John’s warning to avoid the Barrens was as fresh in Lucian’s mind as the day his Elder had spoken, but the approaching storm was gaining speed. He could smell rain in the cold air, and if they had to take cover outside the city, it would mean returning to the tavern. With the cold and the damp, his leg would become more inflamed, and he might not be able to walk for a day, maybe two.
He looked down at Lindsay. Deep circles shadowed her eyes and she wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her coat, but she didn’t complain. She showed remarkable determination and proved herself resilient in spite of her frail appearance. Though she wouldn’t admit it, he knew she was nearing the end of her stamina. He needed to get her inside too, preferably some place where he could dare light a fire.
Waiting was out of the question. “Don’t deviate from the road.”
Rather than question him, Lindsay simply nodded and stayed close to him. It was obvious she didn’t like the area, either. Her pace reflected her anxiety, because twice she pulled ahead of him. He called for her to wait. He wanted her close in case she needed him.
They were halfway to the city walls when the ground began to slope upward. The wind blew a chill breath over Lucian and he paused. Lindsay stopped at his side.
He sensed a subtle shift beneath the resonance of the old magic. He tried to discern the new reverberation from the splintered enchantments left from the war. He couldn’t sense Catarina or her twisted spells in the Barren. Whatever caused the change was different from anything he’d ever felt before, something old but still very, very powerful.
He started walking again; the slope seemed to have steepened. He trudged up the hill only to stop every few steps to rest. He leaned on his cane with both hands, his boot tight around his leg. Every step felt like a hot poker was thrust into his thigh and hip. His flesh goose pimpled from the cold; the wind snatched at his hair.
Lucian, the sudden whisper was right at his shoulder.
He raised his head; there was nothing, no one. The words had not been spoken aloud. He wanted to touch the hilt of his sword but feared releasing his cane. The pain in his leg turned to an agony.
Lucian looked up. Lindsay slipped ahead of him again.
He called her name and she turned, the fur of her hood caressed her lips. “Wait for me,” he said.
She nodded and waited for him. Gritting his teeth, Lucian took one lurching step after another. Lindsay started to walk back toward him.
What will you do if she needs you? the whisper taunted.
Dark clouds roiled over the horizon.
He stopped and listened. At first he wanted to convince himself it was the wind, but no wind could articulate his fear so clearly. Some thing had spoken.
Lindsay reached his side and placed her hand on his wrist. “You okay, Lucian?”
“I’m fine.” Cold fingers brushed his cheek. When he turned, nothing was there. Sweat dampened his hair.
“You don’t look so good,” Lindsay said.
“I’m fine.” He scanned the Barren and thought he saw something move on the ground. He stared until his eyes watered.
I’m not there, Lucian.
Lindsay followed his gaze. “Is something out there?”
I’m here.
“Hey, Lucian?”
With you.
“I’m fine.” He tore his eyes away from the Barren and focused on the child.
Lindsay nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t question him although she didn’t look convinced. They resumed their journey.
Lucian focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Ierusal looked like it was a thousand leagues away, but he had to get there. A promise. He had promised Rachael something.
You promised you would never leave her, said the voice, but you abandoned her.
Lucian was stung by the memory of Rachael’s palm sliding across his at the Hell Gate. She had tried to hold on to him, and he had simply opened his hand and let her go.
“Lucian?” Lindsay touched his wrist again.
He jerked away from her and the weight of his pack almost toppled him. He barely kept his feet beneath him. He looked away from her concern, back into the Barren.
Do you know what they did to her in Hell?
The dark ground rose up to meet the black sky. He heard a faint buzzing and saw shadows split and multiply as the hum increased. Flies feasted on the corpses. Their numbers continued to grow until the ground rolled and slithered with their mass. The drone became a roar.
This was an illusion. It had to be an illusion. Lucian stopped.
“Lucian,” Lindsay said, more insistent this time, her voice barely rising over the whine of the flies.
