She turned to Blaine. "I'm sorry."
He gave a halfhearted smile. "I have never seen you lose your temper before. It was impressive, but why Jonathan? Why today?"
"You can stay with them. There's no need in both of us losing our home."
He shook his head, face grim. "No, you are my family. If you are no longer welcome, neither am I."
"Konrad has refused to partner with anyone since his wife died," Thordin said. "You might need another sword at your back."
Elaine looked at him, surprised. "You'd come with us?"
He shrugged. "Jonathan's upset now, but if anything happened to the two of you, he'd never forgive himself. I'd never forgive me, either. Better to go along and make sure you two are safe."
Blaine gave him a rough hug. "You old softie, you."
Thordin just grinned.
"Gersalius, is it all right if Thordin comes, too?" Elaine asked.
"Well, I admit I hadn't planned on expanding my household quite this much." At the look on the twins' faces, he smiled. "But who am I to refuse a stout sword arm to protect my back?"
Thordin slapped him on the back hard enough to send him staggering. "You're a good man, for a wizard."
Gersalius gave a half-cough. "Well, with such ringing endorsement, we'll be just one happy family."
At that, Elaine's smile faded. They had been a family, but no longer. Why had she forced Jonathan like that? It was unlike her. She shook her head. Was it the magic? Was Jonathan right, and the magic was controlling her? What if Jonathan was right and she was being corrupted? What if she was corrupting everyone around her? She had just succeeded in breaking up one of the most successful cells that the brotherhood had ever had. A house divided upon itself cannot stand. Elaine couldn't remember who had said that. She hoped that whoever it was was wrong.
NINETEEN
Twilight lay in thick purple clouds across the sky. The snow that had threatened all day began to drift down in huge, fluffy flakes, like the down of some gigantic goose. The village of Cortton lay in a small valley. Lights glimmered from windows here and there. Chimney smoke rose into the fading light to mingle with the purplish clouds.
Jonathan tried once again to explain to Silvanus and his party what lay ahead of them. The elf was mounted just behind him, sharing his horse. Jonathan turned in the saddle and found the elf's disconcerting eyes inches from his own. "There is a plague in the village below. You might live longer if you went on to the next town. Another day will see you to Tekla."
"If there is a plague, where else should a healer be?" Silvanus said. He made a gesture with his half-grown arm.
"I cannot argue that a true healer would be very helpful, but I want you to understand what may lie ahead."
"I appreciate your concern, Jonathan, but we have faced evil before. We have even faced the walking dead before and lived to tell the tale."
Jonathan stared into that strange face and tried to read the expression. Silvanus seemed so confident. The mage-finder remembered being confident once, secure in his own beliefs, but that was before. He glanced back, eyes searching for Elaine. Her yellow hair glowed in the dying light. She rode behind Elaine, having generously offered her horse to the large, mustached man. Her hair glowed against the white of Blaine's hood, and Elaine seemed to feel his eyes upon her, for she turned to look at him.
Jonathan looked away before their eyes could meet. He didn't want her inside his mind again. The thought made him shudder as if something had slithered over his foot in the dark. She'd had no right to invade him like that. It was evil. Yet, he wanted to mend things between them, but didn't know how.
Short of her magic's disappearing overnight, Jonathan wasn't sure things between them could ever heal. He hadn't anticipated Blaine's taking her side, but should have. He'd been blind not to expect that. But Thordin? That had been a complete surprise. Their cell of the brotherhood had more successes than any other-more monsters slain, evil wizards prosecuted, charlatans unmasked. They were a good team. The fact that Elaine's magic had broken them up was proof enough that her witchcraft was a corrupting influence.
He stared down at the lights. Putting to rest the dead of Cortton would be their last task as a family. He was the head of this family. The leader of all who obeyed the brotherhood in his house. So why could he not find a way out of this moral dilemma? It was like watching a wagon barreling down a narrow path. He knew it was going to go careening off into space to smash to the rocks below, but could not stop it, not by wishing or screaming. It was an accident happening slowly before his eyes, and he could do nothing to stop it.
