Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  “That was probably the Goddess’s hand at work,” Gideon pointed out. “Mol was the first she called, after all, and we have all seen what Her Voice can do now that she understands what she is.”

  Allystaire shrugged beneath his borrowed mail. “Just memories, are all,” he said. “First time I have ridden this way since. Enough tongue-wagging over it.” He looked over his shoulder at Gideon. “Do you think you can manage a run? Keep your hands on the reins and use your legs to stay in the seat. I am afraid if I do not give Ardent some room, he will decide to take it, and I cannot hold him back if that happens.”

  Gideon nodded, but swallowed nervously, and tightened his hands on the reins till his knuckles whitened.

  “Not like that; a horse understands how you feel about it. Show nerves, it will show nerves. Show fear, it will be afraid. Understand?”

  The boy nodded again and relaxed his grip. Mother, keep him safe, Allystaire thought, even as he gave Ardent the slightest prod with his spur. Idgen Marte did the same with her courser, and the three of them were off.

  * * *

  “Tracks,” Idgen Marte called out, while kneeling where grass met road. “A large number of them, walking off the road, probably to make a camp.”

  “We may have to do that ourselves,” Allystaire said, leading his and Gideon’s horses as he strode to her side. “We have gone farther and later than I expected.”

  “A night of short rations and cold sleep won’t hurt us, and the mounts can graze,” she replied, standing up and peering at the ground. “Something odd about how they were walking. Slow, dragging steps, like they were clubfooted. And no baggage, no sleds, no wains pulled along behind them.”

  “They may have left in a hurry and had no time…”

  “How many columns of people fleeing a battle or a siege have you seen in your life? Cold, how many have you sent fleeing? There are always wagons or carts, and animals, dogs and horses and goats and chickens. None of that. Just a half dozen or so clubfooted peasants.”

  Gideon, who still sat atop his mount, ordered so by Allystaire to get more accustomed to the saddle, suddenly lifted a hand and pointed.

  “They’re back there,” the boy said quietly. “Only…not. I feel something. Sorcery. Be ready.”

  Before he had even finished speaking, Allystaire’s hammer was out, and Idgen Marte had an arrow to the string of her tightly curved horsebow. They dashed through the trees in the direction the boy had pointed, Allystaire pausing only to toss the leads he carried towards Gideon, who was surprised as they struck him.

  Allystaire crashed through the trees. He knew precisely, without thinking or wondering, where to find Idgen Marte. She stood with her bow hanging limp in her hand, the arrow fallen from the string, her eyes wide in something closer to terror than he’d ever seen in them. She pointed, and his eyes followed her finger.

  What he saw was a horrifying tableau of a half-dozen people frozen in positions of twisted, painful horror. Heads were twisted backwards upon necks, knees were bent and locked the wrong way, as were elbows.

  All of their mouths were open in silent screams.

  Mute and horrified, Allystaire slid his hammer back into its ring, and approached the nearest figure: a man a decade younger than him, wearing warm fisherman’s clothing and a knit cap.

  His fingers slid against a smooth, hard surface, like marble. Cold, as though it had absorbed the chill of the air. He placed his left hand against the stone-like cheek, closed his eyes, reached for the Goddess’s Gift. As he pushed his senses into the man, he felt the faintest spark of life, a tiny, barely glowing coal amidst a bed of ash. He reached for it, puffed it back to a flare.

  The cold smooth skin turned suddenly warm, and with a creak of grinding bone, the man’s neck turned, painfully, awkwardly, and wide eyes now suddenly aware focused on him.

  “Palllllladinnnn,” the man groaned, even as Allystaire felt that lifespark drain utterly away, snuffed out like a candle. “You are nothing to us,” the corpse then said, and was suddenly joined in a chorus as all of the frozen bodies started to life and began to speak.

  “Your goddess is nothing.”

  “You saved none of them.”

  “You cannot hope to stand against us.”

  “Your ruin lies at the end of this year.”

