The Jack of Souls

by Merlino, Stephen

  Caris and Brolli each took a shoulder and steered the old man across the swept yard to halt before a fan of ten stone steps at the foot of the tower.

  Willard studied the tower with a military eye. “Standard drum. Bottom floor can take a half-dozen horses and hay for a fortnight.” He frowned at the upper floors. “Not near enough arrow loops, and the windows are too big. Still, if we stock the place with hay and water and a few sacks of beans, we might hold against Bannus long enough for the Blue Order to catch us up.”

  He peered into Caris’s face beside him. “You think this Abellia would shy from a bit of a siege?”

  She tried to hide her alarm. “I—I’ll ask her, sir.”

  “Good.”

  When they stood before the ironbound door, Caris lifted a knocker shaped like a female hand clasping an agate the size of an egg, and clapped it three times on the strike plate.

  Willard peered at an engraved plaque beneath the knocker. “Read it, boy.” Harric glanced at Willard. The old man wasn’t even trying to pretend it was a test. Was it possible Willard couldn’t read? The notion surprised Harric. Many knights lacked letters, but he’d always assumed it was because of their full-time martial training that kept them from it. Willard had no such excuse, as he’d had seven lives in which to learn them.

  Harric read aloud:

  Here abides Mistress Abellia Pergrossi

  by express proclamation of Her Royal Majesty, Chasia,

  in the 27th year of her reign:

  licensed fire-cone warden

  with all powers appertaining.

  A second plaque, just below, was much more ornate, and of obvious Iberg style. It featured fat farm animals and children, encircled by rivers and grain fields; outside this was another ring decorated with crescents and half-circles and circles, the phases of the Bright Mother. “The words along the top are Iberg. This one says, Poverty. Then Chastity and Service.”

  A faint smile ghosted over Willard’s mouth. “You’re too clever by half, boy. Where’d you learn Iberg?”

  “My mother. She worked abroad for the Queen.”

  Willard snorted. “Explains your looseness toward magic.”

  The door opened a crack, then swung outward, and the pale ghost of a drowned girl peered up at them from within. A thrill of fear swept Harric before he realized it was not a girl or a ghost, but a tiny old woman in cloud-white robes, a figure so frail she seemed nothing more than crisp papers in danger of blowing away.

  Yet there was kindness in the lines of the ancient face, and her eyes, like wet black pebbles, shone clear and alive, as if the spirit behind them were indeed a child’s, and an observant one.

  “Mama,” Caris murmured, lowering her eyes and touching one knee to the stone.

  The watery eyes squinted at the blue-armored knight, who was Caris, in confusion. Then her wrinkled mouth made an O of surprise, and her attention flitted from Harric to Willard and back to Caris with astonishment. Brolli, Harric noticed, had donned a hood and kept his head down.

  “My Caris!” Abellia cried, in a voice thin to cracking and an accent as thick as any Harric had heard. “My Caris! Mio doso!”

  Caris laughed and carefully embraced the tiny woman as if her steel limbs might crack her to pieces. The sunken eyes went wide, and she drew away, staring in surprise. “You wearing the hard britches! All is well? These steel panty not so comforting, no? Haha! You have the mentor! Yes? O! You must to tell! You must to eat. All your friends. We having plenty spaces. Plenty foods. You must coming in!”

  “Mama, my mentor, Sir Willard, is hurt.”

  The old woman blinked nearsightedly at Willard, laying her hands on Caris’s arm for balance. She scanned his face and bloodied armor with gentle eyes.

  “You are dying, sir.”

  Willard bowed with his head. “Lady. I fear we bring danger on our heels.”

  She dismissed the notion with a wave. “You are this Willard they sing of?” Her black eyes glistened with pleasure. “I am always knowing Caris is mentored by a great man. You and your dangers are welcome.”

  From her robes she produced a glossy egg of pearly stone, which she cradled in both hands. Her witch-stone, Harric realized, as white as his was black. A thrill of excitement pulsed through him as she closed her eyes and the stone lit up her hand like a lantern.

  Willard’s face fell. “Beg pardon, lady.” His eyes flashed to Brolli, whose face remained muffled in the hood. “I am well enough.”

