“As you say,” the Shaper replied. In the blink of an eye, he and his new charge disappeared.
A page approached Her Majesty and held out a goblet of wine on a small silver tray. Taking the wine, the Queen said, “Summon my four boys, and tell them to bring the sword.”
The page did a quick about-face and left with alacrity.
The boys appeared before Her Majesty had even finished her wine. They entered the throne room two- by- two and advanced to the Queen’s chair.
“Your will?” the one with the sword said.
Instead of answering, Alheria studied them a while: four perfect reproductions of Tarmun Vykers. Well, they had better hygiene, less wear and tear, and kept their beards and hair neatly trimmed. And none possessed the strange, chimeric quality Vykers had acquired from his former body guard. But these four were as close to being the Reaper as anyone had ever been or would ever be.
“My will,” said the Queen, “is that you keep a hand on that sword at all times. The Reaper has returned to Lunessfor and expressed a desire to reclaim his sword. That cannot happen. Do you understand me? It cannot happen.”
“Yes, my Queen,” said the Vykers who currently held the sword.
“I may be mistaken, but you four would be wise to expect an attack at any time.”
“Yes, my Queen,” they all answered in unison.
*****
Vykers & Turley, In Lunessfor
Turley had begun weeping almost as soon as Vykers led him out of the warehouse. He started slowly and quietly at first, a single tear working its way down his now smooth, beautiful left cheek. By the time he returned to Igraine’s rented room he was sobbing uncontrollably. For most of the journey, the Reaper had ignored his tears, but he was the Reaper, after all, and possessed only so much patience.
“What?” he demanded without preamble.
“I’m sorry,” Turley said, although he’d done nothing wrong. “I never thought…I wasn’t expecting…”
“You don’t like your new body.” It was a statement. Vykers could bloody well see the goblin was unhappy in his new human – and female – form.
“It was hard enough leaving my kinfolk, but I dared to believe somehow I’d come back…But now? I’m wearing the face of a murderer! This girl killed a score or more of my people.”
“They ain’t your kin anymore,” Vykers reminded him. “They threw you out and were gonna kill you, remember?”
Igraine sat dejectedly on the edge of a bed. A human would have wiped the snot trailing from her nose and down her face, but Turley ignored it.
Vykers was not the sensitive sort and had no idea what to tell the goblin. The truth was that the Reaper had thought only of his revenge upon the Shaper and not at all about the goblin’s needs or desires. Vykers had found a convenient solution to his problems, but it came at Turley’s expense. Still, he had a hard time accepting that his companion couldn’t see the gift he’d been given.
“I miss my own body,” Turley mewled. “My own fingers, my crippled foot. I don’t even have a prick anymore!” He threw his hands up in a plaintive gesture.
Vykers was fed up. “Well I do. For the first time in ages, I’ve got mine back, and I intend to use it!” He strode angrily to the door without looking back.
“Where are you going?” the goblin fretted.
“The nearest brothel. See you tomorrow.”
The sound of the door slamming shut was the loneliest thing Turley had ever heard.
There was a loud bang and light blazed into the darkened room, temporarily blinding the still groggy goblin. Then, a shadow blotted out the light, and the door swung shut again. Vykers had returned, and early, it seemed. He trudged over to his own bed and threw himself heavily down on the mattress. The whole room seemed to vibrate in response.
“I thought you said…” Turley began.
“Save it. I’m drunk, and I’m tired. And I forgot how women love to talk afterwards. Not me. I only wanna…”
Turley waited to hear the end of this sentence, but was treated instead to the Reaper’s snoring. The goblin took some comfort in knowing the Reaper’s head would torment him in the morning.
Except that it didn’t, to Turley’s amazement and deep disappointment. Incredibly, the Reaper got up first, went out, and came back with breakfast. Turley should have been grateful, but couldn’t help feeling cheated at Vykers’ mercurial recovery.
The Reaper acted as if nothing was amiss. “Look,” said he, “I’m gonna call you Igraine from now on. This is who you are right now, so you might as well learn to deal with it. Igraine.”
