“I am Malken. That’s all you need to know, fool.”
Tristan’s lips twisted in a smile. “I’m the one who has you trapped, remember? I ask, you answer! What kind of thing are you, and what is your link to me?”
Malken remained silent. His hideous face, hidden behind equally hideous hands, suddenly roused righteous anger and loathing in Tristan. He bellowed to Malken, “Answer me, damn you!”
One hand came down from the face, and Tristan saw that the monster was leering. “I know what you’re thinking at any moment. I can become you any time, any place I so desire, and you can’t do a thing to stop me.” He waved a mock-chiding finger. “And I’ve got you all upset now. Temper, temper, Tris.”
Anger seemed about to choke the knight, but he needed to learn from this creature. “How can you—”
The mockery mutated into anger again. “No more questions. Let me go.”
Tristan snorted in outraged amusement. “You’ve called me an idiot, Malken the cat—” he took grim pleasure in seeing Malken start at the title “—but I am none. You say you can become Tristan Hiregaard, so you must know him at least a little. Do you think I would set you free to wreak evil on the world again?”
Malken’s brutish face split into a grin, revealing sharp teeth. “Well, actually, I do.”
There came a furious pounding on the door. “Master Tristan!” It was Guillaume, his voice treble with fear. “Cats! They’ve gone mad! Dozens of them, sir, attacking Faerhaaven!”
Tristan instinctively glanced toward the window, but it was boarded shut in this room. He looked again at Malken’s warped face grinning triumphantly in the mirror. Tristan was afraid to leave the room, afraid that if he did so Malken would somehow escape. Yet there was something going on, and he was the master of this house. He hesitated.
“Master Tristan!” Guillaume’s voice was on the edge of panic. Sweat dotted Tristan’s brow. “Please come!”
“Go satisfy your curiosity, Tristan. Not that you’ll be able to do anything about it. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t leave. I want to see your reaction. Besides, you’ve got me where you want me, remember?” The frightful grin widened, and a hint of evil mirth crept into Malken’s voice. “For the moment.”
Tristan paused a moment longer. When a faint scream floated up from below, however, he knew he had no choice. He flung open the door and nearly collided with Guillaume. “Can’t my men handle a few plains cats?” he demanded.
Guillaume looked terrible. “They’re not ordinary cats, sir. Go see.” Tristan raced into the room next to his magical laboratory, his extensive library, and rushed to the window. The Master’s Tower was situated at the far end of the castle, its windows opening onto the vast plains. It seemed an unlikely area for attack, but Castle Faerhaaven was indeed under siege.
Dozens of plains cats were running full speed toward the castle. Guillaume had been right. These were not natural creatures. Tristan could see by the many still black bodies that the archers had already made good use of their time. Other cats came on, heedless of the arrows in their skins, coming as if driven.
No, Tristan corrected himself. As if summoned.
Even as he watched, some of the beasts gathered themselves and leapt into the moat. The water distressed them not at all, and they were soon on the other shore.
Now Tristan heard cries of agony in addition to fear and confusion. He ducked into the armor room, seized a sword, and ran down the stairs. A guard passed him, and Tristan grabbed his arm. The man didn’t wait for questions.
“Plains cats, sir,” he gasped. “We raised the drawbridge but not soon enough. Some got inside.”
“Then they’re trapped. We can handle them.”
The guard’s eyes were wild and frightened, an expression usually foreign to Tristan’s men. “Sir … s-something else is inside, too.”
At that moment, Tristan heard a shriek. A cat tore around the corner of the bottom landing and began to bound up the stairs. The guard raised his sword and shield, but still the cat came on. Tristan’s sword found the creature’s heart, but not before the cat had mauled the guard’s arm. The guard groaned and sat down heavily on the stairs, clutching his wounded arm. Tristan plunged his sword into the beast one more time to make sure it was indeed dead, then leapt over its body and continued downstairs.
The cries and growls increased. Tristan rounded a corner, tripped over some small object on the stairs, and went sprawling. Gasping, he stumbled to his feet and glanced back to see what had tripped him.
It was the body of a child. Her throat had been torn out and her face clawed beyond recognition, but he knew the long, flowing dark hair and clothing. It was young Madeleine Guillaume, Giles’s little daughter.
