by Greg James
She would find the Sceptre of Storms, bring it back, and save her mom.
Chapter Seventeen
“What news do you bring me, O Malus?”
Mikka Wyrlsorn sat on the throne, inspecting the beings before him. Malus stood there in his lean, pale-skinned human form, now dressed in silk robes of silver and obsidian. Beside him stood Mistress Ruth, tired and ruddy-faced, with a cluster of Mind-Reavers behind her.
“The Flame is gone at the hands of Mistress Ruth, O Hand.”
“What do you mean?”
“An enchanted ring severs the child from A’aron’s soul and power. She is no longer a threat. She is lost in the wilds of Yrsyllor and has no more friends left to counsel her.”
“She is still free and alive,” whispered Mikka.
Malus nodded, as Mistress Ruth spoke. “I did as the Black Lord bid me. I bound her powers. He promised me my daughter’s spirit in return.”
“And he lied, Mistress,” said Mikka, “as he has lied to many before binding them to his service. You were deep in the counsel of the Wayfarers and Ossen One-Eye. You have much to tell us of the Flame and what is to come.”
“But I did as I was asked. I deserve no punishment.”
“Then where is the Flame, woman? Why is she not here? Why did she not keel over and die the moment you bound her finger with that ring?”
“Because ... I could not do it.”
“Then, you have done naught to appease me, or Him. You will be given over into the care of the Mind-Reavers.”
“O Hand ...”
“You will tell us all you know of the Flame. Where she is going, and what she seeks. Then, after you have told the Mind-Reavers all you know, perhaps, I will allow you to die.”
Chapter Eighteen
The chill wind made Sarah gasp as she made her way along the thin dirt road. The sewers had opened out just above the waterline of the Yrrsyrrn River. The grey light of a winter dawn finally showed her the way. She was soaked and smelled awful as she plodded along the road, but she knew that one advantage of her state was that no one would suspect her to be more than a tramp or a refugee. The road she trudged along was, in point of fact, barely a road, just a grubby cleft cut through the heavy grass. The day remained as grey as its dawn. Sarah had walked through the night. She was far from home, alone and nowhere near where she wanted to be. Animals roamed by, rustling the grass with their passage. The few trees were bereft of leaves, their dried limbs twisted in ways painful to her eyes. Her legs were throbbing, and her feet were sore.
As she was passing a dead tree, she heard a strange rattling from its branches. Her tired muscles tensed, fibres pulling hard like wires under her flesh. She checked the hilt at her belt, ensuring it was ready to be unsheathed if she needed it. Even without the fiery blade, it was better than nothing. Sweat gathered on her brow and under her arms, and her skin felt everything. The rub of sewage-soaked cloth. The motion of the air. The damp leather of her boots. She approached the tree cautiously.
It hit her in the face.
Sarah swiped at it, batting it away with her hand. Shouting out.
It was a dangling doll made from wood and bones, an ugly thing with little knots of bamboo string fastening the swaying joints together. It was carved intricately, making her think of an insect of some kind, like a bug on its hind legs. The rattling it made was less that of a toy and more like a cockroach’s plates grating against one another. She snatched at it. It swung away, out of reach. Sarah stepped forward, grabbing again. Again, it got away. All the while it rattled. All the while, it scraped and grated on itself. On her nerves. She licked sweat from her lips.
“Come here, you.”
The thing was dancing as it swung. Mockery’s sick motions. The play of afternoon shadows on the splintered knuckle-bone of its head became sure features; a face hollow with laughter and hateful with empty glee.
Sarah took it down. She stamped it into dust and pulp. The vines it had hung from swung, dripping like severed arteries. Her blood slowing, Sarah caught her breath. She looked around and looked down, wondering what that thing had been. Something alive? Dead? In-between?
Am I seeing things? Going crazy?
She didn’t like the way this world was changing, or the way the branches of the trees and grass sounded like they were laughing at her when they brushed and rattled together.
~ ~ ~
The day dragged on towards its end until Sarah saw a hillock crowned by igneous stones. A welcome sight, for it was the only shelter hereabouts she could see. She was tired and thirsty, but she guessed that sleep was the only succour she was going to have tonight.