  Abellia’s eyes widened in surprise. The white light retreated, leaving only a distant glow.

  “Willard, you promised,” said Brolli.

  “I acknowledged that in the case of unconsciousness I could not stop you from healing me,” Willard said. “Unless I’m dreaming, I’m still conscious. And as long as I’m conscious I claim the Third Law.”

  “The idea is to keep you alive.”

  “I am alive. What I need is a bath and a rest. You see I am alert.”

  “I see you happy-sick with promise of rest,” said Brolli. “You spending all your strength.”

  “I’m Arkendian, Brolli. Tougher than I look. Bathe me and rest me and prop me by a window with a rag-roll and a pot of ale, and I’ll mend without any god-cursed magic.”

  Harric glimpsed thick canines grinding beneath the cover of the hood. “I think you want to die.”

  “I want to live right.”

  Abellia watched the exchange with questioning eyes. The light went from her witch-stone, and she returned it to her robes. “We have nice bathing tub. I have bath filled warm, and you must to bathing right away.” Abellia turned her gaze upon Harric. She raised a withered claw of a hand to his swollen cheek and eye. “But what is here?”

  “This is Harric,” said Caris. “Willard’s manservant, from Gallows Ferry.”

  “Ouch,” Harric said, but he smiled and bowed his head.

  “Such handsome one,” said Abellia. “You are hurting, too. And you will have no heal like your master?”

  “I’m an Arkendian too,” Harric said, wishing he weren’t. “I will heal myself.”

  “But if Sir Bannus returns,” Brolli said, unwilling to let it go, “you both must reconsider.”

  Willard nodded. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Abellia squinted at Brolli. She smiled hospitably, but with obvious curiosity, trying not to stare. Brolli’s stature was much concealed by his position of support under Willard’s arm, but his stunted legs were clear enough, and very likely she could not place his accent at all. Unable to politely remain covered any longer, Brolli removed the hood and gave a small bow.

  Caris gestured to him with an air of clumsy theatricality, as if she’d saved him for last. “And this, Mama, is Brolli. A Kwendi. He is ambassador from his people to our queen, and we are escorting him back to his land.”

  Abellia blinked in surprise. Her hands groped down Caris’s arm, eyes never leaving Brolli, until she gripped Caris’s hand in hers. “You knew,” she whispered, turning her deep black eyes on Caris. “You knew…you bringing him to me. O bless you, girl!”

  Caris blushed. “No, Mama…” she stammered, glancing at Brolli. “We needed your help, and Brolli is our charge…”

  Abellia tottered forward and extended a hand to Brolli as if she feared he might vanish like a mirage. Brolli took her tiny, frail hand in his huge, strange one, and nodded solemnly.

  Harric glimpsed a flash of strong emotion in the old woman’s eyes. Hope? Hunger? Fear?

  “You are being the first of your people I meet,” she whispered. “You are most to be welcome.”

  “It is my honor,” said Brolli, “for I never met an Iberg.”

  For many heartbeats she gazed into his alien features. When it became awkward, Brolli bowed again, and she recovered. “Mio doso. I am sorry. Please to come inside. We must to draw bath for the sir. We must to eat and lay rest!” As she turned up the stairs, Willard raised an eyebrow at Brolli, as if to say, Just as I foretold—she’s lul
u about your magic…

  Brolli did not smile in return. “Bathe, and when you pass out, I use it on you.”

  “I don’t know which of you is more stubborn,” Harric muttered.

  As the Kwendi crossed the threshold, his shirt shouted in a strange tongue, and he sprang back, nearly dragging Willard with him.

  “What the Black Moon was that?” Willard said.

  Abellia appeared in the doorway, confusion in her eyes.

  “I apologize,” said Brolli sheepishly. “You keep alarms here, Mistress Abellia? I set them all off when I enter: I have a bit of magic on me.”

  A bit of magic? Harric thought. His very shirt is enchanted.

  Abellia stared, uncomprehending for a moment, and then Harric glimpsed a flash of fear in her eyes. “You are having magicks of the Mad Moon, Ambassador?”

  Brolli bowed another apology. “We use all three moons.”

