The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  But this was his chance to end it. With this weapon, Joah would be powerless, and he would pay for all the suffering he’d caused, now and a thousand years ago. He would pay for the souls lost in the Rivener’s blood-stained rooms, and he would pay for Wydrin’s lifeless body, twisting away into the dark.

  ‘Are you doing it, then, or what?’ Jerston’s voice was wavering now. ‘Only I don’t think I can keep looking at this thing and—’

  Without another word, Frith took hold of the man’s head firmly with one arm and ran the blade across his throat, pressing down with all his strength. There was a ragged scream that quickly disintegrated into a thick gurgle. Jerston jerked in his chair, nearly dislodging the device. Frith held him as still as he could, forcing his head down even as the blood surged out of him. It took only seconds, and he felt the bigger man shudder in his grip as the last of his life’s blood left him. Jerston said something then, garbled with blood and pain, and Frith couldn’t make out what it was, but when he looked down he saw that the Edenier trap had opened up like a flower, and inside it a dark mouth awaited.

  Frith staggered away, dropping the knife from fingers that were suddenly numb. He had done it. The trap was complete, and it was ready. He had done what Joah Demonsworn couldn’t.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ he said, and his voice sounded less than sane to his own ears. ‘It’s all done.’

  He reached up to wipe away the tears running down his cheeks, but his hands were red with blood.

  71

  Joah had found a mirror.

  He stood for some time in front of it, his long narrow fingers playing lightly over his face and neck. The burns inflicted on him by Aaron were quite severe, and without salves or any other sort of attention they had festered, leaving one side of his face a bloody, pus-filled ruin. Luckily, thanks to the effects of eating the god-flesh, it was not that side that drew the eye. Oh no. Not at all.

  A small, strangled noise escaped his lips and he realised that he was laughing. Was this what he had wanted? Was this what he’d been striving for all these years?

  ‘This is power, then,’ he said, nodding at the mirror. ‘This is what power looks like.’

  He turned away from that view and looked around the Rivener’s central room. It was squalid and filthy, and two of the Rivener’s glass eyes were completely smashed. The Edenier chamber boiled with the Heart-Stone’s nauseous violet light, and distantly he could hear the screaming of Bezcavar, trapped inside the glass with the tainted magic.

  ‘I have lost track of time,’ he said absently. ‘Most of the souls have been harvested from this city now, Bezcavar, but you know, I’m not even sure I need them.’ He held up his hands, and twin balls of flame appeared above his palms. ‘I am a creature of the Edenier now, like the gods of old. I do not need their words to form the magic. I do not need anything at all.’

  The noise from the chamber increased, and Joah tipped his head to one side as though listening to something very far away.

  ‘But I don’t believe that’s true, my old friend. Yes, we have done much together, achieved so many things. Perhaps it is time we parted ways.’ There was a flicker on the edge of his mind as Bezcavar tried to force him to remember, to share with him those memories that had once broken him. He shook his head sadly. ‘There is no sense in trying to frighten me, Bezcavar. Do you not see? I am beyond such concerns now.’ He summoned the memory himself, of the day that the demon had shown him its true face. He saw it as if from a distance, as the sight tore his mind into tatters and left him weeping on the edge of sanity. ‘Do you truly think you can scare me with that memory now?’ He gestured at his own twisted visage. ‘When I look like this?’

  The demon grew silent.

  ‘You have no more power over me, Bezcavar, and nothing left to offer me, either.’ He paused, looking back at the chamber. ‘I fear that Aaron was right about you, after all. I have been a fool. What would happen to you, thrown back out into the world with no willing host? Your girl child is long gone, and I suspect you would not be welcomed back. There are no shrines of yours in Skaldshollow, and no people left to help you build one.’

  Still silence from the chamber.

  ‘You are pretending now to be gone, in the hopes that I will forget you are here.’ He smiled fondly, twisting his face into stranger shapes. ‘Always so wily, Bezcavar. But you forget, I am a god now. And gods do not consort with demons.’