Igraine frowned with as much gusto as Turley could muster. Vykers ignored the woman and continued to eat. When he’d finished, he changed the subject yet again.
“I ain’t missed how much attention I get just walkin’ down the streets. Pain in the ass, really. Just another reason to get out of this Mahnus-cursed city.”
Against his better judgement, Turley inquired, “Where would you go?”
“We,” Vykers said, “will go north and fight the End-of-All-Things, o’ course. How’s that sound?”
Terrible, thought Turley. “But didn’t you tell Her Majesty…”
Vykers belched, stood and stretched. “I know what I told her. But she expects me to go fight, anyway.”
“Then why do it?”
“’Cause I want her to think she can anticipate my every move. I want to reinforce that thinking. Time comes, I’ll do something else and surprise her.”
Maybe. “You said ‘we’?”
“Yeah. You’re comin’. Couple o’ months, I’ll see you get your old body back.”
“And the Shaper?”
“We’ll see.”
*****
Arune, the Castle
Tears were slower in coming for Arune on account of her having already died once, but come they did. In her wildest imaginings, her most far-fetched nightmares, she’d never foreseen or predicted the fate she now endured, trapped in a body like a prison, in a room like a prison, in a castle like a prison. Even as a ghost in the forest, she’d had some hope of possessing an animal or even a human and finding her way back to civilization and a body of her own. Now? If there was a fate worse than death, Vykers had found it for her. And what galled her most was that he’d outsmarted her. That was the one advantage she’d always believed she held over the Reaper; now, she knew otherwise. What a fool she’d been.
Compounding her despair, the Reaper’s return meant that Arune had lost any chance at reconciliation with Aoife. When Vykers learned what Arune had done in his name, she’d almost certainly lose her life as well.
Some people have an endless capacity for self-pity; others eventually become bored, tired of it, and move on to more profitable endeavors. Although only a day had passed, Arune was rapidly reaching the end of her interest in self-punishment. It was time to move on, to devote her energies elsewhere.
She turned her attention to her new quarters. They’d been designed to imprison Shapers, she was sure. For one thing, there was no window. The door, too, was unnaturally solid and featureless. The handle had worked when she’d been shown in, but now it was frozen in place. The walls featured some mildly interesting paintings and tapestries, but concealed nothing but bare stone behind them – no cracks, no secret doors, nothing that even suggested possibilities. And, of course, they were impervious to Arune’s magics. There were plenty of books on the room’s various shelves and tables, but none were helpful, promising instead Knights of Passion or Folklore of the Northern Peoples. The Shaper’s guardians had even seen fit to remove (or simply not provide) anything that might be remotely dangerous to herself or others. She could fashion something to hang herself with, she didn’t doubt, but would have a much harder time attempting to subdue her guards with the same shirt, gown or whatever it was.
But Arune had learned patience in her time as a ghost. She could wait with the best of ‘em. And while she waited, she would learn what she could of her room,
her captors, and general events and routines of the castle. Eventually, someone would come for her. By then, she would have a plan and a destination.
Her only fear was that in her now-excessive amount of spare time, she’d think too much on Vykers and, most especially, Aoife. Even if she managed to get free of her current imprisonment, she would never be free of her fear of Vykers and her longing for the A’Shea.
With a sigh that seemed to come from the very soles of her feet, she reached for Folklore of the Northern Peoples.
*****
Omeyo & the Svarren, On the Attack
When would these bumpkins learn? There was no point in standing in the False Reaper’s path, and no chance of surviving it, either. Omeyo brought his Svarren to a stop an arrow’s flight from the little hamlet’s outermost homes. It could be a trap, he thought. And I might be the Virgin Queen, too. If there was an army waiting to ambush him, he didn’t see where it might be hidden. In the town well, perhaps?
His Svarren fighters did not seem the least reluctant to attack.