“I’ll bed down there,” she said. “The wind won’t be as wicked with those stones about.”
But at the heart of the gathered stones was a sight she did not expect. A caravan, broken down, its brightly painted wheels shattered and collapsed. The soot of a campfire left a dirty, blackened clump near its rear axle. There was no sign of horses, alive or dead, which should have pulled such an antique contraption. The ground nearby was nowhere disturbed by tracks, human or animal. Sarah felt her heart beating uncomfortably in her chest. The paint on the caravan’s sides was peeling, sloughing off in skin-like reams, the merry colours mostly faded to a sepia brown.
Her feet took her towards the caravan, as much as she was unnerved by it. Perhaps, it was all the walking. She could not stay still now, she was in too much a state of being driven onward, onward, onward. The door of the caravan formed an open black rectangle. Her fingers grasped the crumbling frame as she pulled herself up into the interior. It smelt bad—ripe. The damp soles of her boots crunched on scattered shapes and forms. Slowly, steadily, her eyes adjusted to the gloom, drawing details from what, at first, seemed a colourless, blank emptiness. Decorated cloths hung over surfaces, primary-coloured cupboards, collections of exotic knick-knacks and pagan bric-a-brac were all items she had expected to find.
But in the corner, there sat a corpse.
Sarah did not scream. She did not run. She walked towards it, marvelling at the walnut wrinkles of its face, at skin shrunken so tight over the skull that there were tears in it that revealed the bleached white of the bone. Its fingers, withered sticks, were clasping something, were fiercely wound around a bulbous shape that nestled in the hole where the corpse’s stomach should have been. For a moment, she thought it was a dead child, but then she saw it for what it was: a mandrake root.
The toe of her boot shifted an object on the floor. She heard it rustle. Kneeling, she placed her hands upon the weathered leather of a book. Gingerly cradling its fibrous form in her hands, she found herself opening it, turning the pages, reading the last words of the dead man resting before her.
XVII
’Tis true what the legends say. So poor and hungry for so long, I have at last found my fortune. I was at the gallows crossroad this evening and beheld the latest victim of a Shadow-hunt. Hanging by his broken neck, his tongue thrust out, purple and black veins staining his face, turning it daemonic shades. The hounded soul had been executed unjustly for imagined crimes. Bare naked he was, a further humiliation to add to his ample sorrows, no doubt. As I briefly mourned and made the sign of the Flame o’er him, I espied a bless’d miracle. Sprouting from the soil beneath his swinging feet, a mandrake root, spawning itself from the fallen blood-seeds of this hanged man. Tears hurried down my cheeks and I sucked at my lips, kissing myself, for I had no one to share my joy with. I tore the thing from the earth, and I locked it in one of the caravan’s cupboards. To feast on the meat of such a magical thing, how sweet. I shall make a soup of it, boil it into a broth, maybe roast it. A bellyful of magic, a reward I am well due.
XXIII
Oh, the horror of it all. I have been so foolish. Poverty and starvation made me desperate. The thing is killing me, that blasted mandrake root. I chopped it up and I ate well that night, all those weeks ago. The hunger abated, but that which awaited was so much the worse. Ever since my feast, I have su
ffered the most nauseating of stomach aches. Acid burning hot, night and day, in my gullet. Meals not digesting themselves. Water coming back up. Tonight, I can feel it kicking, clawing away and biting at the delicate layers of my insides. It has put itself back together inside me somehow, the cruel monstrosity, it means to eat its way out of me. It has the spirit of the hanged man in it. That poor creature strung up for being thought of as Fellfolk or Fellspawn.
Oh, what I am to do?