  He reached out to the chamber and turned the lever with the Edenier, opening the front portal. There was a moment of silence, before something black and furious boiled out the aperture, a half-seen shifting mass of smoke and grasping, feathery tendrils. Joah felt it surge past him, knowing that at any other time the rasping touch of the demon’s true form against his skin would have driven him instantly insane. Now he just watched as it attempted, briefly, to get inside his head, before streaming out of the broken windows in twin plumes of dark smoke.

  ‘I have had more than enough of this place.’

  Wydrin gasped air into her lungs, leaning heavily against the alley wall, but Xinian was already next to her.

  ‘Keep moving, or they will be on us again. Quickly, up these steps.’

  Casting a look down towards the street – nothing there yet, they were slower when she was out of sight – Wydrin turned and followed Xinian to the end of the narrow passage. There was a set of stone steps there, leading upwards and half hidden behind barrels and storage crates. They moved swiftly, emerging up on a roof shabbily tiled in black slate. Wydrin moved over to the edge and looked down. In the street below were hundreds of the Rivened, milling about and bumping into each other, their faces blank. Just now they had been filled with purpose and hunger, running after them both with their oddly shambling gait, but now they’d lost sight of her, and with it their temporary purpose.

  ‘Will they come up to the roof, do you think?’

  Next to her, Xinian shrugged. Above them the red storm light raged on.

  ‘That one in the house managed to come down the stairs to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they figured it out.’

  Getting out of Skaldshollow had turned out to be a lot more difficult than Wydrin had anticipated. The husks swarmed wherever they went, and twice now the Rivener had lumbered into life, detaching itself from the Tower of Waking, before lumbering off across the city. They had watched it from the window of an abandoned tower as it made its way, back and forth, picking off those Skalds who had yet to have their souls ripped from them, a monstrous silhouette against the bloodied sky. Sometimes it would pause, dragging a clawed arm across the cobbled streets to score a long, deep trench in the fabric of the city. Wydrin did not know what Joah thought he was doing, but it made her uneasy.

  The ranks of the Rivened were growing, and each time they tried to navigate their way down a street, a crowd of the poor soulless creatures would meet them, their jaws wide and their fingers grasping – too many to run past, or push through, and they showed no fear of their blades. Frustrated, Wydrin had tried to cut her way through the middle of them, Frostling and Glassheart stabbing and slicing until her arms ached, but no matter how many she put down, more would appear in their place, and they would reach for her, fingers unnaturally strong. Once, she had forgotten herself, lost in anger and desperation, and she hadn’t moved away from them fast enough. Too quickly they dragged her to the floor and she had felt the blunt pressure of their teeth against her leathers as they tried to bite her flesh away. Luckily, she had managed to put her boot in the face of one, and then Xinian was there, solid arms dragging her bodily out of that mess. Since then Wydrin had been more cautious, and their progress towards the wall was very slow.

  ‘What is that?’

  Wydrin looked to where Xinian was pointing. They could see the Rivener from the rooftop, slumped in its usual resting position against the Tower of Waking, and something dark was gathering at its head. For a moment Wydrin thought it was a flock of black birds, but then it started to move away from the tower
and its form was diaphanous and uncertain.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, ‘but I doubt it’s good news.’

  The dark cloud swirled down towards the ground and out of sight. Wydrin watched, but the Rivener didn’t move. The city was still eerily silent, save for the shuffling of the bodies below.

  ‘Come,’ said Xinian. ‘We should keep moving, before they work out how to get up the steps.’

  Wydrin sighed. ‘You are relentless, you know that? No wonder they picked you to go after the crazy mage.’ She rubbed a hand across her forehead, noticing as she did so that her fingers were trembling. ‘Shit. I could really do with eating something soon.’

  Xinian pursed her lips. ‘I am not hungry. You are weak.’

  ‘You’re dead! Of course you’re not bloody hungry.’ Wydrin shook her head wearily. ‘Why do I always end up with the dead ones?’

  At that moment a voice drifted up over the wall, and Wydrin found herself standing very still.

  ‘Come down here and join us, Wydrin Threefellows, and you won’t feel hungry any more.’

