The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  Wydrin looked down from the night sky to find that she was standing alone in a wide grey landscape, featureless save for some piles of rocks scattered across the ground. The land was entirely flat, and went on for ever, fading at the horizon to become a soft reddish blur. She also realised, with a start, that she was no longer cold.

  ‘Hello? Any mountain spirits about at all?’

  She turned in a slow circle. Above her the sky was heavy and unknown; she’d had years of using the heavens to navigate all over Ede and she’d never seen stars like these.

  ‘This is either the very beginning of the world, or the very end.’ She didn’t know where this knowledge came from, but she knew it was true. What would Ede have looked like before the mountains came? What would it look like at the end of time?

  Wydrin walked a short distance, kicking up small clouds of dust as she went. The landscape didn’t change, but a low rumble started beneath her feet. The small rocks and pebbles on the ground began to jump and tremble, and all at once there was a dark figure ahead of her; impossibly tall, an enormous shadow against the grey land. It was difficult to tell how big it truly was. One moment it looked as tall as one of her father’s three-masted ships, and the next, it was mountain-sized and looming. She could make out no features – just a shape with arms and legs, and even that she sensed was a rough pretence so that she might fit this – whatever it was – into her mind.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice was a constricted whisper, so she hurriedly cleared her throat. ‘I take it you’re who I’m looking for?’

  The rumble beneath her feet increased in volume, and she stumbled awkwardly, trying to stay upright. Her hand instinctively went to her dagger, but when she looked there was only the ghost of Frostling, a glittering shape nestled inside its scabbard. She shook her head at that and turned back to the giant figure.

  ‘You’re supposed to give me a deeper link to the land. To this werken I have. One of your people, Prince Dallen, needs this to happen.’ She took a deep breath. At least her chest didn’t hurt any more. ‘An answer either way would be good, before my real body freezes to death.’

  Now the rumble was a roaring, the sound of the land being torn asunder. It was the voice of the mountain, she realised. It did not love her. It did not love any of the warm creatures that had appeared on the skin of the world like a rash in these recent years. Wydrin fell, cracking her knees painfully on the stony ground, and the dark figure reached out for her. Its shadowy hand, bigger than a house, bigger than Y’Ruen, bigger than the world, closed over her head and she knew darkness again . . .

  . . . And in the darkness, there was a bright thread of green light. Wydrin followed it instinctively, not worrying too much about where she was, not yet anyway, and it pulsed away in front of her, drawing her on through the pitch-black. She could sense a huge weight above her, as though they were far underground.

  ‘Where am I?’ she asked the light.

  ‘You are in your own mind. You are in my mind. You are in the space where they join.’ The voice of the light was mild and faintly male.

  ‘It’s a bit dark. I’d have thought my mind would have more lights. You know, maybe even a fireplace, somewhere to sit.’

  ‘We have only just started,’ said the voice, and another streak of light appeared, branching off from the first one like the delicate veins in a leaf. ‘In time, this space will be brighter.’ As it spoke, more veins of light branched off the first one, creating a softly glowing net. Wydrin reached out to touch them, filled with wonder. There was a truth to this, she knew it, a truth that was deep inside everyone, but which was so deeply hidden it remained unknown. Her hand passed straight through.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, belatedly realising this should have been her first question.

  ‘I am the being you call Mendrick.’ Now the veins of light were a brightly shining web, stretching off into the distance. Wydrin thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  ‘Then you can speak?’

  ‘Only on this very deep level. Our minds are touching.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Previously, you have thought of me as an extension of yourself, yes? A tool to be used?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wydrin frowned slightly. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know what you were. I don’t think any of them do. Bors is a good man, he wouldn’t allow this if he knew.’ She thought of Tamlyn Nox and realised she couldn’t say the same of her. ‘They think you’re less than animals, just stones and rocks that can walk if you’re pushed. But if you’re not that, what are you?’

