The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  Kathryn’s frown deepened. “Blind Muir is part of my domain. That means I can visit it when I please.”

  “Then you are the Lady Kathryn,” the woman said. “Daughter of Baroness Adelynn. The spirits have been whispering to me about your arrival in Upper Forthyn.”

  “Spirits?” Kathryn wondered. “More dark magics. If you are a necromancer, my mother would likely have your head on a roadside stake.”

  “Then let us hope I never meet your mother,” the woman said, the ghost of a smile returning. “But now I have you at an unfair disadvantage, Lady Kathryn. My name is Dezra.”

  “You live in these woods, Dezra?” Kathryn asked. Dezra shook her head.

  “For the time being. I am hunting something here.”

  “Hunting what?”

  “I cannot say for sure, and besides, it isn’t something that concerns you. This prey is deadly, and cares not for social station.”

  “Did it summon the orb?”

  “Perhaps. Sometimes there is darkness in the heart of the light, light in the heart of darkness Your mother would do well to learn that.”

  Kathryn hesitated, caught between the instinctive urge to defend her mother and a deep-set desire to know more.

  “Where did you learn it?”

  This time it was Dezra’s turn to look surprised. She smiled again, more openly now. “My abilities? Books, mostly. And I had a good teacher.”

  “When I was younger I wanted to learn magic,” Kathryn admitted. “At Greyhaven.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Kathryn smirked. “You think the firstborn heir of a barony is free to do as she pleases?”

  “It would seem that way to those who don’t know many firstborn barony heirs,” Dezra said, making a small, strange gesture with her raised hand. A flame, yellow-green in color, sprang out of nothingness around her slender fingers. Kathryn’s eyes widened slightly.

  “I thought magic required incantations,” she said. “Words. You didn’t say anything there.”

  “You clearly have much to learn about magic, then,” Dezra said, turning her hand so it was facing palm upwards, the flame dancing around it like a fire-insect. Kathryn watched it for a second longer, then urged her mount towards the sorceress, stopping next to her.

  “Can you teach me?” she asked. Dezra clenched her fist, and the fire went out.

  “No,” she said. “You said it yourself. You are a baroness’s daughter. Your destiny is as a ruler, not a practitioner of magics. Certainly not the magics I know.”

  “How am I to judge that until you show me more?” Kathryn asked. “Besides, I know enough about magic to know its uses go beyond the arcane. The more I learn, the better I can serve the peoples of this barony when my time comes to rule. I was sent to Upper Forthyn to hone my abilities. I will never get a better opportunity to learn than this.”

  “You’d put your trust in a strange sorceress you just found wandering in the woods?”

  “Are you calling me a poor judge of character?” Kathryn asked with a slight smirk. “If you meant me harm, you would already have done it. If you intend to manipulate me, well, you will soon learn I am not so easily led.”

  “Not an ideal characteristic in a student,” Dezra said, reigniting the small flame and holding it out. “Give me your hand, and do not flinch.”

  Kathryn hesitated, then did so, extending one hand from her mount’s reins. Dezra’s stopped inches from it, and the flame jumped, like a leaping insect. Regardless of the sorceress’s instruction, Kathryn was too amazed to flinch. She stared at the yellowish fire as it flickered an inch above her upturned palm. There was no heat – if anything, it made her hand feel cold.

  “Concentrate on it,” Dezra instructed as she removed her own hand. “It’s guttering.”

  Kathryn frowned, but the more she focused the more the sorcerous little flame seemed to flicker. After a few seconds it vanished, leaving behind no trace of its existence.

  “Not bad,” Dezra said, smiling. “Longer than my first soul-light, anyway.”

  Kathryn didn’t know what to say. Dezra’s expression seemed to harden for a moment, as though she was catching herself doing something she shouldn’t have been.

  “You have been here too long,” she said, an abrupt tone edging into her voice. “Go. This is no place for a baroness’s daughter.”

  “I am more than my mother’s heir,” Kathryn said firmly. “And I already told you, I can visit whenever I please. This is my domain.”

