“How would I tell?” Elisha pressed. “How, if this were true?”
“How could it be?” Parsley the iron-man grated. “How can a man know death who hasn’t died and lived again?”
Elisha’s hand rose to the scar at his throat.
Sundrop’s eyelids fluttered shut, and he stretched out his hands. “There’s a drought in the chalk—they could use me now, but I’d have to go closer. Drought,” he repeated softly, with a subtle shift in posture. Elisha’s eyes grew suddenly dry, and he coughed, the moisture drawn away, the mist sucked down toward Sundrop until Elisha couldn’t swallow for the dryness of his mouth.
“Squalls along the channel,” Sundrop continued. “Bad for shipping. And here,”—the fingers of his left-hand stirred—“in London, now, it’s raining so gentle. Ah. Harder now. I can’t quite reach that far … The storm will move this way. Already, it’s raining harder, yes. Oh, yes.” His fist clenched, and his body tremored as he panted, reaching for that distant rain. “Can you feel it, too, Chantie?”
Awareness could not spread so far, or could it? Could he feel the rain approaching from London? Elisha was starting to see why the magi claimed the indivisi were mad. The man before him writhed in ecstasy at the touch of a distant rain. The gathered moisture clouded over his head, then clothed him in a tiny, private storm, releasing the damp into the air around them as its master drank it in and groaned with pleasure, swaying his arms to let it sprinkle to the earth all around him, like a dance without music.
The iron-mage gave a snort of disgust, closing his fist with an audible clang. “The earth of this square contains fifty-eight links of mail, the fittings of a harness, including the horse’s bit, a sword-hilt, broken, and seventeen nails.” He did not close his eyes. “I feel strong steel and shod horses. We don’t have much time.”
“Twenty-one,” whispered Chanterelle, staring at him. “Nails,” she clarified.
Parsley glowered. “Don’t make me summon them up for counting.”
“You can’t,” she said. “The other ones are copper.” She spread her fingers into the earth, the packed dirt accepting her as he stared her down.
“It’s a blessing,” the old woman cackled. “A blessing to know! A blessing to see with so many eyes, to hear, to ride the winds of near and far!” She thrust up her arms, and the flock of crows exploded upwards, flapping around her.
“All these years,” the iron-magus sighed, “and you still can’t fly.”
The woman croaked and drew back her head, shoulders humped.
A blessing that held its own curse. The iron-magus must hide from the rain. The earth’s lover could be trapped by a fire set in her other flesh.
And Elisha? Did he truly know more of death than any other man? He had found the body, true enough, but it was fresh and personal. He called on Death only when he held the talisman—and that jar was a universal, a talisman so strong that any fool could use it to amplify magic, if not to such terrible ends. As Morag observed, he hadn’t even created it a talisman on purpose. Could he sense a death approaching, the way that Sundrop knew a storm, or feel the deaths already present, like the iron-magus counting nails? Could it be his servant like the woman and her crows? Or would it, like the earth, devour him?
“You try too hard,” Chanterelle said, coming nearer, moving as easily through the earth as he through the air. “You doubt and you deny and so you struggle.”
Elisha glanced at the others and back to her. He needed to find Thomas, but he needed this, too, to be sure what he was and to know what he must do. Once more, he knelt before her, listening to her small voice. “Show me,” he breathed.
She took his hand, a cool, gritty touch, and turned it, placing his palm upon the ground. “You didn’t kill the baby,” she sighed into him, “You knew its death. Knew it. What else do you know?”
During his first lesson, under Brigit’s care, she had asked him something similar: to catalog what he knew about the things he would transform, seeds and eggs. Now, he attuned himself to the young woman before him, growing aware of her stillness, her investment in the earth around them, the peculiar glinting quality of her eyes. Never again would he fail to recognize her presence or need to bring up corpses because he could not find her among them. She shared no emotion, he asked for none. They were together in a most intimate way, fully present, utterly without passion.