What happened to Rachael was done. He could never change that, no matter how his heart begged. Lindsay might be saved if he could step out of his wretched depression and focus on her. He looked down at her. Lindsay’s adolescence vanished beneath the creases of worry around her eyes. She frowned up at him, and Lucian realized he’d stolen her youth the same as he’d stolen Rachael’s.
The creature following him locked onto his despair. Lucian’s anguish became a living thing, rising up and out of his soul only to draw the darkness down around him. A terrible stench radiated from the Barren, the odor of burning flesh mingled with wood and hot metal. The buzzing reached a fever pitch.
Lindsay’s expression never changed; she seemed ignorant of the haunting. She was concerned for him, but she didn’t appear afraid. Be it demon or devil, the creature hadn’t touched the child and she didn’t seem to be aware of it.
The wind clawed his face and he jerked his head. His cheek was wet and he winced when he touched his torn flesh.
“Oh shit, Lucian! What just happened?” Lindsay’s voice rose in alarm.
Lucian licked his lips. “Do you remember your lessons, Lindsay?”
“You’re bleeding!”
“Lindsay. Your lessons.”
“Okay. Don’t panic,” she muttered to herself. “The Psalms? Is that it, Lucian? The Psalms?”
In the Barren, black and purple shadows ebbed and flowed into one another. The reek of burning flesh mingled with howls of agony. The flies tore the flesh of the living and the dead. Lucian looked into the shadows. He glimpsed the outline of a face before the mists swallowed the shapes again.
A shade flickered by on his right, and Lucian turned to find a spirit standing on the side of the road. The creature’s feet were mired in the charred ground, buried to the ankles in ash. The ghost’s dark hair was wild with tangles and the eyes were as black as the encroaching storm. Four slashes lacerated the creature’s cheek as if someone had drawn their fingernails through his flesh. The ghost wore Lucian’s face and spoke a dark gospel.
They descended on her, a living Katharos, to vent their rage. They tore her flesh and begged for her bones, but Mastema wouldn’t allow it. He only gave them a taste of her, enough to whet their appetites. He saved the best for himself.
Chilled by the spirit’s words, Lucian gripped his cane. He never saw Rachael after he abandoned her at the Hell Gate. When they brought her back to the Citadel, they kept her body covered as if she were dead.
And you murdered her.
Lucian swallowed and shut his eyes.
Lindsay said, “I know ‘the Lord is My Shepherd.’”
“What?” His voice was so hoarse he couldn’t hear himself over the sound of the flies. “What did you say?”
She’s here, Lucian. The spirit held out his hand and beckoned. Rachael is here. You can save her.
He could save her and undo everything that had been done. Wasn’t that why he started this journey? To save Rachael?
Help her and become a Katharos once more.
“The only Psalm I know by heart is ‘the Lord is My Shepherd,’” Lindsay said, her fingers entwined with his. “Stay with me, Lucian.”
The spirit smiled sweetly and held out his hand.
“Say it for me,” Lucian whispered as the need to step off the road and into the Barren
became overwhelming. The only thing holding him to the cobblestones was Lindsay. He promised her he would not leave her.
You promised Rachael.
“Out loud?”
“Please.” His promise to Rachael he had broken, his promise to Lindsay he would keep.
She didn’t hesitate and began to recite the Psalm.
In the flash of a memory, Lucian saw Rachael’s eyes pleading with him not to leave her. A fly landed on her outstretched hand and she screamed his name.
Forsake her a second time and she will die forever. Oh, you think you know pain, Lucian, but you know nothing.
Lindsay’s voice rose over the sound of the flies.
His suicide wouldn’t change the past. Rachael wasn’t here. The Barren offered atonement in the form of eternal flagellation, nothing more.
Beneath the strange magic of the Barren, Lucian felt Lindsay’s resonance filter into his heart. Her clear, beautiful voice drowned the spirit’s entreaties. She prayed, “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’”
“I will fear no evil,” Lucian said and met the ghost’s eyes. He backed away from the spirit and turned to face the city once more.
