The transformation one simple change could make on her was astonishing. Grace was no longer the warm old woman that many saw her as; instead she looked as pale as one of death’s three wisdoms, and she intended to inflict pain like one as well. Her silver hair both silky and shimmering looked even more like the cold metal it resembled resting against the black, her flesh like white parchment—an effect that made the lines of her face less warm and more cold. This was the reason Grace never wore black. She looked less like the loving grandmother and more like the dalua sorceress that lived in the woods, waiting to consume the flesh of so many children. In this regalia even her watery blue eyes looked more piercing than normal, angrier, lethal.
Grace closed the wardrobe and placed her one weapon, the silver dagger, in the sash of her robe.
The common room was still blissfully deserted, though lights still burned in Jovian and Angelica’s rooms. A brief stop at the smoldering fireplace gave her opportunity to retrieve a lit oil lamp, though her other hand would remain free for other options.
The hall, she noticed, was nearly as devoid of life as the main room of her suite had been, with the exception of servants and attendants making their way from rooms where they cleaned, or served, to other work-related destinations. There was slight nodding in Grace’s direction when she passed, a gesture more polite than scrambling away from this wythe that stalked the halls.
If she had been more observant than she was, Grace might have noticed Rama trailing her silently through the hall. Most assuredly she was curious on behalf of her mistress as to where this guest was heading dressed in such a fashion so soon after one of her charges had come up missing.
Two flights passed faster than Grace would have expected, and before long she stood outside the door of the Tall Stranger, an eerie blue glow coming from beyond the door in such a fashion as to backlight the jam and spill out into the hall, bathing Grace’s bare feet in icy fire.
A crash in the room instigated Grace’s urgent attempts to open the door.
“Go away. I am fine,” came the oily voice of the Tall Stranger from beyond.
“Oh, you won’t be,” Grace said removing the long dagger from her belt. Aiming it at the door, she whispered one word, one of the most lethal words she could have spoken at any piece of wood: “Splinter.”
The door blew inward in fragments by the thousands. They were caught up in the torrent of the room, whirling around the blue air like a horrific tornado. There was something akin to smoke in the air.
Joya lay bound and gagged to the bed, her feet and wrists lashed to foot and headboard, as if she would be able to get free in her current comatose state. The sight instantly infuriated Grace, and she took a step into the room, the wood of the floor shuddering in fright at her passing. Here was one that could control and manipulate the very fabric of wood itself.
“What have you done to her?” she raged, her eyes quickly finding where the Tall Stranger sat in the darkest corner, one finger lazily toying with his lower lip, his legs crossed casually at the knee.
“I would not get any closer to her if I were you,” he cautioned.
“I have no intention of nearing her … yet,” Grace informed him in a dangerously low voice.
“Temper, temper,” he chided.
“You don’t know the beginning of it,” Grace said, her words punctuated by the sound of wood grinding against wood in a high-pitched wail. She took only a moment to spare a glance at Joya. Seeing the bed had moved slightly across the floor, the girl’s dress rustling in a slight breeze that was created by her.
“Her wyrd is responding to yours,” the Tall Stranger explained. “Calm yourself and she will be calmed.”
“Her wyrd would only be responding to mine if she were present, or at least if her wyrd were present. What this means, you lack wit, is that she is entering yet another Trial, and I am assuming it is the Trial of Water,” Grace said raising her dagger.
The Tall Stranger smirked. “What do you plan on doing with that?”
Grace didn’t say a word, but instead flicked her dagger at him and watched as the floor buckled under his large chair, tipping him unceremoniously onto the softly carpeted floor in a heap of tattered black clothing and velvety pillows. He stood moments later ruffled slightly, but with a calming hand he smoothed out all the crinkles in his clothing and placed his hat back on.
There was another sound of wood scrapping wood as the bed slid even more, but this time not at Grace, but as if it were trying to rotate in a circle.