Then she sank into the earth, letting it flow up around her, inviting it closer, luxuriating in its touch as another woman might love furs. Her hand remained above the ground, still capturing his, her hair spread upon the earth like the fine roots of mushrooms. He felt the earth as never before, the layers of it, the richness of dead leaves mixed in and the questing strength of roots. Worms devoured the grains, making tiny spaces where air filtered in. Chanterelle tugged at his awareness through their contact, like a child pointing out fishes beneath a quiet pond, she showed him the chainmail, the scraps, the nails—both iron and copper—and shared the tang of them upon the skin, as if he touched them with his tongue. She found a squirrel’s den with the warm little creature startled, then soothed by her touch. And there, a forgotten crop of turnips. Withdrawing to her center for a moment, Chanterelle murmured, “It’s everything I need.”
He thought of the burning peat that trapped her with the pain and the dead, but she pushed back the image. “The mancers changed my skill when they tried to trap me, they perverted it, made it wicked. Like yours, when you kill.”
“How can Death be anything but wicked?”
A spasm of sadness and worry flickered through her, and was gone. “I thought you’d know.”
He sensed the presences above them—no, around them—but any magus could sense a living presence: it proved nothing. He looked further. What did he know? He knew the strength of his hands and the medical skill that resided in him. He knew how to set bone and when to cut it off instead. He knew his brother’s baby was already dead. The talisman must be here, somewhere close. He knew Brigit and how she had marked it with her blood. Death, and blood that hinted at the death inherent in every life. A body lay in the broken church, and the crow-woman let her friends pluck out its eyes. Elisha’s hand clenched with the memory of killing, gripping the handle of the now-useless knife he’d used to murder. Chanterelle’s presence unfurled through the earth around him, kept him steady and warm, like an incubating seed. When he had sought her in the burning bog, she was not all he found. He had sensed the presence of the ancient dead, and in his panic, he could not discern between those corpses and the living woman. And she had seen them. No wonder she believed.
A little graveyard stood behind the tithing barn. Eight, ten, twenty-seven dead. Chanterelle’s encouragement sprang through her touch. Others were buried here and there beyond the houses. As Chanterelle had shown him, he spread his awareness in all directions, moving from each discovery to the next. He ignored the presence of all the animals living and dead, their slight chills easy to pass over. Shod horses and fine steel, the iron-mage claimed, and Elisha found them now, riding through the dark with a familiar presence at their head. It took a moment to sense the tension, the excitement, the strength and fickleness in that peculiar combination that was Prince Alaric. How far were they? Elisha started to track the distance between, but a sense of cold whispered through his senses. Alaric rode with a small guard, and Death rode with them. Elisha caught his breath, but he felt Chanterelle’s triumph. “You know it comes,” she said.
“But I don’t know who or how or when!” This half-knowledge galled him. He reached again, this time feeling the strain. Instead of growing stronger, the chill evaporated into nothing, as if he knew nothing. Angry, he snapped back his awareness, sending it scurrying behind, only to be jolted by a new presence, one he knew right away: Brigit. Was she coming out to meet her love? No, she came alone, on foot. She came for the talisman he had not found, probably sneaking out of the abbey now that Alaric had gone. Damn it!
Elisha shook himself, nearly breaking contact w
ith Chanterelle. She shouldered upward, the earth moving aside until she sat upon the ground before him. Crows scattered from the fresh corpse in the church as their mistress flung wide her arms.
“Soldiers, aye,” the crow-mage muttered. “Battle for us, my sweets, hmm?” Her body swayed, her arms lifting, straining for flight, then she swiveled her head and caught Elisha’s gaze. “We like you, my flock and I. Where you go, Death is never far behind.” She grinned, the gaps between her teeth as dark as crow’s eyes.
“He can feel Death’s approach,” Chanterelle murmured aloud, and the iron-mage snorted again.
