by Gregory Ashe
Chapter Fifteen
Erlandr woke with a start. Daylight, bright even through the filtering branches, fell across his face. Erlandr shivered and brushed the dried pine needles from cheek. The cool air foretold the breaking edge of summer and the approach of autumn. Adence was nowhere to be seen, but that was no surprise; the old man slept little. Whether due to sorcery or old age, Erlandr was not sure. The old man would not have gone far, though, no matter how much Erlandr wished otherwise.
Getting to his feet, Erlandr gathered his bedding, cursing the dried sap that stained his clothes and blanket. My own fault, he admitted, for leaning up against the tree like that. He rolled up his belongings, not bothering to change his shirt or trousers, and left the copse of pines. The wagon sat alongside the road, the horses hobbled near the brook that ran parallel the road, but still no sign of Adence. Erlandr tossed his belongings in the wagon bed and sat on the tailgate. Looking for the old man might speed up their departure—might, he reminded himself—but, aside from avoiding assassins and whatever else hunted them, Erlandr had little interest in travel. Where is there to go?
Thick forests covered the low, rolling hills that marked this section of the tenuous border between Jaegal and Apsia. The trees grew almost to the edge of the road, dense lines of pine and cedar and fir, with the occasional aspen at the edge of the strand of trees. Once past the brush and scrub that marked their borders, the tall trees left thick carpets of needles on the bare ground, the smooth, straight boles like ancient columns of some long forgotten temple. The stillness of the forest unnerved Erlandr; he had grown up in Cania, and then lived much of his life in Apsia, son to a painter and husband to a wealthy woman. Even after decades spent avoiding civilization, a part of Erlandr still imagined the wilderness to be overrun with animal life. As though in answer to his thought, a doe nervously picked her way through the line of trees. Perhaps I simply do not see the life around me.
The stillness of the forest would have brought peace to another man. In Erlandr, though, it stirred up the questions that revolved perpetually inside him. The quiet, with its oppressive weight, made Erlandr feel small, unimportant, almost inexistent. For a man who did not believe in gods, the feeling was . . . unpleasant. I championed the rights of man, our natural ascendancy over beast and plant, our right to rule, to hold sway, Erlandr thought. Where is that pride now? I am an animal myself, drawing the purple-stained life from whomever I can find. He grinned, mockingly, at himself, as he realized how grandiose the words sounded in his head. Fine words, but I still don’t like the forest.
The doe disappeared back into the woods. Aside from a line of ants, busily scurrying along the lines of the paving stones, Erlandr was alone. Nothing threatened him, not even the stillness of those endless rows of trees. He could not shake the cloud of gloom that hung over him. A part of him wondered if his disquiet did have some root in the divine, if he had drawn down on himself eternal disfavor when he sought to pierce reality, to arrive at its core. Superstition, I would say to Adence if he proposed it, but I can’t help wondering if there is some truth to it.
His thoughts broke off at the sound of rustling leaves. Erlandr turned to see Adence emerging from the line of trees opposite their camp, the old man wearing a fresh change of clothes—a blue-green tunic that came almost to his knees over leather leggings. From what Erlandr had seen of the cities, both Jaecan and Apsian, they had passed through, tunics were worn only by children these days. He doubted the ancient scholar had ever paid much heed to the fickle streams of fashion. In one hand, Adence held a small bronze sickle, and in the other a white silk bag.
“What did you find this time?” Erlandr asked.
Adence joined him at the wagon, then carefully sheathed the sickle and packed it away with his other belongings. He tied the small silk bag at his belt and said, “You know I won’t tell you that. Why do you continue to ask, after all these years?”
“Maybe one day you’ll change your mind, I suppose. Maybe just habit. I’ve always wondered why the schools insisted on such secrecy; if the Five Who Heard were so close, if they worked so well together, why have their disciples become so segregated?”
Adence unhobbled the horses and began harnessing them to the wagon. After a few moments he said, “Naea and I often wondered the same thing. We had both trained in the Cemilian school, but under different masters. It was amazing, though, the differences in the hepisteis we knew, and in the parakeis as well.” He shook his head and glanced at Erlandr with a hard gaze. “Still, I don’t see you offering any of your Kajan sorcery. You won’t even use it when I’m around, if you can help it.”
Mouth twisting, Erlandr moved to help harness the horses. No point in admitting that his magic was used up by the enchantment that sustained his life. Oh, at first, the drain had been hardly noticeable, a minor inconvenience to the man called the Brilliant Flame. How the others would laugh at me—Phistion, Temekein, Alcys—if they saw me now, barely capable of keeping myself alive.
The knot of cold that was the curse—an icy fist around his heart—told Erlandr that he would need blood soon. Purple life, I called it to myself, he thought, finishing the last adjustments to the harness. Eloquence masking death.