  Allystaire, briefly taken aback, moved to the next closest one, a fairly young woman, who snarled and babbled as he drew closer. His hand flew to her pox-marked cheek, but he felt nothing, no life within her. He moved towards the next as he heard Idgen Marte’s bowstring stretch and tighten.

  “Where were you?”

  “They needed you.”

  “As if it would have mattered.”

  “We will kill you in the end.”

  “To live among the weak is to become weak.”

  The groaning, the creak of their bones as their bodies twisted more and more viciously, the feel of their very lives, of some very slim hope they had draining away even as he moved among them trying to bring the Goddess’s Gift to bear, to save them, began to eat at him.

  Suddenly Allystaire thought the twisted dead things were right. I could not save them, he thought. Who can I save? The more I try to protect, the fewer I can help. Who have I saved? Mol, he answered himself.

  “And yet so many more died,” one of the corpses said, twisting its neck unnaturally to look him in the eye as he began to sink to a knee.

  “So many more will die,” another said.

  “So many.”

  “And for what?”

  “A deity from where?”

  “A deity who means what?”

  “A power that pushes you about like a stone on a gameboard.”

  “Like cards on a table.”

  Allystaire began to shake, to tremble, feeling his resolve cracking, feeling the need to call to the Goddess’s Gift, to try and save them, waning. He heard Idgen Marte speaking behind him, but not her words.

  The air was a weight upon his neck. If I led the weak and the poor in an uprising, thousands would die, and for what?

  The cold burned his lungs. It is not about revolt.

  The noise of the groaning blended into a sustained and unintelligible cacophony that threatened to burst his ears. Then it is pointless. Nothing will change. Born into misery and toil, ending in futile death.

  His heart pounded, then faltered. So many have already died so pointlessly at my urging.

  The world started to grey at the edges.

  Then, suddenly, the noise stopped. But the weight of it was still on his mind and his heart, and he grasped at his throat, his fingers feeble and clumsy. The words echoed in his ears still.

  The futility of his life threatened to crush him.

  He heard Gideon speaking behind him, but again, could make out no words.

  Then he felt Idgen Marte’s hand upon his cheek, and her whispers floated through the echoes. “Sorcerous lies,” she said. “They cannot hurt you.”

  Color returned to the world. His heart stuttered back into a steady beat. “The Mother offers safety and refuge, and you are Her bulwark,” came another whisper. “Her shield and Her sword.”

  His lungs filled with cool autumn air, and the burden of despair that weighed on his mind dissipated like fog under the morning sun. “No darkness can stand against Her sun, before the hammer She can make of it.”

  Allystaire remembered himself, and despair gave way to anger. He stood, whirled to face Gideon, still shivering slightly. Idgen Marte stepped away from him, her hand dropping from his neck. “What was that?” he said.

  “A trap,” Gideon said. “Laid by a sorcerer. For you.”

  Allystaire looked back towards where the refugees had stood, and saw only bodies. Bent and tortured, their necks twisted and backs broken, but truly dead.

  “How? What?”

 
“I’ll need time to examine them and the area,” the boy said “Take a moment.”

  Allystaire collapsed onto one knee, pressing a hand to his chest. Idgen Marte squatted next to him, laid her hand companionably on his shoulder. “I couldn’t feel what you felt, but I knew it was hurting you,” she said. “They were wind, empty sounds. You heard them, though, didn’t you?”

  Allystaire nodded. “They spoke of futility. Convincingly.”

  “You started to fade from my senses. As if you were disappearing.”

  He said nothing. Gideon knelt by one of the bodies and grabbed it by the wrist, closing his eyes. He placed a hand upon the ground, then suddenly started, standing upright, his eyes flying open.

  “This took a great deal of power,” he said. “Someone a good deal more powerful than Bhimanzir ever was. His master, Gethmasanar, may have been capable of this, but I doubt it.”

  “Who, then?” Allystaire asked.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said, shaking his head. “Think of the planning this speaks of, to know these folk are fleeing Bend, and coming here.”