Still, something bothered the general. Using hand gestures, he sent two teams of two to the left and right and then forward past the initial cottages. The sun had set, but there was light enough to see that folks were in their homes, going about the business of stoking their fires, making their meals and putting their young ones to bed. It was odd and inexplicable, from Omeyo’s perspective. His scouts returned unharmed but more than ready for violence, so he suppressed his last misgivings and launched the attack.
A wise man knows when to listen to his gut.
No sooner had the Svarren passed the outer homes than a vast hedge writhed out of the ground and trapped them inside the town proper. And because vines and branches wear no armor, nobody heard anything until the growth had become too large to leap over. Yet, it was only a hedge. As long as the Svarren didn’t engage it, they should have more than enough time to steal fire from the townspeople and burn every house and the blasted hedge to the ground. Yes, Omeyo had seen what had happened the last time the Svarren had encountered such a hedge. This time they would avoid it. No hedge, no matter how magical, could stop them from killing every man, woman and child in this village.
If only it were just the hedge.
Uncanny balls of light zipped out of the gathering darkness and blinded or burned Svarren wherever they found them. Giant, staggering tree shapes grabbed the attackers and tore them in halves. Enormous toads spat poison or acid. Satyrs gored them with their horns or stabbed them with lightening.
The villagers barred their doors and shuttered their windows, kept their weapons and their dogs close, and in all ways prepared for the end.
And the Svarren? They panicked. They’d heard rumors of what had befallen their brethren just a few days earlier, and superstition reigned supreme in their minds. If they had offended the old gods somehow, they knew that no quarter would be offered. They stampeded and fought for their lives. The very air crackled with lights and energy reminiscent of a Midsummer’s festival, but the absence of laughter and the presence of screams destroyed the illusion. Death had come to the hamlet, though not as Omeyo had planned or intended.
Dark, towering, leafy shapes strode past in the flickering light, dragging or carrying Svarren corpses off on errands the nature of which Omeyo dared not contemplate. His force had been routed, and he alone remained untouched – by design, he reckoned, and not happenstance. Someone wanted him to return to his master with news of this defeat.
The trouble was, returning with said news could well mean death, especially after losing another group days earlier. And yet, Omeyo could hardly run away and hide from the False Reaper, could he?
The village square grew deathly quiet. Turning his horse left and right, the general saw no further movement and nothing of the fey. Even the bodies of the dead Svarren had disappeared. Then, somewhere, a door opened. Omeyo spun round to identify the source of the noise and found himself facing a stalwart villager extending a nasty pitchfork in his direction. Resigned, the general turned his mount a final time and rode out of town, unimpeded by hedges, brambles or anything else.
Every yard of every mile between himself and the False Reaper’s camp proved a challenge. No sane man would move another inch in that direction, but Omeyo did, over and over again. He expected to be killed for his failure. That made perfect sense. Unfortunately, he also expected that his death would not be easy or fair. The Pretender and the End-of-All-Things before him were sadists. It was not enough to vanquish an enemy or punish a servant; their greatest joy was in humiliating their targets.
Omeyo struggled to imagine what fate awaited him in the False Reaper’s camp. Ultimately, he would be chagrined at how obvious it was.
“Ah,” the Pretender said calmly, “But of course you failed.” Without further discussion, he turned to his two body guards, Tooth and Nail, and said “Do with him as you wish.”
It was the most terrifying sentence Omeyo had ever heard. The next few minutes of his life became an ever-deepening nightmare, as the two brutes dragged him off, screaming, into the midst of their slavering, bestial clan. They used and abused the general in every way possible, until his conscious mind shut down, and he lost all sense of time, place or being.
Somehow, he eventually regained his wits and found himself on the verge of freezing to death in a gelid pile of his own blood and filth. He vomited and continued to do so, until he produced nothing but bile. Soon, there was even too little of that to bring up. He collapsed back onto his side, hoping, praying, that death would take him.