  “Then I suppose that makes me your subject,” Dezra said with the barest hint of a bow. “But nevertheless, if you come here again you may not be as lucky as you were today.”

  “Then I’ll have to hope you’re on hand again,” Kathryn said. “Dark magics or not.”

  For the briefest moment, a troubled look returned to Dezra’s face. Then she raised her hood and gestured to the tree line.

  “May Nordros protect you, Lady Kathryn. Until we meet again.”

  • • •

  Now

  Ulma woke up not long after Ariad had revealed herself to Logan. Either the web binding her wasn’t as tight, or dwarf jaws were considerably stronger than human ones, because she began to rage and shout oaths as she struggled with her bindings, shaking the web they were both trapped in.

  “Shut up,” Logan hissed, but too late. A chittering sound went up around them, and he felt the threads vibrating as the arachyura swarmed them. He screwed his eyes shut instinctively, though he needn’t have bothered – Ariad had departed earlier, and her golden, magical illumination had gone with her. They were in humid, stygian darkness.

  “Get off me, beast,” Ulma bellowed, clearly taking no heed of Logan’s warning as she tried to wrestle the arachyura pouring over her with both arms bound to her sides.

  “That won’t help,” he snapped.

  “Logan? What’s happening?”

  Logan considered not answering, terrified by the thought of attracting the arachyura’s attention again. But he remembered the panic-inducing nightmare of thinking he was alone in the darkness – he couldn’t do that to Ulma.

  “Don’t try to struggle,” he hissed. “You’ll just attract more of them.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I have no idea. Underground, I think.”

  “Why… why haven’t they killed us yet?”

  Logan tried to turn his head, eyes straining against the darkness, but he could make out nothing. Were they beneath the town? The castle? The Shrine of Nordros?

  “It was Ariad,” he said. “It was Ariad all along.”

  “Who was?” Ulma asked. “Ariad, that spider bitch?”

  “From Sudanya,” Logan said, speaking urgently now. Every time either of them said the name Ariad a susurrating hiss rose up from the swarm infesting the surrounding darkness. “She’s Lady Damhán. She’s behind all this. It was all a trap to lure us here!”

  “Are you insane?” Ulma snapped, and he felt the webbing vibrate again as she started struggling once more. “You think Lady Damhán is that giant damned spider we killed back in Sudanya? You’ve gone mad!”

  “I’m telling you,” Logan said. “Stop struggling and keep your voice down. Now isn’t the time for a shouting match. We’re in the middle of an arachyura nest!”

  “Why should I stop?” Ulma demanded, not lowering her voice. “If what you’re saying is true you might not even be Logan. This could all be a trick! One of her illusions!”

  Logan didn’t answer. He could feel something probing his head again, more horrid multi-jointed limbs. He whimpered.

  The light was back too, that smoldering orb. It floated through the darkness and came to a stop above Ulma. The arachyura had pulled the webbing away from her head. She turned to look at Logan. There was fear in her eyes, as much fear as there was defiance. That was never a good s
ign.

  “By the ancestors, you look terrible,” she managed to say as she took in the sight of his own web-bound body.

  “Is there one on my head?” he asked her slowly, not daring to move.

  “Not any more.”

  “I can still feel it. I can feel them all over me.”

  “Well you’re not far wrong,” Ulma said, looking past Logan at the surrounding web. He refused to do the same – he didn’t want to see the bodies, or the black eyes of the thousands of unnatural insects surrounding them. He kept his eyes on Ulma. The light pulsed brighter, and the chittering grew louder.

  “She’s here,” he whispered hoarsely. “Ariad’s here.”

  The swarm closed in. Logan realized they didn’t fear the hot, desert light the way they had done Ulma’s phosphernum. They formed a circle around the two prisoners, their mandibles clacking and drooling. Logan closed his eyes again.

  “Children hunger.” The sound of the sick, dry croak – like a vile parody of Damhán’s voice – made him shudder. It drew closer.

  “The other wakes. Now only one left.”