He could not solve his own problems, but he could help this village. Jonathan would have rather faced a dozen zombies than strife in his own household. Perhaps he might yet defeat both.
"Do you still worry over the girl?" Silvanus asked.
Jonathan wanted to say no, but nodded.
"Averil is often strong willed. We quarrel, but we make up. They never stop being our children, no matter how angry we get."
"This not a fight over an inappropriate suitor," Jonathan said. "She invaded my mind without my permission. She showed that she would abuse her power."
"She is what. eighteen of your years? She is young. You are the one with the patience and wisdom of years. It is your task to heal this fight, not hers."
"Is that the way you deal with Averil?"
"Yes." That one word sounded tired, as if the good advice was harder to swallow than to dish out.
Jonathan glanced back. Elaine was looking at him. He held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. Did her eyes seek him as his did her? Did she long to mend this quarrel? If so, why had she done it? He could have ignored much, but not this outright invasion. She had to know that. It was almost as if she had done it deliberately.
"I cannot mend this," he said, at last.
"Will not," the elf said.
Jonathan nodded. "Will not." He kicked the horse forward. It began winding down the path.
"Pride is a cold thing, my friend."
"It is not pride."
The elf's voice came close to his ear, like his own conscience. "Then what is it, if not pride?"
It was fear, but Jonathan didn't know how to explain that to the elf. Silvanus's dead wife had been a witch, a human mage. If the elf could love, bed, and father a child with a magic-user, he would not understand Jonathan's fear.
"Please, Jonathan, you have been so kind to us. I will listen with an open mind. You can use my ear to bounce ideas from, until you find a way to approach Elaine."
It sounded so reasonable. Jonathan didn't feel in the least reasonable. How to explain his fear to someone who did not share it in the least?
The sun died in a flash of golden blood in the purple clouds. As they rode down the hillside, the light slipped away from them. Konrad rode ahead, his figure growing dimmer, blending with the coming dark. Konrad was the only one of them who wasn't riding double. He and the paladin. The paladin was simply too large to share. Konrad simply hadn't offered.
"My parents were slain by magic." Jonathan said, at last.
"As was my wife," Silvanus said.
Jonathan shook his head. How to explain? "No, they were not just killed. They were degraded, tormented."
"Tell me, my friend."
But he did not want to. This grief was too intimate. Even after nearly forty years, the wound was still raw. His mother had been a gypsy like Tereza. Perhaps that was why from the first her dark hair and rich voice had captivated him. Do we not all spend our lives trying to get back to happier days? Of course, if that was all Jonathan had wanted, he wouldn't have joined the brotherhood. He wouldn't have become a mage-finder. He would have taken Tereza and found some quiet corner and hidden away. But he hadn't, perhaps because he believed that the evil would find him. Those who did not seek out evil to slay it, would be sought out by evil. Better to face it, hunt it down, than to be caught unawares.
He had been ten the year the wizard rode int
o the yard of their homestead. His father was a sheep farmer. His mother, with her delicate hands and rich, contralto voice, was a noted bard. If she had traveled, she might have become a meistersinger, but she was not ambitious. It was a very gypsy trait to have great talent and not worry about whether it was used to best advantage. Happiness was more important.
They had a small inn where travelers could come and stay. Mother sang in the evenings. Father was often away during the day, tending the flocks, but every sheep had to be in by nightfall. The wolves could destroy an entire flock in a single night.
The wizard was a tall, painfully thin man, as if he never got enough to eat, but Jonathan remembered watching him eat great quantities of his mother's food. He never grew fatter, and fascinated Jonathan and his younger brother, Gamail.
The wizard, Timon, stayed for a week. The two boys hadn't even realized he was a wizard until the day the woman rode into the yard. She was small, dainty, with a fall of hair down her back the color of autumn-bronzed leaves. She came looking for an old foe, Timon, and challenged him to a duel.
Jonathan's mother tried to stop it by stepping between them.