  Wydrin and Xinian exchanged a look.

  ‘I know that voice,’ said Wydrin. Worse than that, she knew how it felt in her head. Cautiously she peered over the edge of the roof again. The Rivened were all still there, crowded together in the street, but now around half of them were all looking back up at her. A hundred different ruined faces, the same expression of gleeful rage. Every pair of eyes looking up at her was filled with blood from rim to rim.

  ‘Bezcavar,’ she said. ‘Personally, I found your last host a lot more attractive. Smelt a lot better, too.’

  Xinian had joined her at the edge of the roof, her sword held so tightly in her one hand the knuckles had turned white.

  ‘It was interesting to be inside your head.’ This time the demon spoke through three throats at once, producing an odd, discordant harmony. Wydrin watched the lips of the husks move and shivered. ‘Not a very great mind, no, but interesting,’ the demon continued. ‘Lots of places you don’t show anyone, and so much bravado. I would have liked longer to explore.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you,’ Wydrin called down. ‘But you left a bad taste in my head. How are you doing this, by the way? I thought your hosts had to be willing.’

  ‘Why are you talking to it?’ asked Xinian, her voice low so that only Wydrin could hear. ‘We should move. Now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m curious,’ said Wydrin, her lips pulled into a tight smile. ‘Always my biggest weakness.’

  ‘These things? They barely qualify.’ The demon was speaking through eight of the husks now, their cracked lips moving in unison, each pair of blood-filled eyes fixed on the roof. ‘There’s nothing left inside them at all now, save for hunger. Certainly nothing left that can object to my presence.’ Two more husks opened their mouths. ‘Not the greatest vessels, by any means, but certainly good enough for me to watch you die, Wydrin Threefellows.’

  Ten more husks lifted their faces to the roof and opened eyes filled with blood.

  ‘And as you can see, in this form I can inhabit more than one. Won’t this be fun?’

  Wydrin swore under her breath and stepped away from the edge of the roof.

  ‘This might be a good time to run.’

  They turned, meaning to look for another way down, only to find a slim shape watching them from the far side of the roof. The girl was ragged and covered in dirt, her short hair sticking up on all sides. Wydrin immediately drew both her sword and her dagger.

  ‘Wait,’ said Ip, ‘I can show you a safe way across the city. And I can’t do it with my guts hanging round my ankles, can I?’

  72

  ‘It is very fine. You do good work, Crowleo.’

  The woman smiled at him through the tears that were threatening to fall. Crowleo took hold of the hand that wasn’t holding the glass globe and squeezed it.

  ‘Thank you, Madame Jeane, it really was my pleasure. I hope it brings you some peace.’

  Madame Jeane nodded uncertainly. They stood on the grass outside the Secret Keeper’s house – and so Crowleo would always think of it, even though she’d been gone for well over a year now – and a cool wind was blowing up, tugging at the woman’s scarves and revealing the pink mass of scar tissue on her lower neck. Absently she pulled the fabric back into place.

  ‘I keep seeing him how he was. After the fire.’ She looked up at Crowleo again, and this time a few stray tears made an escape. ‘I can’t get that picture out of my mind. When I wake in the morning it’s the first thing I think of, and when I try to think of happier times, that’s what I see.’ She held up the glass globe, which was a deep green. The sunlight caught it and sent a flicker of emerald light across the grass. Crowleo knew that when she looked into its depths she would see her husband as he had been when they had first married: young, handsome, full of life. ‘Now I shall have this to look at, always.’

  Crowleo smiled again, and bid her goodbye. He watched Madame Jeane walk back into the forest, her steps a little steadier than they had been when she had arrived. Just a memory captured in the glass, and perhaps that wasn’t all that much, but he was getting better at it all the time. Soon he would be able to craft the Edeian into more complex designs, shapes that held secrets and altered the perception of time. Holley, he thought, would have been proud. Or at least, she would have been secretly proud, somewhere underneath her cranky demeanour.