He hastened back up to her corpse, though he knew there was nothing he could do for her now. The winding stairway was dark, lit even in daylight with torches. Madeleine’s still, small body cast a wildly flickering shadow. No, not flickering—moving.
Now Tristan saw what else had come in with Malken’s cats. Madeleine’s shadow grew. It rose slowly, pulsing, its shape mutating until it ceased to bear any resemblance to a little girl. The shadow creature came for Tristan in utter silence. He swiped at it with his sword, but a solid blade could do no damage to the insubstantial thing. The shadow reached for him, and when its cool tentacles of non-light closed on him, Tristan cried out in pain. His body tensed, then felt limp and trembling, as if he had been fighting for hours.
He turned and stumbled up the stairs. His only chance was to reach his sorcery chamber. Magic, not swordplay, would be the only way of defeating this hideous thing. Tristan missed a step, fell, and turned on his pursuer. He shouted the words of the first spell that came to his mind—a spell for light. Instantly, the dark stairway was filled with what could have passed for bright sunlight. The true shadows fled; the monstrous one remained, sharply outlined against the wall. It cringed from the light, but then, to Tristan’s horror, rallied and continued its approach.
Tristan reached the head of the stairs and stumbled toward his room, pursued by the creature. As the thing swiped at him, a sudden ball of blue light coalesced in the hallway above him and swooped down upon the shadow. There was no sound, but when he glanced back, Tristan saw the shadow writhing and struggling with the blue ball of light. A lilting, feminine voice he had loved in life floated back to him: “Hurry, my love!”
He opened the door, fell inside, and leaned back against the door to shut it. The creature did not follow. His wards were too strong for that, and the insane ghost, true to her word, was not letting it hurt him.
His dilemma was a terrible one. If he did not release Malken, the bastard would not call off his cats or the shadow creature he commanded. Brave though his guards were, they would have their hands full with just the cats alone. They would not be able to fight the shadow, even if there was only one. But if Tristan set Malken free, what else would he do to torment the citizens of Kantora, indeed, all of Nova Vaasa?
Malken knew Tristan all too well.
The evil being in the mirror took one look at Tristan’s weary face and exploded with laughter. “Call off your cats and your shadow assassins,” said Tristan, defeated, “and I will set you free.”
“Oh, no. Let me go; then I release my servants.”
“How can I trust you?” cried Tristan.
“You can’t. But you have no choice, do you?”
Tristan licked his lips. Then he said, “You won’t escape me, you bastard.”
Malken threw back his dark head and laughed. “Oh, Tristan, you’re so naive. How do you plan to stop me? I’m you!”
“No, you’re not!” Tristan shouted, ordering the mirror to cease displaying Malken’s image. The mirror obeyed, shimmering. Malken’s hideous visage disappeared, and Tristan saw only his own pale, drained face in the mirror. At once, Tristan commanded, “Show me Malken.” If he could recapture the fiend at any time—
But no. The mirror fogged over, just as it had when he had asked
to see Ivaar. Now that he realizes I know where to look for him, he’s protecting himself from me, Tristan thought. Just like he’s shielding Ivaar. On a whim, he asked, “Show me Rozalia.” The fog still would not change. The Claws of Sehkmaa existed only to serve Malken’s diabolical purposes.
Much as he wanted to continue tracking Malken, Tristan knew he had other sobering duties to attend to. He braced himself and left the room to do what he could to repair the dreadful damage done in so short a time by Malken’s malice.
Mahai 3rd: Disaster has fallen upon my house. I write now, as I shall henceforth, in my sorcery chamber rather than my room. I shall be spending much time here now, I fear. Yesterday was a day filled with both sorrow and horror, fraught with dreadful revelations. My dear wife, Ailsa, haunts Faerhaaven, sometimes gentle, sometimes cruel, always mad. I do not know how to send her to rest. I know not of supernatural things; I must wait and hope she gives me some sign.
Seven people, including little Madeleine Guillaume, died yesterday after plains cats and evil shadow creatures attacked Faerhaaven. Twelve more people were seriously wounded. Morale has plunged. Some servants and guards wanted to leave. I feared Guillaume, too, would leave, but my loyal valet, though aged by the tragedy, has remained.
