wooden sword had struck home.

  Are you trying to toughen me up, Askold, or tenderize me for roasting?

  For a moment he had mistaken the bruises for fresh traces of Khezef’s possession. But all signs of the daemonic fusion had fast faded after the Drakhaoul left his body.

  What was he doing, wishing he was still possessed by the Drakhaoul? Yet the harsh truth was, as he and Askold knew but could not admit to one another, that if any enemy were to launch an attack on the kastel, they would not be able to defend themselves. The druzhina would fight to the death, but without Khezef’s destructive powers, they were vulnerable.

  A stab of ice pierced his left wrist, so sharp that it made him draw in his breath. He stared at the gash Morozhka had inflicted which had still not completely knitted over. Whenever it tingled, it was a warning that she was close by. Was she waiting for him in the studio?

  ***

  The kastel women had gathered in the kitchen to warm themselves by the roaring fire as Kiukiu carried her sleepy daughter in, seeking company.

  “I said I’d bring you tea upstairs, my lady.” Ninusha stirred the tea and laid out a plate of honey cakes. Kion was playing contentedly at her feet with a little wooden horse that Semyon had whittled for him; Ilsi was making pastry.

  Kiukiu shook her head, settling herself next to Auntie Sosia near the blaze. “It’s too cold in the parlor tonight. And . . . I heard that singing again. It gave me the shivers.”

  Ninusha glanced up. “It must be Morozhka. Or one of her Snow Spirits.”

  “How can you be sure it’s Morozhka?” Kiukiu wanted to know.

  “I only ever heard her singing once,” Sosia said, pulling her shawl around her. “And I never want to hear that song again.”

  “Why, Auntie?”

  “Because it’s sweet enough to lure you out into the snow and to your death.”

  “Like the Snow Spirits?”

  Kiukiu fell silent, remembering how she had nearly become one of the Snow Spirits out on the snowy moors. If Grandma hadn’t come to my rescue . . . She held Larisa more tightly, seeking comfort in the warmth of her sleeping daughter.

  “Some say the Spirits are the ghosts of the travelers she lures to their death,” put in Ilsi, wiping her floury hands on her apron. “But my mother told me that Lady Frost steals babies’ souls. She sings a lullaby that sends mothers and grandmothers to sleep and then she slips into the house and hugs the babies in her ice-cold embrace until they die.”

  “Why would she do that?” Ninusha cried in alarm.

  “I don’t remember ever hearing her singing before,” Kiukiu said. “Why didn’t she show up at the kastel when Lilias had her baby son two winters back?”

  “Because Lord Gavril was here and he had his full Drakhaon powers back then. She never appeared when the Drakhaoul was around. Too scared, probably.”

  Ilsi stretched the pastry over her pin and then carefully laid it over the top of the big pie dish she had filled with chopped egg and rice, trimming the edges and crimping them with a fork.

  “Why does she need an innocent baby’s soul?” Kiukiu persisted.

  Sosia gave a little shrug. “Who knows? Some say that she’s trying to become mortal but what would be the point of that? Others say she needs the lifeforce of a little baby to prolong her own life. It’s like nourishment to her. Without it, she’d wither away and die.”

  “Just because some woman’s been heard singing around the kastel,” Kiukiu said, determined to calm everyone’s fears, including her own, “doesn’t mean that she’s Morozhka.”

  “We need to protect the babies.” Ninusha gazed around her in alarm, as if expecting Morozhka to make an appearance. “Is there any way to stop her getting in?”

  “You’ll be safe by the hearth, that’s for sure,” Sosia said. “They also say that if Morozhka gets too close to fire, she melts away.” And then she sniffed loudly, her face puckering up into an expression of pained disgust. “Which one of these two needs fresh linen?”

  Kiukiu realized as a strong waft reached her that Larisa was the culprit and swept her up. “I’m sorry,” she said, wincing as the aroma grew stronger. “I’ll go and change her.”

  “Teething,” Sosia said. “Don’t forget to put some of that witch hazel salve I gave you on her little bottom or she’ll be sore.”

  “I won’t forget, Auntie.” Kiukiu hastily retreated upstairs.