  He made to go back to the workshop, but something in the grass glittered and caught his eye. Crowleo bent and plucked a shard of orange crystal from the ground, turning it back and forth and watching as the sun danced along its edge. He was still finding pieces of Holley’s work out here, even after all this time, and he suspected he would continue to do so as long as he stayed. Thinking of that he remembered the Children of the Fog and their strange girlish laughter as they walked on down the path, multiplying as they came.

  Crowleo took a long, slow breath. That was all over now. The Blackwood was peaceful, and he had nothing to be afraid of, out here by himself.

  When he turned back to go inside and saw a man standing by his front door, he was so startled that he dropped the shard of glass and gave a low cry.

  ‘Good afternoon, Crowleo.’

  At first he didn’t recognise the slender man standing by the house. Frith’s white hair was slightly longer than when Crowleo had last seen him, and there was a difference in the way he was standing – an easier confidence than had been evident before. The clothes he wore looked well-used, and he was holding a long staff of pale wood in one hand.

  ‘Lord Frith? I – where did you come from?’

  ‘I will only be here briefly, as I do not have much time.’ He walked over briskly and clasped Crowleo’s hand in his own. ‘You look well.’

  ‘So do you, my lord.’ Crowleo peered closely at the other man’s face. ‘But you look troubled. What has happened? Is it Sebastian?’

  Frith opened his mouth as if to reply, then simply shook his head.

  ‘Sebastian is fine. I need to access my vault. I assume that won’t be a problem?’

  Crowleo shook his head. ‘Of course not. It is good to see you, if a little surprising.’ Crowleo took a deep breath, reminding himself that Lord Frith was a mage. He was bound to do things like turn up out of the blue. ‘I have some bread and dried fish, some preserves a client left with me yesterday. Would you like to stop for some lunch?’

  For the first time a hint of a smile touched the corner of Frith’s mouth, although it only made him look sadder.

  ‘Thank you for your kindness, but no.’

  ‘Then I shall make a pack for you to take with you when you go. You do not look like you’ve been eating enough.’ Crowleo paused, wincing slightly. He sounded so much like Holley sometimes. ‘It is no trouble.’

  ‘Thank you, Crowleo.’

  ‘Is there anything else, while you’re here? I have been crafting the glass again, and starting to get my own commissions.’ He paused. There
was still that sense from Frith that he was missing something, yet he knew that to pry would be a mistake. ‘For you I would charge a discounted rate, of course.’

  Frith smiled again, although it was colder now.

  ‘No, thank you, but I do have one more secret for you to keep, Crowleo.’

  An hour or so later Crowleo watched Lord Frith walk back across the invisible bridge, appearing to hang mid-air over the treetops below, the viewing glass held out firmly in front of him. The wind blew his hair around like a flag, and he seemed a little more uncertain of his steps, stumbling here and there so that Crowleo found himself clenching and unclenching his fists. He was no longer carrying the staff.

  When he got to the end of the bridge, Frith leaned forward for a moment, apparently needing to catch his breath.

  ‘Are you all right, my lord?’ asked Crowleo. ‘You look shattered.’

  ‘I am fine,’ said Frith, although the hand that he used to wave Crowleo away trembled slightly. ‘Have you news of Blackwood Keep?’

  ‘I hear of it every now and then, my lord. The word in Pinehold is that it has returned to how it was before Fane showed his evil face here, although I think . . .’ He paused, suddenly worrying about how much he should say. ‘I believe they would prefer for the throne to not sit empty for much longer.’

  Frith grunted.

  ‘Dreyda visits frequently,’ Crowleo said hurriedly. ‘She wants to keep an eye on everything, you know what she’s like. Under her instruction the library is growing again, although she argues frequently with your man Eric about the best way to spend your coin.’

  ‘Good.’ Frith nodded. ‘Between them they will figure it out.’

  ‘Won’t you go and see them yourself? I’m sure Dreyda would love—’

  ‘I must go now, Crowleo.’ Frith gathered himself up. ‘There is still so much to do.’

  ‘Wait,’ Crowleo passed him the small canvas sack he’d filled with bread rolls and a well-wrapped packet of dried fish, ‘at least take this before you go.’