Death of a Darklord (ravenloft)

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Thank you, Elaine, but no," Tereza said. She made her voice gentle, as inoffensive as possible.

  Elaine took a deep breath. "I am not evil."

  "Child, I know that," Tereza said.

  "Let us agree to disagree on this one matter," Jonathan said. With his eyes he tried to ask her, please, please let this not stand between us. He had thought her lost for all time. She was back, and he did not want to lose her again, not so soon.

  Elaine nodded. "Very well, I think you are both being foolish, but it is your right." She leaned forward and kissed Tereza on the cheek. She brushed her lips on Jonathan's beard, giving it a tug as she had as a child.

  "We will not let this stand between us," she said.

  Jonathan smiled. "No, we will not."

  She gave her hand to Konrad, and he raised it to his cheek, not kissing it, but it was an intimate gesture.

  Elaine stood and followed the wizard from the room. Jonathan watched her go, watched Konrad watch her. In the midst of every disaster were the seeds of hope. He knew that, but it was good to be reminded.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Gersalius led Elaine out into the street. They had found her another cloak. It was brown and stiff, but warm enough. It wasn't until she was outside that she realized she hadn't taken time to clean off the blood. Gersalius had offered her breakfast, but she had refused; though she felt light and empty, it wasn't food she needed. What she needed was to see Blaine's face, hear his voice, feel the touch of his hand. She needed his death to not be true.

  Konrad had hugged her. The softness in his face that she had always longed to see was finally there. What would Blaine have thought? Would he have been happy for her? Or would he have been jealous? She would have given up Konrad's newfound love, if that was what it was, to have Blaine back.

  Konrad returned her feelings, at last, and it was ashes in her heart. She walked down the snow-covered street. The cold air touched her face. There was a hood on the borrowed cloak, but Elaine left it down. She wanted to feel the cold on her face. Her hair fell unbound round her shoulders. She hadn't even thought to tie it back. It was so like Blaine's hair. She would see a shadow of him in every mirror for the rest of her life.

  Gersalius led her to the town square. There was a fountain in the middle of the paved area, and the water within it had frozen to solid white ice. The ice coated even the figure in the center, making it unrecognizable, though a thin trickle of water still played through the ice. The soft sound of water moved oddly through the silent courtyard, echoing off the two-story buildings that hedged the paving.

  "It was a large town once. This is the center of an ambitious town," Gersalius said.

  Elaine stood by the frozen fountain and let her breath out in a white cloud. Huge fluffy clouds hung low in the sky, pale gray, as if they held not snow but rain. But it was far too cold for rain.

  The gray clouds cast everything in a sameness. The day was as dull and downtrodden as her mood. "Why did you bring me here?"

  Gersalius turned to her. His smile died as he looked at her. "I know that right now you won't believe this, but it will hurt less as time goes by."

  She shook her head. "Why are we here?"

  "This is the heart of the town. It wasn't the first thing built, but it was the center of all their hopes. A fountain in a courtyard, very cosmopolitan. This is the heart of the village, and here is where the spell was laid."

  Elaine looked around. "I don't see anything."

  "Look at the fountain, Elaine. Open that inner sight and truly look at it."

  It seemed like such an effort that she wanted to say no, I can't.

  "If we can trace this spell back to its owner, we will find the person responsible for all this misery," Gersalius said. "Then you can have your revenge."

  Vengeance, was that enough? No, nothing would ever be enough. But revenge was better than despair.

  Elaine took a deep breath of the frigid air and closed her eyes. She held the breath, willing herself to be calm, to quiet the maelstrom in her mind. She opened her eyes slowly. The fountain ran with colors, as if someone had melted wax in the water before it froze.

  Elaine brushed her hands over the ice. A line of sickly green, red the color of burned skin, the purple-blue of bruises; one line was iridescent, with many colors. Elaine couldn't decipher it at first, until she remember a drowned man she'd seen once. The last line was the color of a drowned man's skin, mottled and putrefying.

