Elisha Magus

by E. C. Ambrose

  “Elisha?” Rosalynn kneaded his shoulder. “There’s nobody here.”

  Summoning. If he could not get to her, he could bring her to him. He pulled out his talisman, a strip of cloth given by a friend, used to bind the wound of another. Gripping it in his fist, Elisha called out again through his awareness. In the strength of the memories it carried, the talisman resonated with his power. If his senses were right, there was more than one presence in the earth. Chanterelle and her enemies? But the land was a confusing mix of cold and heat, dead and living, and he could not tell where she was or who the others might be. It was as if the other presences screened her from him. Even if he could not hold them, he might force them to be seen. “Whoever you are, I call you to rise,” Elisha growled to the earth. “Come to me,” he whispered. “If you be willing, come to me.”

  Willingness was key. If Chanterelle were reaching back, she could break free, but if she denied him, he could do nothing to touch her. The confounded peat gave him contact: her need must do the rest. The power rushed through him, redoubling with his talisman, and he pushed it out through his hands and feet into the earth all around him, trembling with it, shaping the urge to reach the surface.

  Rosalynn’s fingers dug into his shoulder, and she started screaming. Elisha raised his head and started back against her legs, her arms wrapping him as she, too, dropped to her knees, her scream rebounding in his ears.

  The peat before them bubbled and broke, and a body emerged, tumbling dirt to lie on the surface as if it had just fallen in a dreadful war. Crushed sideways, its ancient face stared at them with empty eyes beneath a ragged drape of hair. Brown, withered skin wrapped the twisted limbs, and a leg dragged behind, shards of bone rattling free.

  Another emerged beyond that, a fragmented torso, with hands bound fast by sinew across a broken chest.

  Elisha forced himself to stare. As each body broke the surface, he shed his contact with it, abandoning them to the flames as quickly as he knew what they were. An arm here, a skull there, a leather shoe still clasped around a foot.

  A body broke the surface with a moan, and Elisha sprang up, shaking off the sobbing Rosalynn. He shattered his contact, snatching back his spell as he sprinted over the burning ground, leaping the remains that spread about his feet. A woman—a girl, really—writhed before him, flames streaking toward her. Elisha swept her up, and she wailed as he touched her burned skin.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said as much as sent into her. The forest edge was nearer now than going back and he ran for it, his feet sizzling with every touch of the ground. Her trailing hair sparked as a flame leapt nearby. He spun away from it, stumbling, and fetched up against a low stone. Digging his arms and elbows and toes against the rock, he pushed them both up, dragging his feet as far as he could from the burning ground, coughing hard over the girl. He let her roll onto her side on the stone, scrabbling up beside her as soon as the coughing subsided. Even then, his lungs and throat felt raw, and his muscles shivered.

  “Elisha!” Rosalynn wailed from across the cackling flames.

  “My lady! I need your skirts. Wet—and hurry!” He shifted position, crawling around Chanterelle until he could get a better sense of her injuries. Thankfully, though she was singed all over, she had few bad burns. She must have been aware enough to protect herself, at least for a time.

  “Elisha.” More like a whimper this time. “There’s dead men. Burning.”

  Elisha had nearly been one of them. Evidently, Rosalynn wasn’t coming. He had to find a different way to soothe the girl’s burns. Carefully, he rose, balancing on the stone to look around. They were on a great rectangular rock, dragged here by the heathens of old. It lay tilted but relatively smooth at the edge of a road that bordered the trees. Another pathway branched off into the woods to the south. The heat and smoke of the peat lay before him and to both sides but did not extend too far, from what he could see. It must be a small deposit. Hopefully, the woods and adjoining heath were still moist enough to withstand the smoldering fire. Here and there among the low flames, the ancient dead twitched and stretched with the heat, contributing the smell of burning bone. Had those men brought the stone here—or had they been sacrificed to the unholy spirit it represented? Elisha swallowed and looked away. Toward the river, he heard sloshing and strange noises, then a woman’s silhouette came into view, edging around the smoke, keeping to the path as the ferryman advised.