Lindsay continued the Psalm as they walked toward Ierusal again.
He ignored the icy, spectral fingers stroking his throat. The fingers slid away, and the buzzing of the flies faded into the distance. Gradually, the pungent fragrance of the roses overwhelmed the odor of death rising from the Barren’s charnel grounds.
Lindsay finished the Psalm and looked up at him. “How’d I do?”
They halted at the top of the hill a few yards from Ierusal’s wall. Autumn grass wavered in the wind and brushed his knees. He shuddered when he gazed back over their path through the Barren. “You were magnificent. You didn’t panic and you focused on your spell.”
She blinked and grinned. “Hey. I didn’t panic, did I?” Her smile faded. “Your face is bleeding.”
He touched his torn cheek gingerly; the gash wasn’t deep, but he needed to clean the wound to prevent an infection. “Maybe we can get inside and find a place to rest.”
“What happened back there?” She glanced down the hill, and he gently disentangled his hand from hers.
“It was a haunting. A spirit was drawn to me.” To the darkness within me. “You kept your head, did as you were told, and drove it off.”
She glowed at his praise and he resisted the urge to touch her cheek. Instead, he turned and looked at the Rosa.
The bush grew in a lush mass around the wall. Some of the branches were as thin as twigs, older limbs as thick as Lucian’s torso. Each branch sported thorns varying in length from only a centimeter to several feet. The limbs were woven together as tightly as a tapestry, giving only the barest glimpse to the blooms beneath the leaves.
The Rosa grew over the gate in a graceful arch, like a wedding arbor. The portcullis was closed and even a child Lindsay’s size couldn’t have squeezed between the bars. Next to the main gate was a smaller door that hung from one hinge and was pushed half open so Lucian could see the littered street. He hadn’t noticed Lindsay pause to examine the Rosa.
“They look like faces,” Lindsay said from behind him. She stood on her toes and examined one of the snowy flowers. She pushed the sleeve of her coat back and reached for the bloom. The branches rustled and the flower withdrew into the shadows.
“Leave it!” Lucian shouted.
She jumped and stumbled away from the Rosa to turn to him. Her eyes were wide with shock, and he realized this was the first time he’d spoken harshly to her. He lowered his voice and tried to calm his pounding heart. “Don’t touch it. Never touch it.” He remembered those haunting petals that bore striking resemblances to human faces. “Come.”
Lindsay approached him cautiously and jammed her hands into the pockets of her coat. “I didn’t touch anything.”
“It’s all right. I’m sorry I yelled. Just—”
“Don’t touch it. I got it.” She came to his side with several backward glances at the roses. “Did you find a way inside?”
“Yes. Wait here.” He unsheathed his sword.
“Okay.” She eyed the blade with narrowed eyes. “Just don’t be long.”
He stepped through the door. The remaining structures were stone, but a few charred, skeletal fingers of wood pointed to the dark sky. Rags flapped in the empty window of a building with only two sides. The other two walls had disintegrated into dust and rubble to block a narrow alley.
The blackened walls gave evidence to the conflagration that had raged through this section of Ierusal. Here the fires had burned naturally; there was no residue of old magic. The houses surviving the fire were jammed close together, causing the street to constrict into tight alleys. Intimate with Hadra’s warrens, Lucian recognized Ierusal’s slums.
Not even a rat stirred in the silence.
He sheathed the sword. “Come along.”
Lindsay came through the door to stand at his side. His knee burned with every step; he needed to rest. Rather than sit, he started to walk with Lindsay next to him. Once they were a few blocks inside the city, he’d sit, but not here.
Lindsay stayed close and asked, “Which church do we need to find?”
“Any one will do. Let’s see if we can find one with a roof.”
Overhead the clouds grew more ominous as the day faded, and the air grew cold enough for their breath to plume before them. They picked their way through the debris in the street, moving deeper into the city with Lucian stopping more frequently as they left the slums and burned buildings behind.