Outside the caravan, evening was closing in. Sarah stepped away from the dead man and the cause of his death, her eyes never leaving the infantile weight clasped to the hollowed-out breast by those crumpled arms. She could feel her skin alive, sensitive and tingling, under her clothes, as if it were waiting for that newborn root to react, to see her, to come scrabbling from its victim’s embrace. But the root did not move. It did not tremble. It did not twitch. Sarah was standing on the grass, wiping away dust that had settled on her. She walked toward the remains of the old campfire. Sarah picked up the sticks that were not yet charcoal and began to rub them together. As much as she now loathed the idea of sleeping here, she knew that trying to carry on without a night’s sleep would be a big mistake.
It was then that Sarah heard sounds from outside the circle of stones. The noises continued for a few minutes, but then stopped. Silence. Sarah sat and waited, her fingers, aching. Gone, whatever they were, she thought. But she had a bad feeling about what had just happened. Once could be a coincidence, but twice? It meant that something was following, probably more than one, by the sounds that had been made.
At first, she had thought the crackling she heard was the sound of her boots on the old campfire’s detritus. But when she stood up and was still, she knew it was not so. Two nocturnal eyes stared out at her from the darkness outside the stones. The mean intelligence in them was scalding, burning her. She recognised them.
What are Molloi doing here? So far from the Mountains of Mourning?
She watched as more of them appeared outside the circle of stones. They were stooped and deformed, just as she remembered them, almost the kindred of the mandrake root. Their hair was stained with tribal daubs of blue, red, and yellow above knotty limbs and unfinished faces and flesh that was as tough and undistinguished as the bark of old trees. Their primate mouths moved hungrily as they shambled into the circle. Sarah grabbed for the hilt at her belt, but their hands were already upon her, holding her tight. She could smell them; they stank worse than she did. So many of them. So many of their bright, shining eyes burning her as a witch might be burned at the stake.
Somewhere in the lands around Yrsyllor, a lost soul cried out in the night and then was silent.
Chapter Nineteen
Throughout the Three Kingdoms came the armies of the Fallen. They stormed into towns and villages at nightfall, Fellfolk led by Phages, all enticed into the service of His Shadow by promises of blood, slaughter, and torture. A whisper on the wind told the people that the enemy would show them no mercy, and so they surrendered, thinking it would do them good. Hunched in the shadows of their homes, they listened to boots kicking in fragile doors, the barking of Fellhounds chasing down livestock, and the shouting of neighbours dragged from their hiding places. Ornaments were smashed and heirlooms stolen.
Wise men and councillors stuffed the pages of precious magic books and messages from the royal courts into their mouths, swallowing them, lest they fall into the hands of His dark sorcerers. Demons and ghouls strode through streets, dragging nobles and common-folk alike by chains of black, crusty metal. Some were beaten until their muscles were numb, and others until they went into seizure. Cages were erected along the battlements of the great cities. Into these iron-barred boxes, men and women were thrown, naked—a shame in itself. Their ankles were shackled to stone pillories and their Phage guards emptied buckets of slop and acid water onto the captives. But even as His Shadow spread, a song became known throughout the conquered lands.
We are the forsaken, and we understand,
Our home is a prison, and we have no hearth,
We stand as lonely exiles from our Mother’s heart,
With His sword at our throats, and none in our hands,
We still burn to be free, and to set free our land.
Those caught repeating the song were set upon with whips by Phages, or were sent to the cages. Many spent days and nights snatching hours of sleep between the constant caterwauling of those who were being tortured and punished. But still the song was heard. Still it passed on from village to village, town to town, and tavern to tavern. It was a seed fallen to earth in a forest, and only those who had lived through times of war knew what it might grow into.
Chapter Twenty
The torture chamber of Highmount was a place rarely used under the rule of King Ferra. But now, the rusted sconces were lit and bathed the flagstones in an uninviting red. An iron maiden rested against the wall, its carapace hanging open to reveal the serrated teeth set into its interior. Hooks dangled from the walls and ceiling, the lengths of rope that trailed through them, although loose for now, soon to be tightened by the weight of a body fastened to the end. An ornate iron chair sat in one corner with a mound of cooling embers and ashes beneath its polished brass seat. The centrepiece of the chamber, however, was the rack—and it was to this that the Fellfolk had fastened Mistress Ruth. Her wrists were tightly bound together, as were her bare ankles. She tried to steady her breathing as the Fellfolk shambled away and she saw Mikka descending the stairs with Jedda and two Mind-Reavers attending him. Mikka approached Mistress Ruth, and ran his fingers through her hair. “You know if you tell me everything you know of the Wayfarers and the Flame, you can save yourself a great deal of pain, Mistress.”