  Abellia’s eyes grew wide. She took a half-step back.

  “However, if the Mad Moon’s powers be offensive to your people,” said Brolli, “then I use none it here. Or, if you like, I show you.”

  Revulsion in the old woman’s eyes gave way to curiosity, and possibly something stronger. “O, yes, please. I am all these years in Arkendia searching the workings of witch-silver. I am most to be wishing to see it. I halt the wards.” Her hand dipped into and out of her robe. “All safe now to follow. Mio doso! A wonderful day.”

  “Harric,” Caris said over her shoulder. “Put the horses in the barn while Brolli and I help Willard up the stairs. You’ll find water and hay in the barn, unless things have changed.”

  “I’m not your servant,” he muttered under his breath. They left him standing at the door with the bad feeling this was now the way Caris would treat him until he forswore his so-called “tricks”—like a noblewoman treats a slave. He had no fear of her betraying the nature of his training to the others—that seemed to be against her code of honor for friends—but it appeared she intended to slight him at every opportunity.

  Fabulous. Maybe I can shine her armor, too.

  It made him angry because it hurt, he realized. He liked her, but she was slighting him. The knot of bitterness in his throat made him wish she’d left him as she’d intended in Gallows Ferry—that the ring had never involved her—and that he was free and on his own.

  His interest in her wasn’t inspired by magic, but it might as well be for all the control he had of it. His only consolation was that if the ring made her love him, it was also hard on her.

  Love, like rain, does not choose on whom it falls.

  —Arkendian proverb

  27

  Risk & Revenge

  Harric led Idgit and Rag into the larger of the two barns, where he brushed their coats and cleaned their hooves as they munched the last of the oats he’d so fatefully sold Willard in Gallows Ferry. The memory drew a wry snort from him. How much simpler things would be if he’d kept the ring Willard gave him that day, instead of leaving it to Caris. Then, in exchange for returning the ring, he could have bargained for two apprenticeships and won Caris’s regard without revealing a shred of the “trickery” she loathed.

  As he piled hay for Molly onto a barrow and wheeled it from the barn into the dying light, he sighed. It was a false dream, of course. The only reason Caris had stayed in Gallows Ferry long enough to rejoin with Harric at all was because the ring had changed her feelings for him. And if she hadn’t stayed she wouldn’t have been there to drag his unconscious self from the wreckage of Bannus’s parlor wall.

  Plus, he doubted whether tricking Caris by hiding his true nature as a trickster would work out very well in the long run. Such deception was how his mother taught him to seduce and manipulate, so it felt natural to him, but anything she taught him was clearly suspect. He doubted whether normal people lied to each other when courting, and in any case seduction was a short-term game and the ring did not appear to be coming off soon.

  Better I show my true nature. It doesn’t feel natural, but that’s because of my mother’s poison in my life. I’ll win her regard on my terms, so the day we get the ring off she’ll find she loves me all the same.

  Love! He laughed at himself. What did he know about actual love? Lust, gain, seduction, manipulation, all came as naturally as walking and breathing, trained and drilled until they became unconscious habits. But what in the Black Moon was love?

  And then it dawned on him he was just as much a babe in the wilderness when it came to human love as Caris.

  He stopped in the middle of the trail, staring into nothing, astonished he hadn’t seen it before. We’re misfits, the two of us. She by nature, I by indoctrination, and neither knows if we can overcome it.

  But you do feel something, another part of him countered. Yes, he did. But what? Lust? Desire? Protectiveness? Hope? Loneliness? Need? Were any of those love? Were some of them? How did anyone know?

  The thought depressed him. Could they be a more hopeless cause? And the moon-blasted ring forced them together.

  He looked up into the sky, half expecting to see the constellation of Fate’s Web laughing down at him, but the canopy of blue was yet too bright for stars.

  Molly’s snort snapped him out of his reverie. He saw her ahead through the stately columns of the fire-cones, and resumed pushing the barrow to her. It wasn’t until he’d dumped the hay before her that he realized Holly was nowhere to be seen; she’d pulled her picket and wandered off.

  Shit. The ground had been too rocky and root-bound to sink the stake in deep enough, and the filly had pulled it loose. Willard would have a seizure if he knew.