“I assure you that you do not want to fight with me,” the Tall Stranger said to the frail old lady before him. “You cut an imposing figure, as I am sure you planned, but you have little in the way that you can actually do to me. You are a Dhasturin, right? That means you have control over only one element, two at best? Seeing what you have done here tonight I am guess that your element is earth.”
Grace only smiled as the bed began to rotate, slowly lifting into the air to twirl slightly in the blue air. The smoke that Grace now realized was some kind of drugged incense began to swirl in the bed’s wake; it was a kind of ethereal gray-blue smoke that added an eerie sensation to the room.
The Tall Stranger was nearing Grace, so she was not able to watch the bed for long as it rotated slowly at first in midair, but as she touched her wyrd again she could feel the air created by the rotating bed increase.
“You upset her,” the Tall Stranger observed, casting a glance at the fitful bed as he took another menacing step further. “Put your blade aside, Dhasturin. We both know that it was not meant for cutting and will lose its power if blooded.”
“It is not my dagger I intend on blooding,” Grace informed him standing her guard. Her plan was not to kill him herself, precisely, but instead to use another catalyst to do it. She kept touching her wyrd, allowing more and more of it to flow through her and into the floor. She was building up her control of the floor, and also provoking Joya’s wyrd as she did so.
“This is not good for her,” the Tall Stranger cautioned.
“Neither was your mistress breaking into her mind to control her Trial of Air.”
“Now, I had nothing to do with that. However, I was informed that she was not to be harmed, and I am afraid that I cannot allow you to harm her,” he reasoned.
“I do not intend on harming her.” One final push of wyrd and the bed with Joya and all righted itself, standing in midair as if set on the footboard. Though Joya no longer moved, the air still ruffled her hair and the blankets that hung off the footboard in tangled heaps. The debris from the door, and various papers the Tall Stranger had cast about slovenly, continued to billow around her in a powerless vortex. It was enough to halt the Tall Stranger’s progression and he took a step back. Grace did not move.
Without flinching, she was able to watch Joya better now that the Tall Stranger was too afraid to move anymore.
“You see, it turns out that a Dhasturin can manipulate more than elements, doesn’t it? I have many years of experience with manipulation. If you had bothered to learn anymore about me before coming to waylay us, you might have learned that I do not like being slighted.” She sneered as Joya’s eyes opened, but they were not Joya’s eyes that were behind the lids. Instead they were blue orbs, the color blue of the deepest ocean, nearly black. “If your mistress had told you anything about me she would have said to you ‘above all things, Grace does not like to lose. This mission most likely will be your last as she will kill you in cold blood if need be.’ And guess what? She would have been right. I hate losing, and I will kill in cold blood. What is more? I will kill you in cold blood, even if I had to bloody up my dagger doing it. However, it appears that the Goddess has provided a way for me to murder you without sullying up my wyrd in the process. She provided, and I took the chance to create the ideal situation.”
Still watching Joya, Grace could see where water crept out of her skin at first like sweat, and then more profusely, soaking into her clothing and drenching th
e bonds that held her in place. Soon the water was running off her in small rivulets. With a thundering repercussion to the air, everything halted in mid motion, papers and fragments of wood hanging suspended in the air, frozen as if time had paused them where they whirled.
“It appears your time has come, child,” Grace said to him, turning to the Tall Stranger who gapped at Joya. “This is where your journey ends. Say hello to Arael when you arrive at the Otherworld for me.”
But the Tall Stranger was having none of this. He tried to make for the door, obviously scared beyond his wits at what this small band of people had done to him—first taking his wyrd completely from him, now so clinically talking about his death. He was terrified by the imposing old woman, and he tried to bolt past her, which ended up being the wrong move to make.
With all the wyrd she had pulsing through her, Grace was much stronger than her age portrayed. She stopped him with a sharp blow to the jaw that felled him hard, sending the Tall Stranger skidding across the floor into the opposite wall, impacting once more the pillows and chair.
“How did you … ?” he asked as he clamored to his feet. He didn’t bother finding his hat this time.