“You can’t claim that,” he said, “not until somebody dies. Not until he fingers the dead man before he’s even bleeding.” He held up his own hand, steady as a rod. “I can feel Death, too, when it’s dripping down my hands.”
From where he knelt, Elisha suddenly placed the voice, the single curse repeated twice as an assassin slew the Frenchman—with a weapon like a glove of knives. The cold man stared back, snicking his fingers together and folding his hands beneath his arms.
A crow swept suddenly back from the path with a sharp cry and dropped to the mage’s shoulder. “Somebody’s coming,” she said and hustled away, snatching up handfuls of the black rags that flailed around her legs as she scurried into the woods.
Sundrop seemed to fade, his outline misty once again. “Welcome,” he said, then, “We’ll meet again.” He gave a little bow and strolled away leaving the scent of rain.
The iron-mage stayed a moment longer, turning his stance to aim the hardness of his hands down the path. “Shall I, Barber? Do you feel it now?” He was laughing as he retreated, leaving Elisha and Chanterelle alone, crouched on the ground in the flickering light.
“Thank you,” Elisha breathed, although his knowledge felt a bitter gift.
“Power’s never bad. If you’ve got it, and they don’t.” She smiled, but her eyes were hard. She tipped her head toward the silent church and the silent corpse within. With a gritty hand, she gripped his arm.
Images shot into him and he gasped. An inn and a barn with a hard dirt floor, a father too cruel, men who paid their money and thrust her down. “Thank me, yes, oh master of Death. I wanted you to go to my father’s home, to kill for me as you killed for Rosalynn. I can see now you never will.”
Her touch throbbed as if her heart were broken all over again. She sank into the ground before him and rippled away through the earth and his awareness until she dove deep and was gone. Elisha sat back on his heels, stunned. For a moment, he wished she had stayed to talk—but he had no idea what he might have said. She had seemed the only reasonable one among the indivisi, but even she had her own motives. Each of them had come to their power through pain, and he had barely begun to imagine what his might mean.
Chapter 20
Brigit was coming, seeking the talisman. Elisha reached out through his awareness, infusing it with death and tragedy and the memories of that day, crafting a false impression of the talisman itself. Brigit hesitated, her search turning aside at the clues that he provided. He could hear her approach now and scrambled to his feet, turning, at first holding out his ruined blade, then scowling as he thrust it back into his belt. No matter what he knew of Death and of Brigit, he could not kill her, for the child’s sake if not her own.
She came along the path, a lantern in her hand that cast writhing shadows across her face and figure. Seeing him, she stopped short, raising the light, adding its glow to that of the guttering torch the indivisi had left behind.
“There’s no point pretending surprise,” he said, squaring his shoulders.
But Brigit did not even attempt it. “Oh, dear Elisha!” she cried and sprang forward, the lantern held aloft. “I was so afraid he’d kill you—then he said you’d escaped. I was never so relieved.” She was beaming as she came to him. Her free hand reached out and trailed across his throat, a touch that shivered his flesh with heat. “You’re hurt.”
He smacked her hand away. “No surprise there, either, Brigit. You hired the men who tried to rape Rosalynn and strangle me. Did you tell them my past, so they’d know how to scare me? Did you give them some help from the rope that hanged me?”
Her green eyes gleamed with tears as she brought her hand to her own lips—as if his blow had injured her, too. “They weren’t to hurt you. Neither of you. Threats, only! I’m sure my orders—”
“Were to do whatever it took to make me use the talisman. Stop it, Brigit, just stop.” He folded his arms, angry at himself for the way she still moved him, for good or ill. Any time she made him feel, she showed her power over him. He was the one who had to stop.
She swallowed hard, her pale skin and exposed throat making her seem vulnerable. Again, she reached for him. “Teach me, Elisha, please. Teach me as once I taught you.”
This time, he seized her hand, turning it to reveal the scrape on her palm. “Did you not see enough? Didn’t your blood show you every horror?”