  “Bring mud, if you can,” Elisha called out to her. She paused, then moved nearer the river and scraping sounds followed.

  Elisha knelt at Chanterelle’s side and touched her with his barest fingertips. He sent her comfort and soothing thoughts as he attuned himself to the changing dusk. Slowly, he became aware of her body, how she lay, how she breathed, everything that might indicate her condition. The last rays of sun showed her nakedness, her body barely a woman’s. She might be old enough to marry or not, but her face looked old beyond her years, even in this uneasy rest. Dirt rimmed her short nails, both hands and feet, and edged every line and wrinkle.

  “Good gracious!” Rosalynn stopped short, staring at the girl, her outer skirt hugged in both arms. “But she’s—did the fire burn off her clothing then? My goodness!” Her tone was faint. She leaned down to let the sodden lump of fabric onto the surface of the stone. “Mud, plenty, I hope. I’m not strong.”

  “You were strong enough when we needed you,” Elisha told her. “The ferryman wouldn’t have rowed for me.” He flicked back the top fabric and scooped some of the oozy stuff gently over Chanterelle’s limbs. Her arms seemed to have the worst of it, as if she had kept them before her after her dive into the earth. She sighed as he smoothed the mud over her burns, and some of the tension left her.

  “It’s not really proper, is it? You, touching her, like that.” Rosalynn hugged herself.

  “I am a barber,” Elisha pointed out, continuing his ministrations.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m what she has,” he growled. “I don’t suppose the ferryman is waiting to take us back?” Although if the man had witnessed this scene, he’d take Elisha for the Devil, surrounded by the burning dead.

  “No,” she said timidly. “Well, no. He’s going to the abbey to let my maid know I’m fine.”

  “We can’t stay here, my lady. This was an attack, and they might return.”

  “An attack? Somebody lit the fire to burn her?” She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She turned away and moved behind a screen of trees. Behind this cover, she grumbled as fabric strained and sometimes tore. Elisha finished with his mud-daubing and sat back, puzzled. Then Rosalynn re-appeared, carrying a pale shift. Her remaining undergown, stained with mud and smoke, splashed with water and now torn along one side, hung askew from her shoulders. “She can’t go … like that. Here.” Elisha carefully helped the girl sit up, and Rosalynn pulled the yards of fabric down over her unresisting arms and head, then drew back as Elisha let Chanterelle settle back against him. She stirred and mumbled. “Better, yes.” Lady Rosalynn nodded to herself, holding the torn side of her dress closed. “These things are not meant for me to do on my own, you see? I ought to have my maid with me, or it’s a bit much to manage. But I trust they shall bring over my things in the morning, and I can be properly assisted then.”

  “In the morning.” Elisha met Rosalynn’s eyes over Chanterelle’s lolling head.

  Rosalynn looked away quickly. “I asked the ferryman to tell my maid that we would meet them at Beaulieu Abbey. Really, though, the lodge you’re looking for is nearer. If you need to tend her, that would be easiest. We just need to go along the path, there, and—”

  “What will it mean if you and I are over here without your maid or any soldiers?” Elisha asked firmly.

  “Perhaps they would think we are together,” she whispered. “You are a handsome man, and I am a duke’s daughter. They might think you … wanted … to be with me. But it’s fine. I sh
all go to the convent. I could be happy there. With God, you know.”

  “If you would act with courage instead of fear, as you have tonight, my lady, you would find someone who wants to be with you.” Elisha held her gaze as her eyes widened. “In the meantime, take us to the lodge.”

  “This way.” She gripped the torn fabric and started toward the trail. “Courage. Do you really think so?”

  “Talking less might also help.” Elisha edged over the rock and dropped down to his feet, nearly overbalancing as his singed soles struck the packed dirt. He bit down on the pain.

  “Yes. I know. I’ve known it’s a problem, it’s just—” She hesitated, then finished firmly, “I know.”