  “Or to have been told by the Choiron,” Idgen Marte muttered darkly.

  “I doubt that,” Allystaire said. “Symod is capable of much, but not this. An attack with steel and flame, yes. Casual cruelty, yes. But this? No, I doubt he would condone this. Too complicated.”

  “Aye,” Gideon said, “it certainly was that. The sorcerer took over their minds, their very bodies, then preserved them, feeding his spell with their own life force, banking it like a fire that has to last for days on limited fuel, so that it would last as long as possible as it drove them on towards Thornhurst. The second half of what was done to them would engage only if someone came along who sought to heal them, who reached into their bodies to begin repairing them. You,” the boy added, pointing at Allystaire. “And then came the Grip of Despair.”

  “Is that—”

  “A powerful enchantment laid upon the mind,” Gideon replied. “With it, a sorcerer with enough will, enough knowledge, enough sheer power, can make a target simply lose any connection to the world, any will to live. It can strike a man dead without hurting him. That it nearly worked on you— your will and vitality are far stronger than most—well, I’d not like to confront him. Not if he knew I was there.”

  “Could you expend this much power? Not to achieve this goal, but at all?”

  Gideon thought a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yes. But it would expend most of the power that remains in me from the God of the Cave.”

  Allystaire stood with Idgen Marte’s help. “If they wanted him dead, why not a simple thunderbolt or a ball of fire?” she asked.

  “The Grip of Despair is a statement,” Gideon said. “If a sorcerer’s power is so much greater than your desire to live, it demonstrates how insignificant you are.”

  “Well, I hope the bastard knows I am not dead,” Allystaire said raggedly. “I will remind him of that fact, eloquently, with my hammer, when I find him.” He looked down at the corpses, and said aloud, “We have not the tools nor the time to bury them.”

  “I can set them upon a pyre,” Gideon said. “Of sorts.” A pause. “Not a literal pyre, made of wood. I’ve no need of that.”

  “Fine. Do it. Then we start back.”

  “Are we sure of traveling in the dark?” Idgen Marte hesitated a moment before going on. “I’m not some child afraid of hobs waiting in the night, but it’s dangerous for the horses.”

  “I am sure,” Allystaire said. “All three horses can use the work, and he can see in the dark,” Allystaire said, pointing to Gideon. “We will walk if we have to. I do not care if it means we are up all the night. I will not sleep till I am back in Thornhurst.”

  He knelt on the ground once more. Dimly he was aware of the bodies being lifted from the ground and moved, felt the tiny hum of power emerging from the boy behind him as he did it, then a flare of light as the bodies were consumed. His mind, though, was elsewhere.

  Mother. Goddess. I do not know how to fight a power that can make me forget all that I have felt and known in my life as your servant. Please, if you have any answer, tell me.

  He was met with silence. He thought back to his encounter with Bhimanzir, how he had drained the power from him with the Healing Gift. I will never get that close to one of them again, he told himself. They will be prepared. If just one of them can come so close…

  Stop. The voice that he heard within his head was not his own, nor was it that of the Goddess. He looked up saw Idgen Marte standing over him.

  “They’re powerful, but they fear you. Why else would they set this trap?”

  “What do we fight them with?” Allystaire pushed himself to his feet. From the corner of his eye, he saw the twisted, tortured forms of the folk who’d fled from Bend consumed in a soft but powerful light that Gideon seemed to conjure from the air. It could have been awful, yet somehow it was not. There was no reek of flesh, and with each flare of light, the sense of gloom, the powerful interior darkness that infected the area, was lessened. The corpses straightened and uncurled themselves, lost their grimaces of pain.

  “Him,” Idgen Marte whispered, pointing at the boy, who seemed absorbed, peaceful, even relaxed. Allystaire could feel the suffering ease out of the bodies as Gideon’s light touched and consumed them.

  “Will he be ready?” Allystaire’s voice was barely audible.