“I know you’ve hidden it around here.” She did not draw away, but let his grip bring her closer. “I saw,” she murmured. “I felt, but I did not understand. There was cold … a darkness.” She shook her head, biting her lip as she looked for words. “I remembered all that from when you first shared it with me—”
“I never. It was you who came, like a crow to a corpse. You who made me see what it was I carried.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Brigit tipped her head from him, letting the lantern down to her side, her face shadowed. “I am so sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
“And the hanging rope? Dragging me down for your lord’s pleasure? Are you sorry for that as well?”
At that, she frowned. “Just a memory. I didn’t believe it would really be strong enough to hold you. Not you.” She touched his arm, a shy stroke.
Elisha seized her to him and savagely kissed her, one hand cupping her head, the other snaked behind her, searching, drawn by the echo of his own pain embedded in the hanging rope. He steeled himself and snatched the rope from her belt even as she opened her lips to him, drawing him closer. Then he let himself remember. She wanted him closer, she wanted him to share—and share he did: the full force of the hanging rope.
He remembered terror that tore into his throat, the wrenching of his head as he was yanked upward and the tearing skin of his wrists as he struggled to free himself. He cataloged the darkness that throbbed over his vision, the desperation of his cries, even the feel of grass dropping from his bare toes as he kicked and fought for life. Brigit went rigid in his arms, breaking the kiss. He remembered how it felt to see her that day, to believe that she was coming to save him, the dread upon his heart when he knew she came to watch him die.
Brigit hit him, pounding against his chest, fighting away from his cruel embrace. She panted as she wiped her mouth, blinking back tears and shaking.
“Just a memory,” he said bitterly, the taste of her upon his lips for the last time. He wrapped his fist around the few inches of hanging rope, a single strand of what must have been three at least. She had divided it, for future use.
Staring at him, still stunned, she asked, “Is that—was that—how it was for you?”
“Worse.” The rope in his own hand still had power—but it was a power too easy to twist against him. He stepped away, holding the scrap to the torch’s flame, wincing as, for a moment, his own skin flared. “Where’s the rest?”
“I don’t have it here,” she stammered. “If I had known—I’m sorry.”
Tense from his jaw to his toes, Elisha waited for her to twist the apology, to append her excuse, but she remained silent, her hair and cloak fluttering in the night breeze. For a moment he remembered how she came to him at what he then believed to be his darkest hour, bound to the whipping post, waiting to hang. She came to him with passion and hope, fulfilling his desires both body and soul, taking his child into herself. And the next morning, she came to watch him die.
“I told him not to kill you�
�I begged him, Elisha.”
“So you can use me to gather the other magi.” With an effort, Elisha let go and stood his ground, neither retreating nor giving in to the temptation to touch her again. “You should go. You will not get what you want.”
“I want you.” Her chin shot up, her eyes afire with lamplight. “I want you to join me. You watched my mother die, Elisha, and you hated yourself because you couldn’t help her then. You can help her now, by bringing her dream to fruition. A kingdom where magi work and live without fear. You’ve not been one of us for very long, but you know what it could mean.” She came to him again and laid her fingers on the back of his hand. “We should not be killed for what we are, what we can do.”
A land where witches need not fear? It was a pretty thought—but he thought, too, of all the witches he had met, those who derided the indivisi, those who refused to aid his healing of Mordecai because he was a Jew. Would the nation fare better with magi on the throne, with a woman on the throne who would betray her lover for her own ends? Two lovers, come to that. He thought instead of Thomas, alone somewhere in the darkness, and quickly brushed the thought aside before it could manifest in his emotions. “We should not be killed for it, no. Neither should we be crowned for it. Do you think an uprising of witches will convince the common folk to trust us, never mind the barons?”
Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “You would preach caution, then? Hiding in the shadows as we have done, hoping one day the desolati will suddenly find how helpful and friendly we’ve been?”
Elisha Magus Page 17
