Mortal Rites

by Melissa McShane

  She heard nothing but the background noise of millions of crickets all chirping at each other, signaling nightfall. The birds that had accompanied them all day were silent, gone to sleep, probably, and the night birds hadn’t risen yet. It still felt ominous, as if the birds knew what they intended and had gotten as far away as possible.

  The magic lights burned more coldly white than the moon, twelve glowing spheres like apples floating around her head. She whisked half of them away to hover beside Dianthe and Alaric, widening the little illuminated spot she and her friends inhabited. In their light, Dianthe looked as pale as Alaric, who in turn looked nearly pure white. Dianthe glanced over her shoulder at Sienne. “There may not be anything big enough,” she said.

  “I just need space to sit with the bowl in front of me,” Sienne said. “It doesn’t have to be big.”

  “I still say you should teach me the chant, and let me do it,” Alaric said.

  “I need you free to interrupt the ritual if it goes wrong,” Sienne reminded him. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  “If there’s a possibility things could go wrong, that’s hardly fine,” Alaric said.

  “It is unlikely we will have a problem,” Perrin said. “From what I understand, it is more likely the ritual will simply fail.”

  Alaric muttered something under his breath Sienne chose not to ask him to repeat. She’d already assured him the danger to herself was minimal, but he was, on a fundamental level, incapable of allowing someone else to face danger when he was perfectly able to. Convincing him that she was the best choice to perform the ritual had been difficult. Finally, exasperated with his stubbornness, she’d grabbed his face in both hands, kissed him soundly, and said, “Don’t make me force-blast you, love.” That had made him laugh, and withdraw his objections. Even so, she didn’t expect him to be happy about it.

  “Here,” Alaric said, stopping abruptly enough that Sienne, rapt in her memories, almost ran into him. She looked past him and saw a small clearing. It could only be called a clearing because the tree growth was so thick elsewhere that any difference was striking. It was only about seven feet wide and a little more than that long. Old, dead needles carpeted the ground, and a broken, rotting stump off to the left suggested why there was so much space here now.

  “It will work,” Sienne said. She walked forward into the clearing’s center and set down her pack, crouching to rummage through it. She brought out the bottle of red wine and brushed away needles to give it a flat surface to stand on. Next she removed a wide-mouthed wooden bowl, sanded pale and highly varnished so it looked almost as glossy as a pottery bowl treated with invulnerability. She set that next to the wine and pulled out a tablecloth she’d borrowed from the outpost. She hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself by making such an odd request, since the outpost didn’t go in for tablecloths except for at the keeper’s table, so in the end she’d had Dianthe sneak this one out of the linen cupboard. She hoped it would be in a condition to return when this was over.

  She shook out the tablecloth and spread it over the ground. It was square and white, with no designs embroidered on it, which made Sienne feel better about using it for this purpose. She picked up wine and bowl and settled herself cross-legged on the cloth. “Is it full sunset yet?” she asked.

  “Hard to say,” Alaric said. He checked his pocket watch. “Another five minutes by the clock. But it’s too crowded in here to see for sure.”

  Sienne set the bowl in front of her and poured a measure of wine into it. She drew her belt knife and tested the edge. “Perrin?”

  Perrin removed a cloth-wrapped bundle from his pack. Sienne swallowed and reached for it. The revenant’s head was surprisingly light. She didn’t unwrap it. That could wait.

  “Kalanath and I will stand guard,” Dianthe said. “Be careful.” She took a few paces away and the forest swallowed her up. Sienne glanced over her shoulder in time to see Kalanath disappear in the other direction.

  “I almost wish we had that mental communication blessing,” Sienne said. Perrin smiled, but said nothing. Sienne swallowed again, then unwrapped the head. It was more disgusting than she remembered, though this time the smell was too faint to make her gorge rise. The blackened skin crumbled under her fingers, and a hank of burned hair slipped off the skull and landed in Sienne’s lap. Gingerly, using only two fingers, she lifted it and tossed it to one side, off the tablecloth. With her small spark magic, she set it afire, feeling obscurely that she shouldn’t leave any portion of the revenant untamed. It gave off an unexpectedly bitter smell as it burned, bitter but not otherwise unpleasant. She watched it burn to ash, then turned to Alaric. He nodded and put his pocket watch away.