  ‘I will show you,’ the voice said simply. The green light pulsed once, blinding her, and Wydrin suddenly knew what it was to not be alone in her head: She could feel the mountain, so enormous and old, looming above her like the sky – so much bigger than we imagine, she thought, because we don’t think about the roots of it. And she could feel a smaller part of it next to her, a part that had been shaped to move, and it was regarding her now, watching her from its place on the ground. She knew that mind, could feel it nestling next to her own. She could feel the weary patience that came from eons of life, and a certain amount of curiosity too – she knew that Mendrick was examining her own mind, no doubt as equally alien to it. Him.

  ‘Why do you do it, then?’ she asked. ‘Why obey them at all?’

  There was silence from the mountain-spirit for some time. She could sense Mendrick trying to understand the question.

  ‘It is my purpose to be silent,’ he said eventually, a note of uncertainty in his voice. ‘It is unnatural to communicate like this. And it is all so distant. The magic in our flesh moves us, when touching a human mind. It is impossible to convey our wishes.’

  ‘That’s because they don’t speak mountain,’ said Wydrin. She could feel Mendrick’s discomfort like sandpaper against her own skin. Even talking to a human on this level was exhausting to him. ‘But you would rather this didn’t happen? That the Skalds would leave you alone?’

  There was silence for a moment. ‘It is disruptive,’ he said finally. ‘A discordance in my rock, in my mind.’

  ‘I can tell them for you,’ she said. ‘Stay with me, and I will show the Skalds that they have to stop, and then you can go back to your silence.’

  ‘I will agree to this.’ There was a flicker in the green light. ‘I will stay with you for now.’

  Wydrin opened her eyes to Sebastian and Frith staring anxiously down at her.

  ‘She’s awake.’ Sebastian turned away to talk to someone she couldn’t see. ‘Quickly now, we’ll need that fire, and I want something to warm some food in.’

  ‘Wydrin,’ Frith took hold of her shoulder, ‘are you all right?’

  She opened her mouth to tell him that she was perfectly fine, and could he stop fussing like an old baggage, when the pain hit her. It was like being thrown against a brick wall, every part of her crying out at once.

  ‘Fuck!’ she gasped, curling up into a ball. ‘By the graces, that hurts.’

  Prince Dallen appeared, shouldering Frith out of the way to throw another blanket over her. ‘Help me now,’ he said to Frith. ‘There is a fire outside, and we’d best get her to it quickly.’

  They half dragged, half carried Wydrin from the cave, depositing her in front of a small fire some distance from the main camp. Prince Dallen retreated swiftly, not coming too close to the flames, while Sebastian was already stirring a black pot. Frith wrapped her in several more blankets, until she started to wonder if he was trying to suffocate her. Her arms and legs were tingling painfully as the feeling returned to her limbs, and Sebastian had to hold a cup to her lips. It was bark tea, bitter but hot.

  ‘Where’s Mendrick?’ she croaked, when she could speak again.

  Frith raised his eyebrows. ‘The werken? It’s still in the arachnos’ nest.’

  Wydrin reached out to that newly revealed presence, and a dark shape loped out of the darkness towards them, green eyes shining like moons. Wydrin looked into its cold
, wolf-like face and remembered the tendrils of light that linked her mind to his. A pretty neat trick, that.

  ‘Good, that’s good. Once I’ve eaten the rest of that stew and my arse has melted, we’d better get a move on. Because I have one hell of a message for bloody Tamlyn Nox.’

  23

  ‘I have the linen and the ink you asked for.’

  The Prophet smiled to itself behind the curtains. Magic grew ever more sophisticated, but there were some basics you could never quite get away from. It parted the curtains and Tamlyn passed over a bundle of ink pots, brushes and clean white cloth.

  ‘Can I ask what this is for?’

  The woman’s voice was tense all the time now, full of unspoken questions.

  ‘Just for my own amusement, Tamlyn dear. Leave me now, please.’

  The Mistress Crafter of Skaldshollow stood there for a moment longer, apparently wrestling with her own need to know what was going on, and then she was gone. The Prophet began to tear the linen into long strips, and then, using the poor selection of horse-hair brushes Tamlyn had provided, began to paint the words. It had been years since it had written the words of the mages, yet it came easily. Once learned, they weren’t easily forgotten. Some of the ink spilled onto the bed sheets, but it hardly mattered. They wouldn’t need them for much longer.