The red-haired witch raised her hands to the sky. "Get out of my way, woman. My quarrel is with him."
"This is my home. If you must duel, duel elsewhere. That is all I ask."
"If Timon will go with me, that is acceptable."
The tall, thin man just shook his head- "If I am going to be executed, I will not go willingly."
"Please, Timon," Mother said, "go outside the homestead."
He shook his head again. "I am about to die, and you complain about your house. A house can be rebuilt."
"Timon, my lady, please."
Timon scowled. "Leave us, woman." He made a flat gesture with his hand, out from his body.
Mother fell to the ground. Jonathan and Gamail ran toward her.
"No, stay back." She shouted the words in her wonderful voice. The sound carried into the house. Guests and servants came to the windows and the door, and the cook dashed out and took the two boys by the hands, then pulled them back toward the house.
No one helped Mother. No one helped.
Mother tried to crawl away in the dirt on her hands and knees, but the red-haired witch pointed one hand. A bolt of sizzling green light roared outward, engulfed her. Mother screamed. They could see her through the green light as if through colored glass. Her body began to melt, falling down and down, impossibly small. Her clothes formed an empty puddle on the ground when the light died away.
Jonathan tried to run to her, to help her, but the cook clung to his wrist as if her life depended on it. Her fingernails dug into his skin. From that day on, he would carry a perfect imprint of her fingernails there.
Timon walked forward, carefully, never taking his attention from the red-haired witch. He poked the cloth with his foot. Something small moved under the cloth. Something impossibly small.
Timon stooped and jerked the cloth up. A cat stood huddled on the ground. The cat hissed at him, hair raised on end. It scratched him. He jerked back, tumbling to the ground. The cat ran toward the house, darting inside.
Jonathan didn't realize the cat was his mother. He couldn't hold such an absurdity in his mind, not at ten years old.
The red-haired witch laughed, finger pointed at the fallen wizard. No blaze of light burst forth. Jonathan saw nothing, but Timon screamed. There was a swimming in the air; a nothingness seemed to wrap round him. It squeezed him, that nothingness. It pressed tighter and tighter, until his screams died for lack of air. No air, no screams. He burst in a splash of red and darker fluids. The body fell to the ground.
"Timon was always easily distracted," the witch said. She turned her horse and rode away.
Jonathan wanted to yell after her. What he would have yelled, he did not know.
His father came home that night. He made a sort of quest of trying to find a wizard to cure mother, to change her back, but it was no use. No one had the power, so in the end, Father set out to find the red-haired witch. He did, and she killed him. Mother was run over by a cart like any common house cat.
Seven years later, Jonathan Ambrose had slain his first wizard.
The elf was very quiet behind him. Silvanus did not ask him to share his confidence again. It was rare to find someone who respected silences, though the few elves Jonathan had met before had all seemed more than able to keep their own counsel. Perhaps it was an elven trait to understand silences. Few humans did.
Tereza knew of his past, and that was all. It was enough.
Cortton lay in darkness. Lamps shone at second-story windows. Light gleamed between the cracks of shutters on the ground floors. Jonathan had never seen such a waste of lamp oil. It was almost as if they thought the light alone would keep them safe.
Childish. But it was hard to give up that love of light, the hope that light alone can banish monsters.
The main street was wide enough for a wagon to drive through. Snow had been shoveled to either side and piled in man-high drifts by the doors. The frozen earth was rock hard under their horses' hooves.
They could have ridden two abreast, but Konrad did not wait. He led the way down the dark street not looking back to see if anyone followed. Jonathan wondered if Konrad would even notice if they all stopped and let him go alone. He had been going alone since Beatrice died. He still did his job, so Jonathan had nothing specific to complain about, but the spirit in which he worked was soured.
If Tereza had been killed, Jonathan was not sure he would be doing as well as the younger man.
Konrad pulled his horse up sharply. A narrower street bisected the main road. There was something about the way he sat his horse, a tenseness that made Jonathan kick his own horse forward.
"What's wrong?" Silvanus asked.