  Sienne put the head carefully in the bowl, turning it until she was sure it wouldn’t roll away. With her belt knife, she cut her left index finger, not too deeply, but enough that it bled freely. She held her finger over the head and with her other hand poured wine over the cut so the blood mingled with the wine. It burned painfully, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. Blood and wine streamed over the head and collected in the bowl.

  “From dust I call thee,” she chanted. “From barrow, from tomb, from desolation I call thee. I give thee breath. I give thee voice. Return, and speak with me. By blood and bone and wine I command thee. Return!”

  She tipped the wine bottle up to stop the flow and set it quickly aside, sucking on her finger. The earthy taste of the wine mingled with the sharp copper of blood. She wrapped her cut finger in a clean cloth, and waited.

  The evening was still and soundless, with only Sienne’s heavy, nervous breathing breaking the silence. No one moved. Sienne tried to calm her breathing, but worry had set in. Suppose she hadn’t remembered it correctly? Suppose the wine was wrong, or there hadn’t been enough blood?

  She became aware of another sound, rising in volume and pitch. It was low enough that she was sure she’d heard it before she was conscious of it, but even as she thought this, it had gone from a low bass to a baritone and was climbing toward tenor. It was a single, moaning note sung by someone with tremendous lung capacity—or, Sienne realized, someone with no lungs at all.

  Silver mist gathered in the bowl, rising off the liquid collected there like morning mist off a lake. It thickened and boiled over the edges, pooling around the bowl and over Sienne’s feet and legs. “Sienne,” Alaric said, his voice a warning.

  “It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t feel like anything.” That wasn’t strictly true; the mist felt cool where it brushed her hands as they rested in her lap, but the sensation was so faint she didn’t perceive it immediately. It didn’t smell like anything, and when she twitched her fingers, which by now were submerged in it, it didn’t move the way real mist would have. It came up against the boundaries of the tablecloth and piled up against them as if they were a hard barrier.

  The mist completely covered the head now and reached Sienne’s waist as she sat there, uncertain of what to do. She cleared her throat. “Spirit,” she said, “tell me your name.”

  No response. The mist continued to boil around her. “Tell me your name,” she repeated, putting more force into the command.

  The mist retracted instantly, flowing backwards into the head until the thing was covered in a thick layer of mist. Gradually, the mist shaped itself to the burned head, replacing lost flesh and shoring up sagging, burned lips. Sienne watched in fascination. It was as if an invisible sculptor laid clay over an armature, building up a human head with deft, minute movements.

  After several minutes, pale gray eyes opened and blinked at Sienne. Lips moved as if the motion was unfamiliar. “Pedreo Giannus,” the spirit said. “That is my name.” His voice echoed strangely, sounding more like violin strings than a human voice.

  “Pedreo Giannus?” Sienne exclaimed. That was a name she knew. The mist shifted like flesh melting off a skull, and she drew in a breath and calmed herself until it steadied. “You lived in Tagliaveno, didn’t you?”
/>   “Tagliaveno, yes,” Giannus said. “Until my death. Let me go.”

  Sienne examined his face. The mist had shaped strong cheekbones and a jaw you might have cracked walnuts on. His eyes were deeply set under a powerful brow. Even if it hadn’t been made of mist, it was a face that would stand out. “You were murdered,” she said. “Who killed you?” She was certain who’d killed him, but making assumptions seemed like a bad idea.

  The lips worked again, like someone chewing a piece of gristle. “Old friend,” the spirit said. “Offered me wine. Bled me dry.”

  Sienne shuddered. Instantly the mist collapsed, the facial features running together like a child’s sandcastle when the tide comes in. “Pedreo Giannus!” she shouted. “I do not give you permission to leave!”