“Get so strong? You should know that this body belies my true strength, seeing how you are so educated on Dhasturin. I am so much more than an old lady, even if I were not spry without it. The earth wyrd allows me some strength that others do not have.” Grace smirked. “Come at me again, it will be fun.”
He didn’t.
“Now, now, play fair. The soles of your boots are wooden, are they not? You do know that if I wanted you here badly enough your hesitation would not stop me from getting you.”
He came closer to her, halfway across the room to halt exactly where Grace wanted him, though he didn’t do it of his own accord. The soles of his shoes scraped him across the wyrded wood of the floor, sliding him toward Grace.
“That is good,” she said holding up a hand to stop him. Though he tried to move backward, away from this deadly old lady, the soles of his boots remained glued to the spot. “Now, this will only hurt a little. Or a lot. I am not sure, I have never died.”
She pointed her dagger at the floor below his feet and said in a deadly whisper, “Heave.” And the floor obeyed her command, pitching the Tall Stranger directly through the debris and into Joya, whose eyes flared once with what appeared to be lightning. The rope around her right hand tore loose as her arm flung out toward the Tall Stranger to grip him mercilessly around the neck.
Her wyrd pulsed through him then, causing his body to jerk and his back to arch in pain. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a gurgle. His eyes went wide and he tried to breath, but he found he could not. He began thrashing in time as the water of Joya’s wyrd filled his lungs, taking his breath as well as his life.
His mouth opened wide one last time, and as water poured out of it he went limp in her grasp. She let go once the damage had been done, and the Tall Stranger collapsed to the floor along with all the debris.
Slowly the bed lowered to the floor and righted itself against the wall.
Grace mused that it meant wyrd could truly affect those that had none whatsoever. She wasted no time in loosing Joya’s bonds and picking her up. She had only just cradled Joya in her arms when she was confronted again.
“What have you done?” Dalah asked from the doorway, her voice husky with sleep, but dangerous all the same.
“I did what I had to do; you understand.” Grace’s voice was still thick with the drug of her wyrd; she could not help it. Every time she used the Dhast, the silver dagger that was the root of her power, it was like using the finest Elven Can’bis.
“You killed another in the sanctity of my home, Grace; that is what you did,” Dalah said stepping into the room. Her wyrd hummed in the air, prepared to strike if need be.
“Careful, Dalah. Joya is still coming down from her Trial of Water. Strong wyrd like that could damage her,” Grace cautioned.
“A warning you did not heed, Grace,” the plump lady retorted, forcing herself to calm down even as she ran her fingers through her hair.
“He would have killed her if I did not act, and how was I supposed to stop him with only the wood of the floor and nothing else?”
Dalah shook her head. “We have no time to discuss this; we must get rid of the body.” Dalah scratched her head. “DAMMIT, GRACE! I asked you not to get me involved, and you did!”
“You were never not involved, Dalah.” Grace looked to the drowned body of the Tall Stranger. “What are we going to do about him?”
“We will dump him. It will look too strange if he is found drowned in a dry room with no water about. However, if we dump him in the river …”
“They will suspect,” Grace warned.
“Suspect what?” Dalah asked, an ironic smile coming to her lips. “The good thing about not allowing sorcerers into the law means they have little help in deciding if an accident is really such. Sure they can tell when someone has obviously been killed by wyrd, and deal with it through the Board of Wyrding, but they will not think twice in finding a drowned body in a river on one of the nights of the Saint Ismaidry Festival.” Dalah looked critically at her old friend. “Accidents happen all the time because of that festival.”
“You have a point …” Now that they were discussing ways of dumping the body, Grace could not help but feel a little squeamish at what she had done.
“Come now, Grace, you have killed humans before,” Dalah consoled without a trace of pity.
“But Joya has not,” Grace said looking up at Dalah. “I forced her to take her first human life.”
“And I am sure it will not be her last in her considerably long life. Now, help me with him. I will wyrd us invisible, but it is up to you to help me carry him. Do you think you can invoke enough earth wyrd to strengthen us?”