  The thin line of free water that still coursed through the ice picked up the colors like a river picking up the dirt of different fields. The water ran black as it pooled in icy pockets, deep enough to dip a small bucket into, deep enough to drink from.

  There was a thickness on the water's surface that held all the colors like an oil slick, but sparkling with some inner light that had nothing to do with the weak winter sunlight.

  "He poisoned the water," she said, at last.

  Gersalius nodded. "Indeed."

  "Is it poison or magic? It gleams like a spell."

  "Both," he said.

  Elaine shook her head. "If it is in the water, then why does everybody rise from the dead, even strangers?"

  "Most strangers don't die as quickly as Averil and Blaine. Most have time to drink the water before they die."

  She turned to him. "Blaine won't rise as a zombie."

  "No," Gersalius said.

  "Will Averil?"

  "I fear she was given water to bring down her fever."

  Her relief that Blaine would rest now forever was spoiled by the thought of Silvanus's having to watch his daughter become a shambling corpse.

  "Then why take Elaine's body if he won't rise?" she asked.

  "Perhaps exactly because it won't rise on its own."

  "I don't understand."

  "If only people who have not drunk of the water lie quiet in their graves, then the townsfolk may discover that it is the water."

  "Oh, so they took his body to prevent that." Elaine thought of something. "Then whoever is behind all this controls at least some of the zombies. He had the bestial zombie steal Elaine's body."

  Gersalius nodded. "Good girl. You are right. Now, let us trace this spell back to its lair."

  "I see only the ice and the colors. How do we trace it farther?"

  "Open more than your eyes to your magic, Elaine. Think of it as opening a window a little more."

  She frowned at him. "I am using my magic. I don't understand about windows and opening them farther."

  "You are impatient, Elaine. That will not help things. If anything, it will make it harder for you. Magic does not come at the call of a whip, but of a whisper."

  She wanted to cross her arms over her chest and be angry, wholeheartedly angry, but she realized it wasn't the wizard she was angry at. It was her grief twisting inside her, spoiling all with its touch.

  Elaine took a deep breath and let it out. With the breath some of the tension left her. She would not let even her grief stand in her way. She would find the maker of this spell and destroy him. It was cold comfort, but it was all the comfort she had.

  "All right, I'll try to open your window." She could hear the scorn in her own voice. The wizard had done nothing but be her friend, but in that moment, she hated the whole world. It was hard to work around that, but she tried.

  Elaine reached into that cavern deep inside herself. The center of her own magic. She brushed it lightly, scooping some of the blue-violet light into invisible hands. Healing and wizardry had that light in common. She opened her eyes and spread her right hand over the fountain.

  "Mo, Elaine," Gersalius said, but it was too late.

  Blue-violet light spilled from her fingers, bounced along the ice, melting here and there. There were small explosions where her lights touched the inner poisons. Bursts of ice bouncing skyward.

  The light poured into the black water. It bubbled and boiled as if some great heat were under it. The ice looked as if a monster had been eating at it.
/>   "Send it outward, Elaine. Seek the power that you have touched. Find its home."

  She gathered a pool of light into her hand, scooping it from nothing. The light pulsed and glowed, painting her face with violet radiance. She flung the light outward, casting it into the air like a hawk.

  The light fell in sparks, bouncing along the ground. Then those sparks rose into the air and raced down the street, like manic violet fireflies.

  "After them," Gersalius said. "You have cleansed the fountain, but destroyed the spell in the process. We won't be able to trace it a second time." He lifted up his robes and ran. Elaine followed, skirts caught up in one hand, boots digging into the snow.

  The sparks raced like miniature comets in the air, diving around corners. Somewhere near the edge of town, Gersalius leaned against a building and motioned her on, too winded to speak.

  She glanced back only a moment, then ran. Her own pulse thundered in her ears. Exhaustion miasma ate at her vision in little dots and squiggles. There was a stitch in her side that felt as if it would tear through her stomach if she did not stop. But short of passing out, Elaine wasn't stopping. Gersalius had said they wouldn't be able to trace it a second time. If she lost sight of the sparks now, it would be her fault. She would have failed Blaine again. Even in vengeance she was failing him.