  In his arms, Chanterelle stirred again, then cried out, shoving against him. They both fell, him to his knees, her tumbling onto the pathway, then trying to scramble up again. “Wait!” he shouted, “You’re hurt.”

  She froze there, her eyes flashing white. “Don’t touch me.”

  Elisha spread his hands. “I won’t. No more unless you ask it.”

  Her glance darted from him to Rosalynn and back, then she grabbed the chemise and ripped it off, flinging it aside and staring at her limbs. Rosalynn made a startled sound, but the girl ignored her, touching the mud. The cloth had smeared away some patches, but her skin already looked smoother and less red, as if the healing were well on its way. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “I should say that.” Her toes dug into the earth—no, more than that, they seemed almost drawn into it, her feet following, small stones and grasses shifting aside to admit her.

  “Please wait.” Elisha reached toward her. “Please.”

  “I can’t wait. They’ll come.”

  She did not look around, but he felt the furtive ripple of contact in the earth beneath him, then it was gone, a glance indeed, but in the dirt. “The necromancers.”

  Quickly, she nodded, her hair scraggling about her face. “Mancers. Close by all the time now. The others don’t believe.”

  “But you know better. How?”

  She spread her fingers into the dirt, her flesh growing dark with the contact, matching the color of the earth. “I feel where they meet. I’ve begun to sense that they feel me, too. They look for places—like that. Places of the dead.” She did look at him then.

  He stared into her dark eyes and said what he needed to know. “But I’m not one of them.”

  She nearly smiled. “You’re one of us. Indivisi. You don’t seek death. It’s already with you.”

  “What is with you?” he asked, but she was vanishing before him, sinking into the earth without a ripple, until she was gone. And he did not need her to speak to know the answer.

  Chapter 9

  “My goodness,” Rosalynn breathed as the space between them settled again into an empty pathway.

  Elisha rose slowly, brushed off his palms, and took a few limping steps nearer to his guide. His hands felt loose and numb. “Please,” he said, “I need to rest.”

  “This way.” She started walking again. “Do you know, some monasteries have vows of silence. Perhaps I should try that?”

  Exhaustion and giddiness rose up through him. “Tell me about your brother’s home,” he suggested.

  She glanced at him sidelong. “Not silence?”

  He managed a slender smile. “It would be a help to me to have something else to think about.”

  After a moment, Rosalynn obliged, describing the fine estate in the north country where she had so recently stayed. Elisha let the sound of her voice wash over him and keep him awake enough to move, focused enough not to give in to the light-headedness of spell-casting. The walk, accompanied at every step by the stinging of his feet, seemed to help fend off the aftereffects of magic, even as the gloom under the trees set in. Rosalynn chose this trail, then another, tending south toward the sea. The ground rose and fell gently, then the stands of oak and willow gave way to the crooked shapes of apple trees, like hunched old men but with the new, tall shoots that showed they had not been tended for some time. Mist crept up between them from the river Elisha heard down below. The vague shapes of buildings clustered at the other side, against the trees.

  “Oh, we’re here! But it occurs to me, we may not be able—”

  A huge dog barreled out of the trees, baying like the Devil, and they instinctively jumped together. With the long muzzle and powerful build of a deerhound, the beast’s head came as high as Elisha’s chest.

  “There it is again!” cried a voice from the darkness. A door banged open, and the firelight within gave shape to a small house. “I’ll get the brute this time!”

  “Leave off, Patric—don’t hurt it! If we catch it, we’ll make good money.” Two brawny men burst through the door with a clatter of mail.

  “Who goes there?” shouted the first. Patric, presumably.

  Rosalynn leapt behind Elisha, but the dog veered off, snarling, and lowered its head. Patric sprang to the attack, a sword in his hand, while the other man shouted at him from behind. The dog leapt, clamping its jaws round his gauntlet, but Patric flung it aside. The dog fell hard, skidding, and lay still. The second man ran up. “What’ve you done? That’s a valuable animal, I tell you.”

  “You’ve got a soft spot for dogs, Ian, and none for your companions.” Patric shook out his bruised hand and turned his eye on Elisha. “Who’re you? What do you want here?”