They traveled more west than south that day, following the Jaecan imperial highway toward the Apsian border. The highway ran parallel to the coast, but almost a dozen leagues away from it, north of the dense, if narrow, range of mountains that, only a few decades ago, had marked the edge of the Jaegal Empire. Now Jaegal controlled everything west of the Aqeur River—coast, mountains, and the vast range of rolling hills and plains that stretched north and east to Ghiynmar, and then beyond, to the borders of distant Nilgaz. Perhaps, in another few decades, Apsian rule would expand again under more vigorous leaders, or perhaps the city-state would collapse in on itself, crushed beneath the mass of Jaegal. It mattered little to Erlandr.
Two days later, under a raging storm, they came to a small town. Rain plastered Erlandr’s long, ragged hair to his face and neck, in spite of the lightweight oilcloth cloak he had donned. A shimmer of air, hugging the curves of Adence’s body, kept the old man dry, although he reluctantly fished out his own cloak as they drew closer to the town. Neither man needed or wanted to draw undue attention.
Erlandr wrapped his arms around himself, chilled in spite of the warm rain from the south. The chill was unnatural; he did not shiver or shake with it, although he could feel the dull ache in his bones. The drops of tepid water brought a momentary reprieve, at least to his face and arms, but by the time the water dripped from elbows or ran down his legs, it had thickened to a cold slush. Erlandr bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. The pain would keep him conscious for a little while longer.
Adence glanced over at him more and more frequently as they approached the village, the old man’s eyes tracking the almost-frozen water that fell to the ground beneath the wagon. “You’re close to needing . . . to losing yourself again, aren’t you?” he asked. “How could you let this happen so close to the village? There aren’t any soldiers hunting us, no one that you can sate your thirst on in the name of self-defense.”
“That’s never stopped us before,” Erlandr said. The words sounded hard, but that was as much the effect of the thick chill that gripped his tongue as it was his own doing. “The market-woman in Ghada, carrying a basket of fish one afternoon, was innocent. The cobbler in Dathak was no monster, at least that I knew.”
“No,” Adence said. “No, there is only one monster here. I was not there to stop you, though, when you found those people.”
“You have soothed your conscience, then?” Erlandr asked. His thoughts were sluggish, but he found the idea distantly amusing. “How? By bringing me murderers and rapists? Petty thieves and pimps and procuresses? You find peace in delivering their lives up to me instead of others.” The last was a declaration.
“There is no peace in what we do,” Adence said, suddenly sounding tired. “Only continuation.” He glanced at Erland
r again. “Stay with the wagon when we arrive, in the stables. I’ll find someone here that deserves your attention.”
“You are judge and executioner then,” Erlandr said. He could barely keep his thoughts straight. “A righteous judge, with life and death in your hands, bringing low the wicked and preserving the good. Is that it?”
Adence’s mouth tightened, his strong jaw thrusting out. The streets of the village were empty aside from a single, stout woman, her dress soaked with rain, its hem caked in mud, who struggled across the mud-slick paving stones of the highway. Adence stopped the wagon in front of a building marked simply “Way-house,” and, with a frown of concentration, released his spell. The rain soaked him almost instantly. Pulling the oilcloth cloak around his shoulders with another frown, he said, “Take the wagon into the yard and find somewhere to stay put.”
Without another word he slid off the wagon, catching his balance with one hand on the seat, and entered the inn. Erlandr could not feel the leather reins against his numb hands, so he had to watch carefully as he urged the horses forward, the bump of the wheels against the stones impossibly distant through his desensitized flesh. The rain dripping down his neck and back no longer brought warmth, only sense of movement.
Erlandr guided the horses around the way-house, down the broad street that intersected the highway, past buildings of brick and, less frequently, stone and wood. The broad gates that led into the way-house yard stood open, the ground within a stretch of mud and puddled water. Two sets of bootprints led across the yard to the low-roofed stable that sat behind the inn, but Erlandr, through hazed vision, did not see anyone nearby—he was not sure whether or not to consider that a stroke of good fortune.
He dropped from the cart, feeling as though he floated somewhere far away from his own body. He thought he heard the horses whickering, but the sound was so faint that he could not be sure, and Erlandr did not stop to check. He staggered forward, no longer sure if the rain was falling, his only thought to get inside the stable, away from people. The trade he was making with Adence was bitter. If he let his instincts take over, if he sought out someone, adrenaline and fear would force his heart to pump, would bring him back from the edge of oblivion for a short time, at least. This waiting, though, was like dying in the Canian snows—the cold numbed the senses until he thought he might simply sleep forever.
No, he thought, struggling to push that idea away. Sleep means death at this point. I need blood, now. He pushed through the stable door, which hung ajar, feet dragging through straw and dirt. Erlandr saw horses in a few of the stalls. He ignored them; the enchantment required human blood. More slow steps, until he found himself at the back of the stable. Erlandr set his back to the wooden wall and let himself slide to the ground. He struggled to keep his eyes open.
Adence, he thought. Maybe I should have killed him on the road, drunk his blood, bathed in it like a Manc. He shook his head; the cold made thinking difficult. No, I would never have the rent out of me, then, and it would be an eternity of this. The thought drifted away, though, and he found himself imagining killing Adence again.