  She felt pressure now, something building behind her eyes that felt as if it were trying to take up permanent residence. Convincing a spirit to speak was difficult, and they weren’t bound to tell the truth. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself. Slowly, the face reformed, though not as sharply as before. The mouth moved. “Death,” Giannus said. “Vengeance.”

  “Tell me the name of your murderer,” Sienne said.

  “Killed me,” Giannus said. “Repay.”

  “Was your murderer of average height, balding, with short dark hair and brown eyes?” Sienne recited the description Perrin had given her, not wanting to use Murtaviti’s name in case that gave the spirit ideas about lying to get her to leave it alone. “A broad nose, and a C-shaped scar on his chin?” Her head throbbed, and she had to blink back tears of pain.

  “I will have vengeance,” Giannus said. “Let me go.”

  The pressure was almost intolerable. “Where did he kill you?” Sienne demanded.

  “Basement,” Giannus said. “Let me go.”

  Sienne cried out as the throbbing pain turned sharp, and she smelled blood. The mist flowed away from the head, collecting into a tight cottony ball that fell into the bloody wine and disintegrated. Alaric moved swiftly and caught Sienne before she fell face first into the wine and the head. “Are you all right?” he said. “Your ears and nose are bleeding. Sienne—”

  “I’m fine.” Sienne dabbed at her nose. “Well, I’m not fine, obviously, but it’s only a minor pain.”

  Crashing footsteps through the undergrowth heralded Dianthe and Kalanath’s return. “You screamed,” Kalanath said. “Is it done? Did it attack you?”

  “No, but I don’t understand how necromancers can bear it,” Sienne said. She accepted a handkerchief from Perrin and wiped her ears and nose. “Or how they manage to get any sense out of the spirits they summon.”

  “It was always an unlikely chance that we would learn anything,” Perrin said. “I am sorry I suggested it, since Sienne suffered for no reason.”

  “It wasn’t for no reason. We did learn something. Pauro Murtaviti definitely killed that man,” Sienne said.

  “But it told us nothing.”

  “It didn’t have to. Don’t you remember? Pedreo Giannus is a member of the blight. He said an old friend killed him—suppose he’s why Master Murtaviti went to Tagliaveno? Also, I recognized him.” Sienne looked at all of them. “From Master Murtaviti’s sitting room? The portraits? He was one of them.” She leaned into Alaric and closed her eyes. “What do you want to bet some of those portraits represent Master Murtaviti’s victims?”

  Nobody spoke for a long time. Finally, Alaric said, “We may have more of a problem than we thought.”

  “Meaning that our quarry is a mass murderer intent on doing Averran knows what with the foul knowledge he gains?” Perrin said. “I think I agree with you.”

  “So what do we do now?” Dianthe said.

  “What we set out to do,” Alaric said. “We find Master Murtaviti. We stop whatever his plan is. And we do it before he kills anyone else.”

  9

  Just as the ghoul was reaching for her throat, Sienne dragged herself out of nightmares. She lay on the hard bed in the women’s dormitory and stared up at the low ceiling. In the next bed, Dianthe snored gently, a brrrring sound like an active beehive. By the squares of gray light hovering in the near distance, it was the quiet time just before dawn. Sienne practiced breathing regularly until her heart slowed and her hands stopped shaking. In the dream, ghouls had killed her friends, one by one, and she had run through the streets of Fioretti just steps ahead of their pursuit. It was not her favorite way to wake up.

  She rolled out of bed and dressed quietly, hoping not to wake anyone else, then left the dormitory and headed for the main room. She didn’t smell food, but it was probably too early to expect breakfast. Maybe she should visit Spark instead. The horse had a calming effect on her she could really use right then.

  Unlike the outpost, the stables were already alive with activity as a party of scrappers prepared for an early departure. Sienne nodded a greeting at one of them, a short Ansorjan with long, flowing hair he was inordinately proud of, and slipped into Spark’s stall. The horse was drowsing, but came awake when Sienne caressed her neck. She butted her head against Sienne’s arm and whickered. “You’re not coming with us today,” Sienne whispered. “We’re headed into the wilderness and it’s not safe. But they’ll take good care of you here.”