  “I’ll have you know—” Rosalynn began, but Elisha caught her arm, giving it a squeeze.

  “Weary travelers,” he said. “On our way to the Abbey.”

  “Ye should’ve turned right,” Patric rumbled, eyes narrowing as he moved a little closer.

  “We’re a bit lost,” Elisha said carefully. He scanned the man’s clothing for any heraldry, any symbol of his master.

  “See, it’s got a collar and all.” Ian removed his belt and looped it over the dog’s collar, leaving a long leash which he gripped as he rose. “Maybe get a reward from the owner. Not surprising ye’d get lost, given it’s so …” He trailed off and took a few steps nearer, the leash drawn straight behind him. “Cor. It’s that barber.”

  Patric’s sword swung up to point directly at them. Elisha tensed, but he tried to keep his voice even. “You have the better of me, good sirs. Who are you?”

  “Hands up,” barked Patric. “You—come out where I can see you.” He directed the sword at Rosalynn, who carefully stepped out. “Closer. Bloody Hell—Lady Rosalynn.”

  Ian and Patric shared a glance, then Ian led them in bowing to Rosalynn. “That’s interesting,” he chuckled. “Wouldn’t’ve expected to see you out here. Say, Barber, can you take a look at the dog for us?”

  “Dogs aren’t really my trade. Besides, I must get the lady to the Abbey.” He kept his hands spread and visible; not that he had any weapons.

  “Everything good?” called a voice from the darkness, and another soldier appeared from down behind the house. A fourth gave a call from the slope of the orchard as well, and Elisha gritted his teeth. Whatever they’d walked into, there were too many of them to simply walk back out again.

  “Now, Barber, it’s awfully late and the lady looks a bit worn from her journey. Surely it’s no good taking her off into the dark.” Ian gestured toward Rosalynn with another slight bow that set Elisha’s skin tingling, but Rosalynn smoothed her gown with her free hand, the other still holding shut the torn side, her noble manners returning. “We’d be happy to offer you what hospitality we can. Least for tonight, eh?”

  “Do you think—” Patric began, his heavy brows furrowed, but Ian flapped a hand at him without turning from Rosalynn.

  “Lord knows we ain’t got much, but there’s a warm bed and something to eat, my lady. Any man can see you’ve had a rough time of it.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true enough.” She glanced at Elisha. “You did want rest, after all, and surely …”

  Elisha drew her toward him, leaning in to whisper, “We don’t know these men or who they serve, my lady. What are
they doing here?”

  She stared at him a moment, then turned away. “As grateful as we are, good sirs, we can’t presume upon the hospitality of your home.”

  “Oh, not our home, my lady, we’re just care-taking for a little while before the new owners arrive. It’d be unChristian if we’d let a lady go off in the dark with no proper escort.”

  Rosalynn’s eyes lingered on the open door, all hint of tension sliding from her shoulders as if she’d put off that mantle for the night. With every gentle word the soldier spoke, she moved from the resourceful woman back to the child of lords. “You see, Elisha, there’s no need for us to be uncomfortable. And who knows what might be lurking in the darkness?”

  Who, indeed? And that was the argument Elisha could not deny. Whatever might be out there, he was too tired to handle it alone. These men clearly recognized Rosalynn—they wouldn’t dare to mistreat her. “Very well, my lady,” Elisha told her, “As you wish.”

  She beamed at him, and Patric bowed her toward the entrance, bright and warm with firelight. “We’ve been trying to get the place clean, my lady, I’m afraid you’ll not find it ready for visitors.”

  “Nonsense. I shall take matters in hand.” She plucked up a bit of her skirt to mount the front steps.

  Ian looked up at Elisha from a bow of his own, the makeshift leash still clutched in his hand. “Would you … ?”

  “Let me see the dog,” Elisha sighed.

  “All’s well, you lot, but you’d best keep a better lookout!” Ian called to the shadowy shapes of the other soldiers as he motioned Elisha toward the dog.