“I can carry him alone,” Grace said and felt the power filling her once more with little thought. “First let me get Joya back to the suite.” Grace made it back in little time to see Dalah still staring down at the Tall Stranger.
“Are we ready?” Grace asked and in response she felt Dalah’s wyrd slipping over her and Grace hefted the Tall Stranger into her arms.
The night was cool beyond the doors of Fairview Heights, and Dalah took the most direct route to the river. As Grace looked down into the black depths of the river, she thought it was ironic that water had killed him, and now water as black as Joya’s eyes had been would carry him to the Otherworld.
There was little ceremony in the way she threw his carcass into the water. With a splash he sunk out of sight, and out of their lives.
“I could lose Fairview Heights,” Dalah worried as they walked back from the river.
“I know. You were not involved and know nothing,” Grace said.
“That is not the point now, Grace. I am involved no matter what we tell others. I think it is only right that I know why I just helped a good friend dump a body of someone she murdered in cold blood in my establishment.” And so Grace told her everything she knew about the Neferis and the wyrd surrounding them.
The two of them had taken the long route back to Fairview Heights, as the story was a long one, and Grace’s speculations even longer. When all was said and done, Dalah’s brows were pointed with disbelief at all of what Grace was telling her, but past experience with the older lady, and how brutally honest she always was, forced Dalah to accept her words, even if she didn’t fully believe what was said.
Grace was just opening her mouth to say something more when a strange vibration shuddered through the air, reaching deep into her being. Grace stopped and placed a hand to her heart, the air in her lungs hanging heavy, making breathing an effort that took actual thought to accomplish. The silver dagger in its sheath in her sash vibrated slightly as did some of the larger buildings surrounding them.
By the look on Dalah’s face she had felt it too. Her eyebrows were knitted together in the same concentratio
n that Grace wore, but instead of focusing inwardly she was focusing her will outwardly. She was doing something Grace could not do; she was scanning the wyrd all around to figure out what the Otherworld was happening.
“It is the Well of Wyrding,” Grace told her once the vibration stopped and breathing happened of its own accord.
“I know,” Dalah said looking at Grace. “You are not getting me, Grace. I told you that when you first came here; I told you that I didn’t want to get involved.”
“But you are, Dalah. Do you not see that?” Grace asked taking a step toward her friend. “We are all involved. Porillon already has one of Sylvie’s children, and it is obvious by the actions of the Tall Stranger that she intends to take another. Just wait until she finds that Angelica and Jovian are much more than they appear.” Grace muttered the last to herself as if taking mental inventory of the crucible she now found herself in. “At any rate, the Well of Wyrding has been breached, all the Wyrders in the Great Realms will know this, and all of them will be working to stop it. The only difference is that the two of us, Rosalee, and Porillon are the only four left alive that know where it is and know how to influence it.” Grace now grabbed Dalah’s arm. “It takes a sorcerer to affect change within it, and you are the only sorcerer among the three of us that still serve the Goddess.”
“I understand your urgency ,Grace, really I do, but I told you before I can’t do it.” Dalah broke away from her old friend then and began briskly retreating back to Fairview Heights with her cloak billowing in the still air. Grace did not follow, standing in silence broken only by the occasional chirp of nature, until she finally called to Dalah’s back.
“All wyrd will be affected by this, Dalah; you know that. Fairview Heights will also be affected being as it is a construct of wyrd. The blackness in Porillon’s heart will creep into the Well of Wyrding and infect all things wyrd touches. All things will be corrupted; your precious establishment might as well never have been built for all its worth.” She slowly made her way toward Dalah, who had stopped again once Grace started talking. “Once a pinnacle of hope and light, even in the darkest of times, now Fairview Heights will be a bastion of Chaos and hate. Wyrd is in the very wood of Fairview Heights; it would be a shame to see that turn to darkness, your life, your dreams scattered to the Otherworld.”
The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) Page 19