It was easier to state facts rather than relate what Tristan had learned, but he continued on, his mouth a thin, grim line of determination.
I have discovered beyond all doubt that the signature killer is a being—I dare not call him a man—called Malken the Cat. He is also the organizing force behind the new faith of the cat god Sehkmaa. My son Ivaar is a priest of this cult; I cannot bring myself to believe the boy is a knowing part of this evil.
I have also learned—and what pain it is to write this!—that Malken and I are, for want of a better word, linked in some bizarre fashion. According to the mirror, he is the “other face” that is the killer. He claims he can “become me” any time he chooses, but I think this is a bluff If this is true, then why am I, Tristan Hiregaard, still here and in control of my own mind? I have tried several spells, but nothing seems to reveal anything more certain to me about the nature of this strange, unnatural, and repulsive “bond.”
Malken is not as all-powerful as he would like me to think! He must rest, must keep the nature of this link secret. In all these things, he is vulnerable, and where the evil thing is vulnerable, there am I strong.
Tristan paused, collecting his thoughts.
I had Malken trapped in my mirror, but he exerted a terrible vengeance. Once I had let him go—how could I have done otherwise when innocents would suffer?—I was unable to trap his visage again.
I must learn why this terrible punishment has been visited on me. When? Why? How did this come about?
Tristan sensed that Malken had given something away in his careless gloating, bragging that he could “become” Tristan. But what, exactly, was meant by the word “become?” Could he, by means of a spell, assume Tristan’s appearance? Tristan rejected this idea almost at once. The only purpose served by such a disguise would be to cast doubt on Tristan’s reputation, frame him for the murders. But Malken wore a hat and scarf, keeping his face out of sight and unidentifiable. No, that wasn’t it.
Become … that word also ruled out hypnotism. Making someone do things that he wouldn’t ordinarily do is not “becoming” someone. Possession? Tristan shivered, suddenly cold. If Malken was indeed a spirit, such a terrifying possibility seemed very real. It would also fit the definition.
“No,” Tristan said, voicing his thoughts. Possessed individuals have the mind of the possessing spirit, not the body. The appearance of Malken was nothing like Tristan—not eye color, nor hair, nor body shape.
He cast his mind back to when the murders had first started. It was shortly after the trial at the Vistana encampment. Suddenly he remembered rising the next morning to discover his clothing had been stolen—by the Vistani, he thought. “The gypsies didn’t steal my clothes,” he whispered, “Malken did.” And then the full impact of Malken’s egotism exploded upon him.
Malken didn’t become Tristan.
Tristan became Malken.
That night in Bergovitsa, Tristan had transformed into Malken—how, he did not know. “And Malken would need clothes and money!” Frantically he scribbled this down in his journal, his mind racing ahead of his laboring hand. Malken’s fog yet covered his mirror—fog had appeared the night after the trial. The murder of the first girl had taken place in Kantora that night while Tristan slept—“hah, not slept,” he muttered—in Bergovitsa. Tristan himself could teleport. Was Malken appropriating not only Tristan’s physical body but also his magical skills? What about the doorways of which Malken had spoken?
A feeling of combined horror and hopelessness descended on Tristan. He had thought he and Sigfrid were dealing with merely a madman and some unscrupulous cultists. What kind of an unnatural thing was Malken? Who could possibly—
Tristan stopped in midsentence. The Vistani were the only ones who could, on the one hand, possibly explain what was going on and, on the other hand, could bear Tristan any kind of grudge. He was reluctant to go to the Vistani begging favors, but before he dared try anything on his own he needed more information. Malken’s very existence, not to mention his bizarre relationship to Tristan, spoke of dark and dangerous magics. Tristan was wise enough to get help where he could. Too, the Vistani knew the spiritual world better than anyone, and they could perhaps aid him in soothing his wife’s restless spirit.
Returning his attention to the mirror, he commanded, “Show me the Vistana encampment,” adding, “the one near Bergovitsa.”
The image appeared. Rising slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the image in the mirror, Tristan began to chant in a low, guttural voice.
