The Legend Of Eli Monpress

by Rachel Aaron

  “You’re getting lazy,” he muttered at the dark. “Lazy and predictable.”

  Saying it actually made him feel worse, but he always tried to be honest with himself. First rule of thievery: If you can’t be honest with yourself, you’ll never fool anyone else. He rolled over, ignoring the horrible cramping in his back. Telling the duke what he wanted was out of the question. Even if he’d asked for something simple, Eli was categorically against bullies. He turned over again, trying to find a way he could lie without feeling like he was crushing something that had already been crushed too many times that day. It wasn’t like he could take another round of the duke’s questioning. He had to escape. Had to, and quickly, and he would get right on that as soon as breathing didn’t feel like swallowing knives.

  A while later he was still lying there, warring between making himself move and ignoring the necessity, when he caught a glimpse of light. It flashed red through his closed eyes, but when he snapped them open, the brightness was gone. Instead, the room, which had been pitch black, was now filled with cool, gray light. The itchy straw was gone from under him as well, and he was lying on something soft and yielding. Without warning, a gentle, cool hand touched his face, and Eli sucked in his breath at the burning touch the fingers left behind.

  Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get worse.

  What? a lovely, musical voice chuckled behind him, No hello?

  “Hello,” he said through gritted teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  Do I need an excuse? White hands, paler than fresh snow in moonlight, drifted down his chest to settle over his heart. It pains me deeply to see you in trouble, dearest. Does love need a motive to come to the aid of the one she cherishes?

  Her voice was piercingly sad. Eli didn’t fall for it for a moment.

  The Lady sighed when he didn’t answer, and her fingers ran over Eli’s bruised body, leaving a burning feeling wherever they touched. Look at what that man has done to my beautiful boy. There was anger in her voice now, cold and sharp. All you have to do is say the word and I will avenge you. Open yourself, show these common spirits whom you belong to, and this city will worship you as it should.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” Eli said. “And I don’t want your help.”

  The roving hands froze, and suddenly he found himself being whirled around. A terrible strength slammed him to his knees on the floor so that he was facing her as she stood before him, terrifying in all her glory. Perfectly straight white hair tumbled around a white face, spilling over her lovely shoulders, across her lovely body to the floor, where it flowed across the stones like moonlit rivers. Her eyes were pure white, the irises only defined by a shimmer of iridescent silver and the flutter of white lashes. She was naked, but her nakedness was not a shameful thing. Beside her inhuman whiteness, it was Eli who felt exposed.

  Wherever her light touched, spirits woke, no matter how small or insignificant, and as they woke, they began to reverence her. The stones, the straw, the iron of the door, the tiny spirits of the air, everything, every bit of the world worshiped at her feet. Yet the White Lady ignored their praises. Her entire focus was on Eli alone. Slowly, gracefully, she reached forward and tangled her hands in his hair, pulling him close until his face was inches from her bare stomach.

  You belong to me , she whispered, her voice shivering and terrible. From the moment I saw you, you were mine. It was I who saved you, I who gave you everything you have. Because I love you, I have let you run free, but do not think for a moment that you are anything but mine. She pulled his head up, almost breaking his neck as she brought his face to hers. Do not forget what you are.

  “How could I?” Eli said, his voice wheezing with pain. “You keep showing up to remind me. But there’s one thing you’re wrong about,” he said. “I don’t belong to anyone but myself.” The White Lady’s hands trembled, and for a moment, Eli thought she was going to rip his head clean off. Then she began to chuckle. So rebellious , she cooed, ruffling his hair. So arrogant. You haven’t changed at all, have you? Refusing my help when I came all this way to save you. How selfish, but I always loved that about you, dearest boy. She kissed his forehead. Very well, beat yourself bloody if you must. But remember — her hands gripped his head like a vice— whatever you say, you do belong to me. I have been extremely tolerant, but push too hard, darling star, and I will take you back whether you like it or not. Then, things will be as they were before, when you were my darling little boy who loved me more than anything.

  “That was a long time ago,” Eli said, leaning away from her touch. “Things change, Benehime.”

  Her hands caught him again and yanked him to his feet, putting his face inches from her own. She bent down with painful slowness, laying a cold kiss on his mouth. I’ll see you soon , she murmured against him. My favorite star.

  “Not if I can help it,” Eli grumbled, but the room was dark again. The Lady was gone. Suddenly his legs felt as weak as jelly, and he flopped into the straw. For several moments, all he could do was sit there and adjust. Benehime’s presence was intoxicating, and recovering once she left was a little like waking up after drinking an entire bottle of grain liquor. He was experienced with it, though, and recovered his mind with quick efficiency, especially when he realized he might still be able to take advantage of the awed spirits. But by the time he thought to try it, the door and the stones around it were already solidly ignoring him.

  Of course, Eli sighed, flopping back over, she took the memory of her visit with her for everyone but him. She was too wise to be leaving him freebies like that. Her help never came for free. Well, she could wait forever, because there was no way he was ever going to come begging to her. Whatever she said, he was through being her pet.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain of moving, Eli slid off the straw and knelt beside the door. No prison was perfect, he reminded himself. Even without his tools or wizardry, the duke was kidding himself if he thought he could keep Eli Monpress locked up. Feeling slightly better at this thought, he began patiently running his fingers along the door cracks, looking for the small oversight that would spell his freedom.