What he felt, instead, was a powerful, taloned hand gripping the top of his head and jerking him to his feet. With swollen, bloody eyes, he made out the face of a Svarren woman. She was staring back at him like a farmer’s wife, attempting to gauge the ripeness of a fruit for picking. Omeyo would have thanked her for a quick broken neck. Alas, it was not to be. The Svarra shifted her grip and dragged the general through the camp, through a gauntlet of hooting, shrieking Svarren men, laughing obscenely at the spectacle they’d made of Omeyo. The night grew darker as the woman pulled Omeyo into her hovel and tossed him unceremoniously onto a pile of stinking furs.
Then she began licking Omeyo clean.
~ NINE ~
Rem & Kittins, On the Road
Cindor did not appear the next morning, which only increased Rem’s anxiety, for the Shaper surely would appear one day, and the actor would rather have had it over than live in constant expectation of it. The continuous, gnawing dread was giving him an ulcer, he was certain.
The other thing was that for every morning Cindor did not appear, Rem was forced to endure another day’s slog through the increasingly treacherous weather for no better reason than to maintain the illusion of obedience to the mage. Rem wasn’t actually spying on Kittins; the two were in cahoots. There was nothing to be gained from taking a single additional step to the north. Rem wished again that Cindor would just jump in already and be done with it. Kittins would kill the Shaper…or Cindor would kill Kittins…and Rem. But it had gotten to the point where Rem almost considered being incinerated by the Shaper a better option than more travel.
And he was sick and tired of the cold. Even sitting in front of a fire at night, his back was cold. At least when he’d been travelling with Long Pete and the boys, he’d shared a tent and a bit of body heat. Now, he shivered through each night despite the fine gear he’d purchased, and on those rare occasions when he slept, he dreamt of more sleep, and of warmth.
The morning came, however, when Rem rolled out of his blankets and discovered the Shapers’ feet not three inches away. He craned his neck upwards to afford himself a better view of the man without actually getting out of his tent, when Cindor reached down, touched him on the shoulder…and jumped.
It was a good thing Rem had been on the ground when Cindor touched him, because it saved him from having to fall once they reached the Shaper’s quarters.
So much for Kittins’ brilliant plan.
“You smell like a jakes,” Cindor complained.
“Yes, well, there aren’t a lot of bathhouses along the route, are there?”
“Mmmm,” Cindor mused. “And what have you to report?”
Rem sat up. “Report? What report? It’s cold up north. It snows too much. And Captain Kittins is a Mahnus-be-damned phantom.”
“Has he stopped anywhere?”
Rem worked his way to his feet, stretched. “A couple of times, I think. He spent the night in some little town no one’s ever heard of.”
“When was this?”
“A week ago?”
“Did you see him speak with anyone?”
“He might have talked to a stable boy.”
The Shaper shot Rem a look of disgust. “Some spy you are.”
“I never said I was a spy. And what is it you’re expecting Kittins to do in the midst of all of those snow drifts?”
Cindor’s fingers crackled with energy, a warning that Rem had best watch his tongue. “I don’t trust that monster to do the Queen’s bidding, and it is my job to protect Her Majesty’s interests at all costs. You would do well to take a similar view of my interests.”
Rem nodded. It had taken him a while, but he’d learned the Shaper was happiest when he thought himself in control. No sense in giving him any other impression. “Is there any chance of a hot bath while I’m here?” he asked as meekly as possible.
“No,” came the curt response. “You tarry too long here, and you’ll lose your quarry. We got back immed…”
He touched Rem’s shoulder, and again they jumped back to the frozen north. Rem had barely an instant to register their arrival when an enormous red blade sprouted from Cindor’s chest, spattering blood all over the actor’s coat.
“Stab him!” Kittins grunted from the Shaper’s far side.
Rem pulled his envenomed blade and made ready to stab the mage, or perhaps slash his throat – he hadn’t decided – when he noticed that Cindor was staring directly at him and calmly mouthing something inaudible. The fear of something imminent spurred Rem to strike, and he drove his knife into the Shaper’s right eye, whereupon the man’s lips ceased moving.
Corpse Cold (Immortal Treachery Book 3) Page 28