  Elaine fell to her knees at the bottom of a hill. Buildings lined the base of the rise, and a graveyard topped it. She had been here before. The violet sparks whizzed into the trees, lost to sight among the graves.

  Elaine stumbled to her feet and climbed the hill on hands and knees, sliding in the snow. The high, spiked cemetery gate, meant to keep wolves out, seemed an insurmountable barrier. She couldn't catch her breath, but through the gravestones she saw a sparkling violet flame.

  Elaine leapt up, grabbing a crossbar. She managed to scramble to the top of the fence, feet on the crossbar, hands balancing on the spikes at the top. She threw one leg over, skirts catching on the pointed iron, then toppled, fabric ripping. The cloth trailed in the snow as she forced herself to run toward the glimmering flame.

  The violet sparks had coalesced into a flame that burned and wavered through the trees and the grave makers. Please don't go out, please don't go out, she whispered to herself, over and over like a prayer.

  Elaine collapsed to her knees in the snow. The flame burned over a grave. It hovered about a foot off the ground, consuming some magical fuel. She saw nothing unusual about the grave. It looked like every other one. She dug in the snow below the flame until her hands ached with cold.

  The ground had sunk away as the coffin had collapsed, as the body decayed, and the ground had been dug up and refilled. The soil was still hard frozen, but it was frozen in lumps of bare earth. Grass should have covered the grave long ago.

  She scrambled at the grave with her bare hands, digging in the frozen soil. The flame was growing dim, fading. She gave a wordless cry and crawled onto the grave.

  "Elaine, Elaine." A voice called her name, but it didn't matter. Hands grabbed her wrists, stopped her from digging. She struggled to break free.

  "Elaine, look at me!"

  She blinked and found Gersalius holding her wrists, kneeling in the torn snow. The violet flame was gone, and they sat in brilliant sunlight. The clouds were gone, and everything sparkled with a clean brilliance. By that harsh, all-seeing light, Gersalius raised her hands so she could see them.

  The nails were broken, blood flowed down her fingers. Her skin was cut and torn from digging in the frozen ground. "Didn't you feel this?"

  She didn't trust herself to speak. She just looked at him.

  "Elaine, speak to me, child?"

  "We must find what is in this grave. The flame stopped on top of it." Her voice sounded normal to her ears. Watching the wizard's face, she wondered what he heard.

  "We will dig it up, but I think shovels are in order, and perhaps something to heat the ground." He released her wrists, slowly, watching her face. "Are you all right now?"

  She gave a harsh laugh. "All right? I will never be all right again. Don't you understand that? Blaine is dead." She choked on the word. "Dead, and I can't bring him back."

  "That may not be true," Gersalius said. He looked very intently at her face as he spoke.

  "What might not be true?"

  "If we can find the body, you may be able to raise him from the dead, as Silvanus did earlier."

  "The body is cold by now."

  "If you are powerful enough, that does not matter," Gersalius said.

  "You mean if we find Blaine's body, I can bring him back?" She grabbed his arm, as if touching him would make it true. "Are you sure?"

  "I have seen men raised that have been dead for days."

  "Then we must find his body, we must."

  "We will, child." Gersalius patted her hand and loosened her grip on his arm. "Let us see who abides in this tomb." He crawled forward, brushing snow from the grave maker.

  "Melodia Ashe, beloved wife, lost in death, missed for eternity. Does the name mean anything to you?"

  "No," Elaine said.

  "Nor to me, but perhaps it will to the townsfolk." He stood, bracing against the tombstone. "Old knees are not meant for running pell-mell up winter streets." He smiled gently at her. "Come, Elaine, let us go back to the inn and get shovels and strong backs to hack this ground."

  She didn't want to leave it. "I'll stay here, to guard it."

  "Elaine, no one will tamper with it while we are gone. They could no more dig through this frozen soil than we." He held his hand out to her. "So come, let's go back. The sooner we go, the sooner this riddle is solved."