Mistress Ruth turned her head away from him. “I was promised the spirit of my daughter would be set free from His Shadow. I will tell you nothing.”
“Very well. Before the Reavers attend to you in their own particular way, I think we should have some entertainment at your expense. You had such a long and tiring journey to come here, it would only be courteous of me to offer you a drink of water. Jedda, hold her for me.”
Mikka snapped his fingers. Blank-eyed, Jedda gripped Mistress Ruth’s chin with an icy touch as Mikka raised a clay flagon and began to pour its contents into the Herb-Sister’s open mouth. She spat, gagged and gurgled as the tepid water went in. When the flagon was empty, Mikka handed it to one of the Fellfolk. “Refill this, quickly.”
Turning back to a gasping Mistress Ruth, he said, “Now, let’s introduce something else, shall we?”
Again, he snapped his fingers and two more Fellfolk shuffled into view. Craning her neck, Mistress Ruth could see that one carried a small wooden bucket and the other was jerking a scraggly mountain goat along on a length of rope.
Mistress Ruth looked up at the unmoving figure of Jedda and said, “Daughter of Ferra, it is not too late to stop this madness. You are the rightful heir to the throne. You can do something. The people will heed you.”
“Quiet!” said Mikka, leaning in close enough that Mistress Ruth could smell the rotten ham and cheese on his breath. “She fell under His Shadow of her own free will. She serves Him now and forever, old witch. Now, let us continue.”
Mistress Ruth shouted out as the contents of the wooden bucket were emptied over her bare feet. It felt like tepid water, but she caught the smell of salt in the air.
“That’s brine,” she said, looking at Mikka.
“Indeed it is. Now, bring the goat to its meal.”
The Fellfolk soldier tugged the animal over until Mistress Ruth could feel its muzzle brushing against the soles of her feet. Then she felt its tongue, like rough, wet sandpaper. She opened her mouth to cry out, but her words were drowned by Mikka pouring more bitter water from the flagon down her throat. Coughing and spluttering, she tried to catch her breath, but then there was the sensation of the goat’s tongue on her toes again, and as she cried out again, more of the flagon’s foul water p
ouring into her mouth. It went on until her stomach ached and her throat hurt. Soon, her feet were sore from the constant raking of the goat’s tongue as it lapped at the brine.
And so the game went on, with Mistress Ruth crying out for Mikka’s pleasure, and Jedda standing by as impassively as the Fellfolk, or so it seemed. Mikka did not notice the single tear that gathered and fell from Jedda’s eye as she listened to Mistress Ruth’s gurgles and cries.
Chapter Twenty-One
Oh, how it hurt.
In fantasies and dreams, great men and women took their tortures before shrugging them off to rise up and smite their foe. But that was not how it was to be for Mistress Ruth, nor any of the others who were left in the care of the Reavers. She was shackled to one of three iron chairs in a small, windowless chamber, with Venna on the left and Ianna on the right.
“What are they going to do to us?” asked the Queen-in-Waiting.
This was monstrous, thought Mistress Ruth, to leave a child here to suffer like this.
“We’re going to sleep, my dear,” said Mistress Ruth. “Don’t you worry. You might have some bad dreams, but you’re going to sleep. That’s all.”
Venna nodded and Mistress Ruth saw she was trying to suppress a shiver.
Brave child. Blood of your father, she thought.
Ianna was sobbing and wailing, thrashing against the iron manacles that held her in place. She turned her red-rimmed eyes on Mistress Ruth.
“Why lie to the child?” she said. “You probably know the truth better than I. These things are Mind-Reavers. They will suck on our brains like leeches until every thought and memory we have ever had is lost. We will be duller and more empty than the worst of the Fellfolk.”