  “Hammers of the ancestors, it’s true,” he heard Ulma breathe. He felt a presence before him, and couldn’t help but open his eyes.

  Ariad had mounted the web once more, crouched at its bottom, that blank, golden mask staring up at them with chilling indifference.

  “We killed you,” Ulma said, her anger warring with her dismay. “You can’t be real!”

  “Stupid Dunwarr,” the creature hissed, the spiders surrounding them closing in a little more. “That is what I made you think. This web took long to build. So many lies. Woven above and below. But now, like all good webs, it catches its prey.”

  The golden orb moved from Ulma across to Logan, making him flinch with its heat. Ariad made her ticking noise once again.

  “You feel the desert heat, Logan Lashley? You feel where I was born? You do not like my light? You prefer the true sun.” She spat the last words like an accusation, clambering lithely up the web until she was almost on top of him again.

  “When I am finished, no more sun. That is what he has promised me. I will take A’tar and wrap him up in my threads. I will keep him like this little orb. That is what I was born to do. I spin and weave the eternal night, as I spun and wove the tricks that led you here. And now here you are, just as I designed. Pulled by my threads.”

  “You’re insane,” Logan said, unable to fathom what the creature was talking about. She ticked as though in amusement, and the golden orb drifted on to Logan’s left.

  “Here with the one you came all this way seeking.”

  “No,” Logan said in dismay. The light had illuminated a third shape, wrapped like Logan and Ulma, though her head was already uncovered. She was either unconscious or dead, her beautiful features as pale as the threads that bound her like a tightly wrapped corpse shroud. Her hair was long and dark, splayed on the web around her. Though he had never met her, she had enough of her mother about her to leave Logan in no doubt.

  “Lady Kathryn,” he whispered, surprise warring with fear and anger. All this time, and Ariad had her in her clutches. What a dance she had led them all on. Logan would almost have been impressed, had he not been riven with equal parts terror and outrage.

  “A pretty little fly,” Ariad chittered, moving past Logan to the woman’s side. “She fell so easily into my web. The witch could not save her.”

  “You took her when she fled to the Blind Muir,” Logan said, his tone almost accusatory.

  “Children took her,” Ariad hissed. “Good children. They were hungry, but did not feed.”

  “Is she dead?” Ulma demanded, trying to see past Logan.

  “Not dead, no,” Ariad said. “She has duties still to perform. Her own web to spin. There are still more flies to catch.”

  The creature pulled herself along the web until she was crouched right over Kathryn, her mummified fingers running along the noblewoman’s cocoon as she lowered her masked face to her ear. Logan got the impression she was whispering in it, though the only sounds he caught were those low, spine-chilling ticking noises. He tried desperately to work out what she was doing, how he could counter it. He tested his bonds again, but it was no use. The orb glowed brighter and the Arachyura chirred and rustled once more.

  Kathryn opened her eyes. She stared blankly up for a moment, then turned her head to look at the golden mask just inches from her face.

  “Oh mother,” she murmured, her voice filled with relief. “I… I just had the most terrible nightmare.”

  Ariad ticked something else, backing away from the pinned woman. A cascade of smaller spiders, rippling like black liquid, flowed down the web and over her cocoon, unpicking it. She seemed totally oblivious to both them and Ariad’s true form, smiling sleepily up at her.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “You’re right, mother. A walk would do me good.”

  The spiders withdrew as the now-freed Kathryn clambered slowly down from the web, the traveling cloak she wore still draped with wafting, ethereal strands of thread. She reached the ground beyond the light of the orb and turned back towards Ariad, still poised on the web.

  “You’re sure it’s safe to go outside? Alone?”

  “You are never alone, pretty little fly,” Ariad chittered. Kathryn smiled and turned away.

  “Kathryn!” Logan shouted. “Lady Kathryn, stop! Please!” She showed no sign of having heard him, wandering like a sleepwalker into the darkness beyond Ariad’s light. Logan redoubled his efforts to free himself from the web, no longer caring if Ariad saw what he was doing.