  “This is early, even for you,” Alaric said, startling Sienne. His arms rested on the stall door and he regarded her closely.

  “Bad dreams,” she said, turning away from the horse and joining him at the door. “You?”

  “Just restless. I’m eager to get this over with.”

  “Why is that? Is this so different from our other jobs?”

  Alaric shook his head. “It’s different because we don’t know what we’re walking into. There’s a slim possibility we’re wrong, and Master Murtaviti isn’t the necromancer we believe him to be. But if he is, there are still unanswered questions. Like, first and foremost, why is he traveling east into the forest, away from civilization and towards Sisyletus knows what? Why did he kill that man, Giannus, in such a way that brought Giannus back from the dead? And why now? He’s been a necromancer for, what, maybe forty years—what’s different now that made him leave his home and strike out for the wilderness?”

  “And you don’t like mysteries.”

  “Mysteries get people killed. Not having enough information is the same.” He opened the stall door and came to stand next to her. “I’m this close to calling it off and returning Mistress Murtaviti’s money.”

  “But if we don’t stop him, he might kill again. Possibly a lot of times. We can’t walk away.”

  Alaric sighed and put his arms around Sienne’s waist, pulling her close to him. “Which is why I won’t call it off. We’ll just have to be careful.”

  Sienne embraced him, laying her cheek against his chest. “I wish we were home already. There’s so much I want to do.”

  “Mmm. Any of it including me?”

  “All of it.” She reached up and pulled his head down to kiss him. Kissing was so much more comfortable when they were sitting together or, even better, lying next to each other, but even this awkward embrace made her heart beat faster. “I was thinking,” she went on after a long, pleasurable moment, “I could make your bed bigger. It would be more comfortable for you, not having your feet dangling off the end.”

  “Big enough for two?”

  “If you like.” She felt unexpectedly shy mentioning it, but she’d slept with exactly one other person, only a couple of times, and it hadn’t been wonderful, so coming right out and saying she wanted sex wasn’t something that was in her repertoire.

  Alaric kissed her again. “I would like nothing better. If it’s what you want.”

  It was, her insecurities notwithstanding. She nodded, finding herself tongue-tied and hoping he could see in her face the things she didn’t know how to speak.

  He hugged her, enveloping her in his arms in a way that made her feel so loved and secure she could almost cry. “Let’s get some breakfast, a
nd wait for Perrin to say his prayers. With luck, Master Murtaviti won’t have moved far from his last location, and we’ll catch up to him before nightfall.”

  She smiled. “Now who’s being optimistic?”

  Perrin and Dianthe were seated at one of the big round tables when they returned to the outpost. A coffee pot big enough to be called a vat sat between them. As Sienne and Alaric approached, Dianthe poured herself another steaming cup and added cream. Perrin’s eyes were nearly shut and he leaned on both his elbows, his face nearly in his cup. “It looks like you weren’t the only one who had a bad night,” Alaric murmured. He took a seat next to Dianthe and gripped her shoulder. “Drink up. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  “Kitane save me from morning people,” Dianthe growled.

  “I cannot pray to Averran until the sun is fully up,” Perrin said. He took a long drink and refilled his cup. “It would be pointless, as I doubt he would respond.”

  “You’ll need to control your impatience,” Sienne told Alaric with a smile.

  “I have plenty of patience. I just don’t like waiting.”

  Kalanath entered and took his seat next to Perrin. Sweat gleamed along his hairline, and his color was up. “I have practiced, and now I want food,” he said.

  Alaric glanced over his shoulder. “Food’s coming,” he said. “We’ll leave at ten.”

  By ten o’clock, though, Perrin’s prayers had not yet been answered. “I dare not rush the avatar,” he said in response to Alaric’s grimace. “If we are to face a necromancer today, I wish to be fully prepared.” He sat cross-legged in the field some hundred yards from the outpost, well away from prying eyes.