“Hello?” The word penetrated the chilly fog. Erlandr’s head came up. A boy, no more than six or seven years old, stood at the door of the stable. Big blue eyes, rare even this close to Greve Sindal, stared at Erlandr from under a mop of curly blond hair. The child’s features stirred something in Erlandr, deep inside, but he could not remember what. He could not think.
Blood. That was everything to him. Somehow he found himself on his feet, and then he was crossing the stable with firm steps. The child followed Erlandr with his eyes, but he did not move.
“Who are you?” the child asked. “Are you looking for Father?”
The words were gibberish to Erlandr. Blood, sweet and metallic, redolent with life, filled his nose. He could see it pulsing, dark blue under pale skin. His hands grabbed the child and lifted him. Erlandr could barely feel the child’s kicking, and the high-pitched screams flitted past him. Blue eyes wide and rolling with terror met his gaze.
There was no hesitation. He dove, his teeth seeking the child’s neck, the thick artery that would pour new life into him.
Something struck him like a bull’s charge, knocking Erlandr back. He struck the wooden wall and it burst out behind him at the force of the blow. Erlandr continued back until he struck the brick house on the other side of the street. He landed on his feet, somehow. There was pain, but it was so muted under the curse that Erlandr barely felt it. The child was gone, though. The blood gone. That much he understood.
Still tottering on his feet, Erlandr’s eyes widened when Adence emerged from the ruined wall of the stable, his face as white as the stringy hair clung to his head. “Monster,” he said, his voice so altered with rage that Erlandr barely recognized it. The word skittered off the haze. It was a meaningless word now. “You would have killed a child.”
Erlandr staggered forward, aware only of the blood that pulsed, thin and stagnant, beneath the old man’s wrinkled skin. Adence grimaced. Blue-white light slid around his fingers and he muttered something. Erlandr felt himself rise from the ground. He reached out, trying to grab the old man, to claw the life from his skin, but his arms fell short.
Some sort of internal struggle manifested itself in Adence’s face as the old man watched Erlandr hang in the air. Abruptly, the old man’s face fell, a mixture of disgust and anger painting his features. “There’s no choice, is there?” Adence asked. “We’ve traveled all these decades, and we have no more choices then we did back then. Trapped by the path we choose to walk.” He turned and entered the yard of the way-house. Erlandr bobbed along behind him in the air as though pulled by a tether. A slender, handsome man sat in the back of the wagon, arms and legs bound, his eyes closed and head tilted as though asleep.
“Drink,” Adence said, letting Erlandr fall to the ground. “This one is a rapist, the son of the local dar-molk. At least he’ll be one less problem for these people.”
Erlandr heard the words, but he did not understand them. He scrambled up onto the wagon-bed, clawing splinters in the wood in his haste. In a matter of heartbeats he had his jaws around the young man’s neck. Blood rushed into his mouth, salty as tears, sweet as a lover’s bite. Life, bitter and deep as Amala’s Heart, rushed into him, a kindling fire that swept aside the cold.
Erlandr did not know how much time had passed. The rain had ended, although the thick, gray clouds still hung overhead. The wagon moved along the highway past fields of grain. The small village was gone, hidden by the folds of the land. Wiping the blood from his mouth, and the red smear from his hand, Erlandr slowly pushed the young man’s body off the wagon. It hit the ground with a dull thump and did not move.
“His name was Jailim Assin,” Adence said. The old man’s voice was tight with fury, as it always was after Erlandr drank, but this time more so than usual. “I should make you say their names before you drink, make you look in their eyes. It must be so easy to kill someone, drugged and helpless. Like a child, almost.”
The words puzzled Erlandr for a moment. Memory, webbed with cracks, washed over him. A child. Bel take me, what did I almost do? His legs gave out and he fell, hitting his knees hard on the wooden bed. Tears came to his eyes, and sobs shook his body. The memory played through his mind, over and over again, as waves of grief and self-pity racked him. Lying on his side in the wagon-bed, Erlandr cried until his throat was raw. He still trembled slightly, but the tears were gone, used up or biding their time, he was not sure. He had not known he could still weep after all those years.
Adence’s voice came back to him, harsh as ever. “A very pretty show,” he said. “But you forget that your audience has seen behind the stage, and this act is unpersuasive. Save it for your next victim.”
Next victim, Erlandr though, still shaking. Oh Bel take me, Day Sister bless me, Night Sister burn me. Please. Those gods he did not believe in hung there, just words in his mind, taunting him with the empti
ness of faith. Another victim. And another. Each one paying so that I live while they die. I am tired of life. So tired. The realization fell across him like a warm blanket, shocking in its comfort.
Pulling himself into the seat next to Adence, Erlandr struggled to compose himself. It would not do for the old man to think this another act, but Erlandr feared that, if he waited too long, his resolve would weaken.
“I’m ready,” Erlandr said.
“Ready for what?” Adence asked. “Rest? You may not have noticed, but we just left the body of the local lord’s son a few miles back. We’re going to have to travel all night.”
Erlandr drew a deep breath. “I’m ready to go back to Apsia. I’m ready to die.”