"I'm not sure," Jonathan said. They drew up beside Konrad, who was staring to the right. He seemed mesmerized by something down that black narrow passage, more an alley than a street. The dark ribbon of road was overshadowed by the eaves of the buildings on either side, so the black of night was the color of coal, and just as penetrable.
"What did you see, Konrad?" Jonathan asked.
"I'm not sure. I saw something move." His hand was on his sword hilt. Jonathan could feel the tension radiating from the man, like the cold air itself.
Jonathan peered into the blackness, straining until white spots danced in the darkness before his eyes. "I see nothing."
"Nor I," Silvanus said.
Tereza rode up beside them. Averil sat behind her.
"Why are we stopped?" Tereza asked.
"Konrad thought he saw something down that alley."
"I did see something," Konrad said.
"Whatever it was, it seems to have gone. Let us ride on to the inn," Jonathan said. He kicked his horse forward. Tereza followed him. Konrad stayed behind, staring into the darkness.
Jonathan glanced back to find that everyone else was following. Only Konrad remained, stubbornly staring into the alley. He could have seen a stray cat or dog hunting for a warm place on this bitter night. But then again. Jonathan found himself searching the darkness.
Another narrow street crossed the road. Jonathan stared down both sides of the new street, and saw only thick blackness winding away from them.
A sign hung half into the road. A gust of wind roared down the street like an icy chimney. The sign creaked. The sign showed a white bird winging skyward, pierced by an arrow. Painted blood traced the bird's chest. In small letters the sign read: The Bloody Dove.
Not a cheerful name, but Jonathan had seen worse. His least favorite had been the Lustful Fiend Inn. Its sign had been positively offensive.
"Jonathan," Tereza said. Her voice had a note of quiet panic that made the hair on Jonathan's neck try to march down his spine.
He turned back to her, but she was looking past him, down the wide street. Elaine's face, behind Tereza, was wide-eyed with fear.
It was like a thousand nig
htmares. Jonathan turned slowly round to face the street. A half-dozen shapes were shambling toward them, man-sized, but moving like drunken puppets. Jonathan had seen enough walking dead to know what they were.
"Zombies," he said softly.
The sound of horse hooves made him glance behind. Konrad was riding toward them at a fast pace. He was motioning for Blaine and Elaine to move. Blaine hesitated for a heartbeat. It was enough. Deadmen poured out of the alley that separated them from Jonathan and the rest.
Konrad pulled his horse up. It reared, screaming as the dead things clawed at it. Konrad's axe slashed downward frantically, but he could not break through. He was forced to back away, trying to control his screaming horse. Blaine had drawn his own sword, but was hampered with Elaine so close behind him. He used his other arm to slide her down to the ground, behind him, away from the zombies, then kicked his horse forward into the shambling horde.
Jonathan watched it all in dawning horror. Elaine's yellow hair vanishing behind the screen of zombies. Had Blaine forgotten there was another alley behind this one, and alley near where Elaine stood, alone and weaponless?
He started to turn the horse to help them. Tereza called, "We've got problems of our own, Jonathan." She had regained control of her voice; it was almost matter-of-fact.
He wheeled the horse back. Silvanus clung desperately with his one arm.
The shambling dead were still coming slowly down the street, but there was something crouched in the mouth of the alley. It looked like a man, but scuttled from shadow to shadow as if even the cold, distant moonlight hurt it.
Tereza had her sword out, trying to keep the creature in sight. A zombie stumbled from the alley, clawing at her horse. The horse reared; Averil screamed, clinging to Tereza's arm, crippling her sword. The man-thing leapt. There was a shimmer of pallid skin, and it hit Tereza and Averil, knocking them both to the ground. More dead closed in, and Jonathan lost sight of them.
He urged his horse forward to help them. A zombie stumbled into the horse. Hands clawed at Jonathan's leg. He kicked at it. The thing staggered backward a few steps. Something that had once been a woman grabbed Silvanus around the waist.
Death of a Darklord (ravenloft) Page 16