  “Where is she going?” Logan demanded, straining vainly against the sticky bindings. “Where are you sending her?”

  “To be with the one she loves,” Ariad said. “To bring her here, so that this feast might be truly memorable.”

  • • •

  Volbert started awake, a cry on his lips. His wife clutched him.

  “What is it?” she whispered urgently. “Vol?”

  “The shrine,” he whispered. He’d never experienced a more vivid dream. Someone, something, was in the shrine. He’d felt its unwelcome presence, like an intruder in his own home.

  He dressed quickly in the dark, fumbling his robes on over his head then pulling the keys from their peg beside the bed. After a brief hesitation he took a torch from the fire basket and thrust it into the embers still smoldering in the kitchen hearth. It took, throwing weird, flickering light across the tomb-keeper’s small home.

  “It’s the dead of night,” his wife said, standing pale-faced in the bedroom door.

  “I have to go,” Volbert said, with more firmness than he really felt. The apparition in his nightmare had been insubstantial, but its presence was wholly real – he could feel it even now, waiting for him, the manifestation, he was sure, of all the troubles that had been plaguing Fallowhearth. “Lock and bar the door behind me, and do not unlock it for anyone but me. And make sure it really is me before you open it.”

  The plaintive cry of a child came from the bedroom.

  “Look after him, for us both,” Volbert said. “I won’t be long.”

  Outside the wind was picking up. Dark clouds scudded across the pale faces of the moons, making shutters rattle and signs creak along the street. Volbert drew his robes tight and turned the corner of his house, to the front gate of the Shrine of Nordros. It stood, a grim block of arching, unyielding stone in the darkness, edged in silver moonlight. Its windows seemed to glare accusingly down at Volbert as he fumbled for the heavy key to the front door, the light of his torch reflecting off the murky glass panes of the tall windows flanking it.

  The key turned, and the lock gave way with a thud. He eased the door open, the old pinewood timbers groaning.

  Darkness reigned within. He stepped inside, holding his torch aloft. The flames seemed unwilling to
light the shrine’s interior, picking out the rows of benches and the statue of Nordros – with his dagger and his withered branch – only with the greatest reluctance. Volbert’s eyes lingered on them for just a second, before he realized the pool of shadow lying before the statue was more than the mere absence of light. The was a woman sitting there, at the head of the shrine.

  She was cross-legged and hooded. Her head was bowed. In her right hand was a dagger, in her left a broken, dead branch, a mirror image of the idol of Nordros that loomed over her. Volbert stopped short, his heart hammering. Why had she come here on this dark, storm-racked night?

  The figure looked up at him, sickly lights playing beneath the edge of her cowl. She spoke, and her words were like the first, biting frost of winter.

  “You dare bring the spawn of Kellos into this sacred house of Nordros?”

  As she spoke, the wind howled. It blasted the door to the shrine wide open and snuffed out the flames of Volbert’s torch. In the darkness that followed the tomb-keeper stood shivering, too terrified to move. He heard the sounds of the intruder rising, pacing towards him, the un-light of her eyes like the pinprick gaze of a nocturnal predator as it prowled around its prey.

  “You are the keeper of this shrine?” she asked, the words seeming to reverberate from every corner of the vaulted space.

  “Yes,” Volbert whispered. He closed his eyes, his whole body shaking, and felt icy breath on his face.

  “Stand guard upon this door,” whispered the voice in his ear. “And watch for my return.”

  He felt the chill presence pass him by, out of the shrine. Unbidden, words spilled from his lips.

  “Who are you?”

  He sensed the presence pause before answering.

  “Tonight, I am the shadow of Nordros. Rejoice, tomb-keeper, for your god walks abroad in Fallowhearth.”

  • • •

  For a second Durik thought Carys had woken him. He’d been lying asleep on his pelts beside the fireplace. At some point she’d gotten off the bed and crouched down next to him.

  Then he realized that it hadn’t been her at all. It had been a woman, insubstantial, cloaked in the remnants of Durik’s dreams.