  ‘He was made for so much more than the witterings of paltry gods,’ the Prophet mused as the girl’s delicate fingers danced the brush across the material. ‘But it is only right that I present him with some of his old tools. He will appreciate that.’

  When that was done the Prophet slipped out of the huge four-poster bed, and swiftly dressed in woollen leggings and jerkin, thick fur coat and gloves. The white shift the girl habitually wore was bundled up and casually thrown into one of the braziers, where it vanished in a curl of orange flame.

  The strips of linen were shoved into a pack which the Prophet slung over one shoulder, before pausing to tie the girl’s long brown hair back into a rough braid. Glancing in the mirror, it was briefly annoyed to see that face looking back at her – still so young, so small.

  ‘You’ve served me well, Ip, truly you have. But I do wish you would grow a little faster.’

  The Prophet left at a pace, paying no heed to the guards assigned to the corridor outside the room. If it wished, the Prophet could of course pay a visit to the tomb without actually leaving the Tower of Waking, but there were some matters that really required your physical presence. And Bezcavar – prince of wounds, master of broken things – wasn’t missing this for the world.

  Siano crouched just under the trees, where the grass was damp and the air was heavy with the scent of pine needles. In front of her the pool that sheltered the tomb of Joah Demonsworn was utterly still, a silver mirror to the overcast sky, and the vials of blood sat in a bag next to her. It was unnaturally silent in this place – no birds sang, and even the wind was quiet. It was unnerving, but she had been waiting for some hours now, and was prepared to wait for hours more; unsurprisingly, patience was the first lesson of the House of Patience.

  Eventually though, she heard light footsteps approaching through the trees. She retreated back into the shadows, although judging from the weight of the step, this was just a child. She felt a flicker of annoyance at this further distraction, then swallowed it down.

  A girl walked into the clearing. She looked no more than twelve or thirteen years old, tall for her age and yet to grow out of her awkwardness. For a moment she just stood, looking at the water, and then she turned towards the trees and looked straight at Siano.

  She stumbled backwards, pressing herself up against the tree trunk. She was certain the girl couldn’t have seen her, yet it was as if she hadn’t needed to search; she’d known where to find her.

  ‘Come on out, Siano,’ she said, not raising her voice. ‘I still have some work for you to do.’

  Siano froze. Her first instinct was to pluck a throwing dagger from her chest belt, but her curiosity stopped her. Instead she came out from between the trees, moving slowly.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The girl grinned at her, and even Siano, who had long since cast off anything that might have been considered warm or human, felt a real moment of crawling terror. Her smile was madness and fever.

  ‘Are you saying you don’t know me, Siano? Because I think you do.’

  ‘You are . . . the client.’

  ‘I speak through a severed head, a dead rabbit, a girl child. What difference does it make?’ Her voice changed then, became cultured and sly and old. ‘Does this help convince you?’

  Siano swallowed hard. ‘Forgive me my caution, master.’

  ‘Do you have the blood?’

  Siano retrieved the bag containing the vials and held them out to the girl, but she shook her head. Instead, she pointed to the pool.

  ‘Do you see the tomb, Siano? The history books say that the mages, in their sorrow, built a tomb for Joah Demonsworn and covered it in protective spells. It’s interesting what you can make people believe when you are old enough to tamper with the histories while they are being written. It was I who honoured Joah, who gave him the burial he deserved, and these are my spells – cast to protect his bones, so that the end might not truly be the end. Now, the blood you’ve collected for me contains another spell.’ She grinned up at Siano. ‘Can you guess what it does?’ Turning away, she plucked up a rock from the ground, and threw it into the pool. Immediately the water churned as if it were boiling. ‘You will have to go down into the water and retrieve his body, Siano.’

  ‘I will never make it. It will take my skin off before I get halfway there, master.’