  It wasn’t hard to guess where she’d gone. Back down to the garden and meadow to graze.

  So much for rest. He’d have to walk back down the mountain to find her, and assuming he did find her, he couldn’t ride her back up because Willard had forbidden it.

  “Moons take you, Holly,” he muttered. Everything conspired against him getting back to the tower, where he could see how Abellia used her witch-stone.

  As he trudged back toward the switchbacks above the garden, he put his hand on the lump of witch-stone in his shirt, and frowned. This was one thing he could not yet share with Caris. But magic was the only thing his mother feared. His only hope of truly banishing her from his life. How ironic that she should teach him not to fear magic, then fear it in his hands!

  But it wasn’t enough to possess the witch-stone; he needed to learn how to use it. But how? Brolli couldn’t tell him, as Brolli didn’t seem to know anything more than how to use the bottled magic his people made. Abellia feared everything but her own moon’s powers, so that was out. But still, he might discover something from Abellia that would give him a clue about his own.

  He stopped at the first switchback over the garden and paused to scan the valley below, and saw Holly grazing at the far end of the meadow, by the brook. He let out a growling sigh of frustration and set to descending the trail, each downhill step jarring his injured ribs.

  In any case, he could probably count on his mother leaving him alone as long as he remained with Abellia. In the meantime, he must learn how to use his stone—if not from Brolli and Abellia, then on his own. That night, while the others slept, he’d slip away and experiment. He had to access its powers before he left Abellia’s protection. He had to be ready.

  *

  Caris descended the tower and searched for Harric in the yard and smaller barn, but could not find him. In the large barn she found only the horses, munching contentedly.

  “Harric? What’s taking you so long?” she called into the glowing gloom.

  She stopped by Rag, and fed her a carrot she’d filched from Abellia’s larder. Harric had done as asked, watering and brushing the animals. She checked Rag’s hooves and found them cleaned, too.

  She sighed, not sure why she was irritated, which made her all the more so. Harric had probably wandered off to get some time alone, but even a horse-touched wench like her knew he ought to spen
d some time with their host before sleep. More importantly, she’d advised Abellia to wait until Harric was present before she introduced Mudruffle to the others. She feared Willard might react badly to Mudruffle’s obvious magical nature, and reasoned that since Harric seemed as unintimidated by magic as he was by the old knight’s bluster, his presence might soften Willard’s reaction.

  And yet just yesterday, said a little voice in her conscience, you loudly criticized Harric for that same lack of regard for Willard’s opinion.

  There it was. She was a hypocrite, and that was irritating. Or maybe she was learning something new about those “gray areas” Harric navigated so smoothly—which was even more aggravating.

  She growled, and grabbed a brush to work on Rag’s mane.

  “Fleeing the oh-so-difficult world of humans?” said a smooth female voice behind her.

  Caris whirled, startled to find a middle-aged lady of the court confronting her from the straw. Tall, proud, the lady glittered with ornaments accenting a gown of green silk. Amber hair piled upon her head in a mass of ringlets and braids in a style Caris had seen in portraits of her mother’s courtier days. Her face glowed with ashen paste, and perfect circles of rouge rode high on each cheek. At first glance she’d seemed beautiful—once had been, surely—but now only a husk remained; starved eyes, protruding collarbones, and where the neckline of her gown might once have once draped over a swelling of smooth breasts, it now revealed a prow of jutting sternum on a carapace of bone.

  “So, you are Harric’s latest toy,” said the lady, in a voice soft as honey. She pursed her lips, eyes roaming Caris’s body. The survey halted on the sword at Caris’s hip, whereupon the lady let out a prim little laugh and clapped her hands in delight. “Half-witted, half brute, and mannish to boot. How he baits me! Could he have chosen a more ridiculous boor to vex me with?” Eyes shining, her laughter tinkled beneath the rafters.

  Caris barely heard the words. Hairs rose on her neck as her mind flew in circles trying to explain away the obvious. Rag fidgeted, stomping and eyes showing white at the sight of the apparition that was there but not there in the straw. Caris reached into the panicked mare to calm her pounding heart, and, by focusing elsewhere, calm her own.