Shops lined the street, and broken glass littered the rubble scattered across the road. The wind whistled through the empty buildings, moaning a dirge to Ierusal’s past. A doll’s head stared blindly from the gutter, the porcelain face cracked, the painted smile crooked. Lindsay sidled closer to Lucian to avoid the abandoned toy.
They came to an intersection where the street branched into five directions. Lucian stopped and sat on the stone ledge of a shop window to consider their route. He rubbed his thigh, the muscle tight beneath his palm. He pulled his pants leg up and adjusted the laces on his boot to accommodate the swelling in his leg. The skin around his knee felt hot.
Lindsay winced at sight of his knee. “Does it hurt bad?”
“It’s uncomfortable.”
She squatted to tie her shoe and looked up at him. “How’d you mess it up?”
He clutched his cane and turned to examine the junction. Despite his effort to remain focused on their journey, a memory flickered like torchlight against stone walls. After years of living in the darkness of his cell, the light had been blinding. They’d strapped him to a wooden table, and he’d felt only dread when he saw his sister. A teardrop of moisture had seeped down the wall.
Catarina’s merciless voice commanded her chief torturer. Cripple him. Don’t maim him. I don’t want him maimed.
The torturer secured Lucian’s thigh until the leather bit through his dry flesh. Without a word, the man reached down and twisted Lucian’s calf to tear the cartilage in his knee. Lucian never forgot that excruciating pain. Catarina kissed his lips, silencing his scream. The walls wept for him, no other, and he knew then that he was alone.
“Lucian?”
A drop of rain touched his cheek and he blinked. “When I was younger, I had an accident.” He forced a smile and turned back to her. “That’s all.”
She stood and a frown drew her pale brows together as she examined his face.
“When I left Hadra,” he said and nodded at the intersection, “Matthew said to always follow the right-hand path. I think we should do that now.” He rose and rapped his cane against the road. “I felt rain. Let’s see if we can find a church that suits our needs.”
Her frown deepened, and she glanced at the sky. “It’s not raining.”
He didn’t respond.
She joined him and asked no more questions as they ventu
red down the street. They were several blocks away from the intersection when Lucian saw the church nestled between two larger buildings. A narrow dirt alley ran on either side of the chapel. Like the other religious houses in Ierusal, the cross at the top of the steeple had been destroyed, but the rest of the structure appeared intact.
This would have to do. The sky threatened a downpour, and Lucian couldn’t go another step. Lindsay followed him up the stairs to the porch. He shoved the door open and prayed his soul-light into being, then sent it into the dim room.
Dirt coated the floor, and shards of wood were scattered throughout the room. The four pews at the rear of the church had been shattered as if someone had taken an ax to them. The remains were strewn from the nave to the altar. The four pews near the altar were intact and dull with filth. Three confessionals lined the wall to the right of the entrance. Although the cross hung upside down, the altar itself remained untouched.
Lindsay closed the door. She summoned her own soul-light and explored the splintered confessionals, sneezing at the dust she stirred. Over the confessionals, a sliver of sky was visible through missing tiles, but the rest of the roof appeared intact.
Lucian used his cane to clear the rubble from his path. He went to the cross and hung it properly. Between the last confessional and the pulpit was another door.
“Lindsay.”
She emerged from the confessional closest to him.
He motioned to the door he’d just found. “Let’s stay together.”
She nodded and he opened the door to find the priest’s study. Floor to ceiling bookshelves stuffed with books and scrolls lined the walls behind the heavy oak desk. The books and papers were swollen with moisture and the room smelled of mildew. Lucian picked up an overturned chair. On the desk, he brushed aside the dust to find a half-completed sermon spread on the blotter. The pen had rolled onto the floor and the inkwell was dry. Two more chairs faced the desk. A couch rested beside a door that opened onto a porch in the alley beside the church.
On the opposite wall was the door to an austere bedroom consisting of a wardrobe and a single bed. The mattress was dingy and damp, but serviceable; Lindsay could sleep off the ground and in relative comfort tonight.
Miserere: An Autumn Tale Page 14