Tristan manifested in the middle of the encampment and was not alarmed nor surprised when he found himself quickly surrounded by hostile Vistani. “Trespassing giorgio!” hissed Orlan. “Can we never succeed in keeping our encampment free from your presence?”
Tristan bowed respectfully. “I apologize for violating the barriers of your encampment, but I had need of haste, and magic is not always precise. I wish to see Madame Terza. I have important information for her, and a few questions if she will answer them.”
Orlan frowned, his dark eyes flashing. He took his dagger from his belt, dug a furrow into the earth, and embedded its blade beside it. Pointing to the shadow cast by the dagger, he stated, “You have until the shadow comes to that mark, giorgio, then the dagger and I come in for you myself. You are like the Black Hounds of Kulaach in our folktales, Tristan Hiregaard. Your presence never seems to bode well for my kind.” He led Tristan to Madame Terza’s vardo, a large, ornately carved creation of wood and paint. “She is in back,” Orlan said. He glared at Tristan once more, spat at his feet, and stalked off.
Quietly, Tristan walked around to the back of the caravan, following the smoky scent of a small cookfire. Terza was seated on a small hassock, her back to him and her white braid falling down her back. Without turning around, Terza said softly, “You’ve much on your mind, Sir Tristan. Come, sit, have a cup of tea.”
It was a friendlier greeting than Tristan had any right to expect, and he did as bid. A kettle steamed on the fire, emanating strange but enticing fragrances. Terza wrapped a bit of cloth about her hand to keep from burning herself, withdrew the kettle from the coals, and poured a large mug of steaming tea for her guest. Tristan accepted, thanking her in her own language.
He was about to take a sip when Terza clucked reprovingly, “Let it cool; you’ll scald yourself. Be not so hasty to be polite that you become merely foolish.” Her one eye twinkled brightly with mirth that was not malicious. Tristan smiled despite his burdens.
“You are wise, Grandmama,” he said, using the Vistana term of respect for an older woman.
Terza’s smile faded. “Sometimes, one can be too wise,” she said softly. “But,” she added, collecting herself, “your coming was not unexpected. Y
ou have information for me?”
Tristan lowered his eyes to the coals for a moment, then raised them to Terza again. “I have learned the identity of Amasa’s killer. It was the spirit of my dead wife.” The words came hard for him. Even now, part of his mind rejected the evidence of his own eyes.
Madame Terza merely nodded. “An alamisha,” she said. “Such things are not unheard of.”
“She … is not happy to be trapped here, I think.”
“That is why they are called the restless dead.” Tristan shot Terza a hurt, angry glance, but her ironic amusement did not fade. “I cannot tell you how to solve that, Sir Tristan. Each alamisha lingers for a different reason. She was your wife; you best know the troubles in your own home.”
“That’s not much help,” replied Tristan.
“Vistani do not exist solely to help troubled giorgios.” There was no mistaking the antagonism in her voice, though Terza’s face remained calm.
Tristan realized his offense and apologized. Anxious to reestablish courtesy, he inquired, “And what of Konstantin’s family? His daughter told me he died.”
Terza’s face became carefully expressionless. “Konstantin has indeed gone to the ancestors. Perhaps he is now one of our friendly vista chiri. But you are mistaken, Sir Tristan, for Konstantin had no daughter.”
Tristan frowned. “Not to contradict you, Grandmama, but I talked with Rozalia and—”
“Rozalia? That name is unfamiliar to me.” For a moment, Tristan wondered if the old woman were merely senile and had forgotten about the daughter who had left the tribe to follow a new god. Then his eyes fell upon the gypsy leader’s ra. It was a long and complex thing; knotted, severed and retied, braided with human and horsehair, beads, feathers—
He froze. The most recent event in Madame Terza’s lengthy and eventful life was represented by a wilted plant woven into the ra. Tristan knew a little bit about herbs, having worked with them in his magical pursuits, and after a moment he identified this one—deadly nightshade. He had once, as negotiator between crown and gypsy, known every symbol in the complex code of the ra. Now his mind worked furiously to remember. The appearance of the nightshade was a dire but rare thing, and betokened—it betokened.…
The Enemy Within Page 15