  ‘I want you to drink half the blood in those vials. Half from each vial, and mind that you don’t drink more than that. If you do, I will pull your entrails out through your throat. Do you understand me?’ The girl turned to Siano, and her eyes were full of blood, from lid to lid. ‘This magic, this spell that has been hidden in generation after generation, I only have one chance to use it. If you cause it to fail in some way, you will wish your parents had killed you as they originally planned to, Siano. Drink the blood, and you will pass safely through the water.’

  Siano did as she was bid, grimacing slightly at the thick, metallic taste of the partially congealed blood.

  ‘Good,’ the girl said when she’d finished. ‘Now get in the water. You will have to open the coffin while you are down there and bring his body out. The sarcophagus will be far too heavy to move by itself.’

  Gingerly Siano stepped into the water, but it remained calm, and she shivered a little as it quickly soaked into her velvet trousers and tunic. She walked in until the water came up to her chest, and then she took a deep breath and pushed herself fully under. Siano didn’t particularly enjoy swimming – for one thing, the water that filled her ears and pushed at her eyes dulled her senses, always a dangerous state for an assassin – but she had been trained to proficiency at the House of Patience. The pool wasn’t especially deep, and in a short time she had her fingers wrapped around the coffin lid, her feet braced against the rocky bottom. This close she could see the intricacy of the runes and sigils etched into the lid with silver, and the snarling dog face loomed at her, jagged teeth bared. It made her distinctly uncomfortable to be that close to it.

  The coffin lid was tremendously heavy, but with an enormous shove she pushed it away and it sank to the ground, throwing up a gritty cloud of sediment. When it was clear, Siano was greeted with the unpleasant sight of a grinning corpse; she had a brief impression of yellowed teeth, greenish strips of flesh sprouting like tufts of grass, and then her chest was burning with the need to breathe again, so she bit down her revulsion and pulled the figure from the coffin and swam for the surface, the corpse slung over her back.

  The child was waiting for her on the bank. She watched as Siano dragged the rotten skeleton out onto the grass, her eyes bright with some emotion she couldn’t place. Siano stood up, soaking wet and already star
ting to shiver.

  ‘He’s looking about as well as can be expected, I suppose,’ the girl said.

  Siano glanced down at the corpse. It was little more than a yellowed skeleton now, furred here and there with mouldy tatters of flesh. It had been dressed in fine robes when it had been buried, but these were now brownish rags, streaked with bright gold thread. She wondered how long the body had been in the pool.

  The wind picked up then, cutting through Siano like a knife. For the first time, she began to wonder when this job would ever be over.

  ‘Will there be anything else?’ She forced the words out through icy lips.

  The girl turned her blood-filled gaze on her, incredulous.

  ‘Well, he’s not going to drink the blood himself, is he?’

  Siano nodded shortly. She collected the vials, all still half full, and knelt next to the skeleton, cradling its skull in her lap. Getting its jaws open was no easy task, and for one, uncertain moment, Siano thought she had pushed a finger through the spongy bone, but it was only a piece of rotten flesh. One by one she poured the contents of the vials between its teeth, until there was just the final vial to go. She glanced up at the girl, who was watching her fiercely, her small hands curled into tight fists.

  ‘Yes, do it,’ she said, in her strangely old voice. ‘It’s time Ede saw what a true mage can do, and he has waited long enough.’

  The last of the blood trickled between the cadaver’s teeth. Dimly, Siano was aware that most of it was actually soaking into her trousers.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said, sitting back on her haunches. She cast the last vial into the grass. ‘I am uncertain what other rites you wish me to perform, but I feel I must state that my contract is for lives taken, and I’m not sure this constitutes—’

  The skeleton suddenly convulsed in her lap, the blood-streaked jaws clapping open and shut.

  ‘What . . .?’

  The skeleton’s hand, thin bones and rotten flesh, snaked up and grabbed Siano around the wrist, so tightly she cried out – that grip was strong enough to break her arm. She went to stand up, to attempt to shake the thing off her, but the other arm looped up around her neck, pulling her back down like an over-amorous lover wanting one more kiss. Those bony jaws clapped shut again, and this time they caught at Siano’s cheek, tearing a lump of flesh from her face. Blood spattered like rain over the skull’s forehead.