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

  The last body lifted into the air at Gideon’s will, and was cleansed in the light he moved along it. He turned towards them. “They’re with Her now,” he said. “I cannot do that endlessly, but for a few poor folk like these…”

  “I understand.” Allystaire thought a moment. “They have gone to a rest, and it was the best you could offer.”

  “Let’s head home,” Idgen Marte said. “Can you take the lead, Gideon?”

  The boy nodded. They followed him out of the small screen of trees and found the three mounts more or less where they’d been left. Idgen Marte’s sleek brown courser and the palfrey had wandered, nosing at the scrubby, browning grass. Ardent had remained exactly where Allystaire had left him, and whickered as the paladin picked up his reins.

  “That horse is uncanny,” Idgen Marte said, as she gathered her own horse and gave its reins a gentle tug to start leading it on.

  “Not the first time you have said that,” Allystaire pointed out.

  “Doesn’t make me wrong.” She paused. “You know, the stories the songs, they often mention the paladin’s mount.”

  “Aye, and usually it is a dragon or a great wolf or a bear or some celestial creature in equine guise.”

  “Well are you sure that thing isn’t a bear, maybe wearing a horse’s skin?”

  Gideon, without looking back at them, spoke up. “Are you two going to do this all the way back to Thornhurst? It’s going to be a long night as it is.”

  Allystaire smiled despite himself. “You have been spending too much time with Torvul.”

  “There’s much I can learn from him,” Gideon smoothly replied.

  “Aye, and when you get bored of mixing tinctures and old lies, and you’re tired of standing in the cold and hauling rocks and learning to get hit with a stick,” Idgen Marte put in, “come to me and I’ll teach you something useful.”

  “Like?”

  “How to lift a purse or spring a lock,” she said. “How to woo a girl and stomach your drink. Cold, get just the right amount of wine in me and I might teach you the lute.”

  That declaration brought a moment of stunned silence. Allystaire and Gideon stopped in their tracks. Ardent bumped his nose into Allystaire’s shoulder, surprised by the sudden halt.

  “You play the lute?”

  “It’s not that uncommon,” Idgen Marte responded, and the hint of evasion in her tone made Allystaire wish for mo
re light to make out her features. “You’ve said you had music lessons as a page or a squire.”

  “Oh, they tried,” Allystaire said. “The harp. But I had no hands for it. My fingers were too thick and clumsy to find the right string without two or three wrong strings coming along. Then they banned me from trying it at all after I broke one.”

  Idgen Marte spat to the side, started walking again, forcing the other two to keep pace. “On purpose?”

  “Aye,” Allystaire admitted.

  “Breaking an instrument with intent is a sin.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I broke it by hitting a young Casamir over the head when I saw him try to shove a charcoal boy into a live fire.”

  “Cold, he was a piece of shit, wasn’t he?”

  “Who’s Casamir?” Gideon asked.

  “A dead man,” Allystaire said. “And well deserving of it.” He paused, looking over at Idgen Marte, imagined he could see the faintest trace of the white scar that curled down her lip and around her throat.

  “Going to have to hear the lute some day, Idgen Marte,” he murmured.

  “About it, maybe,” she answered softly. “Me play it, though? No.”

  * * *

  The walk was long and cold and dark, and the sun lit the eastern sky as they approached Thornhurst’s outlying farms. The horses were drooping. Once, Allystaire placed his left hand upon their necks and did what he could to ease their weariness.

  “The horses will need a good rub, then rest and fodder,” Allystaire said. “Gideon, you stay with me so you can learn how it is done.”

  The boy, who’d found the determination to walk every step of the way back, and was now on the fading edges of consciousness, looked wearily back at Allystaire. “Can’t we just feed them and then sleep?”

  “The first rule of keeping an animal, any animal, as a partner in your work, be it a horse to ride, or a dog or a pard or a falcon in hunting, is that you see to the beast’s needs before your own. It eats before you, sleeps before you, drinks before you. You never break that rule except at utmost need.”