  Elaine took his hand reluctantly. She didn't want to leave, as if kneeling on this old grave brought her closer to Elaine. Leaving seemed like deserting him one more time.

  "Please, child, these old bones are cold."

  She took his hand and let him raise her to her feet. He led her through the graves, holding her fingers as if she were a child. The warmth of his touch began to warm her skin, so that by the time they reached the gate her sores ached. She'd torn a fingernail completely away, and it was a sharp, aching pain. Her hands hurt, but she almost welcomed it.

  If she concentrated on the pain, she couldn't think of anything else. If she could find Blaine's body, she would bring him back. He wasn't really dead. She would bring him back. She would not fail him again.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  They entered the inn to the sounds of ringing steel and snouting. Elaine ran for the stairs. "Caution might be wiser, child," Gersalius shouted at her back. Elaine ignored him. Everyone she had left was up there. She wouldn't lose anyone else.

  Her ripped skirt tripped her on the stairs, and she fell heavily, striking her knee. The pain immobilized her leg, freezing her in place. Voices, shouts, a great bellowing roar of a voice. She'd never heard his battle cry, but it sounded like Fredric. The paladin wouldn't be lightly roused.

  Elaine crawled upward, dragging her stunned leg behind her. On hands and knees, she neared the top step. The hallway was a mass of people, struggling. A tall man fought with shield and sword from the doorway where Averil had been. Elaine couldn't see who he fought, but she could hear it.

  "Back, damned villains, back I say, or I will slay you all." It was Fredric's voice.

  Elaine used the banister to climb to her feet. She stood there for a moment, testing her leg. There was a spot of fresh blood on the step where she'd fallen. She didn't bother looking for the wound. It could wait. The leg would support her now. She limped up the last few steps, leaning heavily on the banister.

  Gersalius was behind her. "What is all the fuss?"

  She shook her head, staggering down the hall toward the fight. Jonathan's voice came from the open door; he sounded calm enough. "Silvanus, all dead in Cortton rise as zombies. All who die here. You don't want that for your daughter."

  Fredric stood in the doorway, his great two-handed sword weaving back and fourth. The armed man who faced
him said, "Here, good sir, I am doing my duty as sheriff of this town. I don't want to hurt you. We've all lost someone to this plague. We don't wish to make your grief worse, but we must have the body."

  "You will have Averil over my dead body," Fredric said.

  "That is a possibility, sir, but I would rather not."

  Fredric laughed, a great roaring sound that held enough scorn to draw blood. "It will be you lying dead on the floor, sheriff. And you know that."

  Elaine was close enough now to see a line of sweat on the sheriff's forehead. The knowledge of his own death was in his eyes, but he would not back down. His pride meant more than death.

  "If you kill me, I want them to burn my body. I don't want to come back as some dead thing. You don't want that for your friend, either-to watch her rot before your eyes night after night. Let us have the body, and she'll just be dead. Dead is better, good sir, much better."

  Fredric hesitated. The tip of his sword wavering. Doubt showed on his face.

  Silvanus spoke from the room. "They cannot have her."

  The sword came back up. "You heard him."

  "Silvanus, she is gone, let her go." It was Jonathan's voice.

  "You should have sent Elaine to us. She can raise Averil. I know she can."

  "She cannot. Thordin says that is magic for a great healer. She has barely begun to learn," Jonathan said.

  Elaine pushed through the crowd until she stood beside the sheriff. He glanced at her for a second, then back to Fredric. All his attention was on the big warrior.

  "I am Elaine Claim. I believe Silvanus is waiting for me."

  "Elaine," Fredric said, "these fools want to burn Averil's body."

  "Will that make it impossible to raise her from the dead?" Elaine asked.

  "Elaine," Silvanus called, "come in past these fools."

  The sheriff and Fredric eyed each other. Neither seemed to want to move. "Let me in, sheriff. Either I can do what Silvanus wants, or I cannot. But until I try, you won't get this body." He still hesitated. "Night is coming," she said softly.