  The bedchamber was chilly; no one had come to relight the fire in the grate. After putting her reeking baby in the crib, Kiukiu turned to the pile of linen squares—only to find there were none left. She paused a moment, wondering whether to relight the fire or get Larisa cleaned up first. It would only take a moment to slip out to the chest on the landing to fetch clean baby linen.

  ***

  “White feathers come tumbling down . . .”

  As Kiukiu shut the lid of the linen chest, she heard a woman singing the old song she had come to dread—and realized to her horror that the singing was coming from the bedchamber.

  “Larisa!” She dropped the basket of clean nappies and tore back down the passageway, flinging open the door.

  The singer stopped in mid-phrase. A breath of chill air drifted from the open balcony window. A woman was leaning over Larisa’s cradle, her hair unbound, like a skein of white silk.

  Lady Frost.

  Even as Kiukiu ran into the room, the woman picked up Larisa and turned toward the open window.

  “No!” Kiukiu screamed in fury. She launched herself at the woman, grabbing at her with all her strength to hold her back. Her fingers clutched skin and flesh as cold as firm-pressed snow.

  Risa will freeze to death.

  Kiukiu steeled herself, hanging on even though the snow-cold flesh was burning her fingertips.

  Larisa let out a sleepy cry.

  “Give her back!” Kiukiu gripped hold of her daughter and tugged. “Give me back my daughter!”

  Suddenly Lady Frost let go. Larisa gave a louder yell. She thumped fists against Kiukiu’s body as Kiukiu backed away, clutching her tightly to her.

  Eyes black as a starless winter’s night stared at her over the baby’s head.

  “What are you doing in here, Morozhka?” Kiukiu heard her voice trembling as she confronted the intruder. “Why were you singing to Risa?”

  “Your daughter called to me.”

  Larisa stretched out one chubby hand to Lady Frost. To Kiukiu’s confusion, she cooed, her way of expressing approval and friendly feelings.

  “I meant her no harm.”

  “But you steal babies’ souls.” Kiukiu backed another step away, reaching the doorway. She could hear a distant commotion downstairs coming nearer; her scream must have alerted the household that something was wrong.

  “My lady, is all well?” Ninusha’s voice echoed in the stairwell.

  In that instant, Lady Frost turned and stepped out through the open window into the night.

  “It’s freezing cold up here
.” Ninusha reached the top of the stairs. “Why is the window open, my lady? Let me shut it for you.”

  “No; you take Risa. I’ll shut it.” Kiukiu did not want Ninusha to see how frightened she was; there was no point needlessly alarming anyone else until she had checked that the intruder had fled. She handed Larisa over and gazed out over the white gardens below. There was no sign of anyone below, just the eerie glimmer of snow under starlight.

  “Let me light a fresh fire,” Ninusha said as Kiukiu closed the window and drew the heavy curtain. “A good blaze should warm the room up in no time.”

  Kiukiu nodded, whispering under her breath what Auntie Sosia had said earlier, “If Morozhka gets too close to fire, she melts away.”

  ***

  “Morozhka was here?” Gavril came up the stairs from the bath-house to find Kiukiu agitatedly pacing their room. “In the kastel?” That, at least, explained the tingling ache in his wrist.

  “In our bedchamber, about to steal our daughter!” Kiukiu’s teeth were chattering even though the fire in the grate was blazing away, pine cones spitting and cracking as they released their resinous scent. “She said that Risa called out to her.”

  “Risa knew she was there?” Gavril swept Risa up from the crib and she let out a chuckle of delight. “So she’s inherited your gift?” To his eyes, their daughter looked like any other baby with no outwardly discernible signs of unusual abilities. But why had Morozhka entered the kastel uninvited and tried to steal Larisa away?

  He felt guilty now at not having told Kiukiu about Morozhka’s visits to his studio. He hadn’t wanted to worry her; she had quite enough to occupy her with caring for Larisa and overseeing the running of the household. But now didn’t seem the right time to reveal that she had been visiting him . . . or why.

  “We can’t stay here.” Kiukiu began to pace again. “We have to get Larisa away from Morozhka.”

  “Where else can we go?”

  “The town house. In Azhgorod.”

  “But we can’t go till the thaw sets in. It’s too dangerous. We could get caught in a blizzard on the moors. We’d be at Lady Frost’s mercy out there—isolated and helpless. It’s not long to wait now; the days are getting longer.”