  Miranda woke in the dark with her head throbbing. She was lying on her stomach with her arms under her, as if she’d fallen. She didn’t remember falling, but her arms were asleep, so she must have been like that for a while. The memory of her capture was scattered and hazy, but she recalled Hern’s face and the choking pain from the vines before everything had gone black. Even now, her head burned like someone was holding a brand to it. She tried pressing her fingers against her forehead, and a wave of blinding pain flashed through her. Miranda spat curses that would have made her mother faint and snatched her hand away. That bastard Hern would get what was coming to him, she thought bitterly, as soon as she got out of—

  Miranda froze. Her fingers, the fingers she’d just pressed to her head, were empty. She held up her hands, waving them right in front of her face. It did no good; she couldn’t see them, but then, she didn’t need to. The feeling of bare skin against her cheek was enough.

  “No,” she whispered, curling over, her empty hands skittering across the unseen floor, desperately looking for what she knew was not there. “No no no no no.”

  Her rings were gone. All of them. So was Eril’s pendant. And not just gone, but so far away she couldn’t even feel the familiar tug of their connection on her spirit. Frantically, she flung her soul open, reaching out, calling for her spirits. Calling and waiting, but there was no reply.

  Fear deeper than even the demon panic flooded through her, and her mind began to race. How long had she been out? How long had her spirits been without their connection? Where was Gin? Where was she, and how could she get out? She had to get out. She had to escape right now, before her rings died out.

  “They won’t die out,” tsked a voice deep inside her. “Your spirits are stronger than that. Have a little faith, Miranda.”

  The low, watery voice in her ear made Miranda jump, and
she cracked her head hard on the wall behind her.

  “Sorry,” Mellinor said.

  “It’s all right,” Miranda whispered. “I’ve never been happier to hit my head in my life. Thank goodness you’re still here.”

  “I live inside you,” Mellinor said, matter-of-factly. “How would they take me?”

  “Good point,” Miranda said, sinking into a sitting position on the cold floor. “Did you see who took my rings?”

  “No,” Mellinor said and sighed, creating a strange feeling of water moving over her mind. “But I did get a lesson in the limitations of using a human body as a vessel. It turns out, if you’re unconscious, I can’t see anything. I heard them fighting, though.”

  “They fought for me?” Miranda was unexpectedly touched.

  “Of course,” Mellinor said. “As well as they could, anyway. Their abilities are very limited without you up to channel power to them. I couldn’t even get out to help. I can’t leave your body without injuring it if you’re not awake to let me go. Yet another inconvenient lesson for today.”

  “This is kind of a new thing for all of us,” Miranda said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Mellinor rumbled. “What first?”

  Miranda blinked in the pitch dark. “How about some light?”

  Mellinor made a bubbling sound, and Miranda felt cool water running through her. At once, soft light, like moonlight seen from deep underwater, began to fill the tiny cell, and she got her first good look at her prison.

  “Good grief.”

  She was kneeling in a circular pit that might have been an old well. The walls were smooth, so either the prison had been cut into a solid block of stone, or they were deep underground, cut into the bedrock. The walls finally ended fifteen feet up at a metal grate sitting atop her cell like a well cap and held shut by a thick padlock. Above the grate, she could see nothing but darkness. The cell itself was more spacious than she’d originally thought, however. She had enough room to sit down, if not to stretch out. Other than herself there was a wooden bucket, presumably to be used as a toilet, and a great deal of gray dust. It covered everything: the floor, the walls, and even, she realized with disgust, her clothes where she had been lying.

  Miranda stood up, slapping at her skirt, but the dust clung to the fabric almost like it was sticky. It was on her hands too now, gray and fine as dried silt. She rubbed at it fiercely, but the powder stuck to her, forming dark little rivers in the creases of her skin. She held her hands to her nose. The dust had an odd scent that was strangely familiar. Very lightly, and sure she was being very foolish, Miranda licked her finger. The stuff had a horrid, alkaline taste, and that was all she got before the tip of her tongue went numb.

  “Thought so,” Miranda said, coughing. “It’s graysalt. The servants used to put it down as a rat poison when I was a child.”

  “And you licked it anyway?” Mellinor said, horrified.

  “Well, it’s not lethal to humans,” Miranda said, scraping her numb tongue with her teeth. “As a dust it’s harmless, but get it wet and it becomes a paralytic. So the rats would run through and then get it wet when they tried to groom the dust off, and bam, dead rat.”

  “Good thing you’re not a rat then,” Mellinor grumbled.

  “No,” Miranda said, “but I’m trapped like one just the same. Look”—she pointed at the piles of gray dust on the floor—“there must be pounds of it down here. Sure, it’s nontoxic now, when it’s dry, but if we were to get it wet there’s more than enough here to paralyze me from head to toe, maybe for good.”

  She peered up at the locked grate, high overhead. Even if she could reach it, she didn’t think she could break the lock without Durn or one of her other spirits. Mellinor could, maybe, if he got enough pressure, but in her experience, lots of pressure meant lots of water, which was precisely what they couldn’t have.

  “Well,” Miranda grumbled, “nice and trapped. I must admit I never expected something thisingenious, or cheap, out of Hern. Twenty pounds of graysalt probably cost less than one of those bottles of wine he had with dinner.”

  Mellinor shifted inside her. “Actually, I don’t think we’re in Hern’s tower.”

  Miranda frowned, and the spirit explained. “Generally speaking, spirits who spend a lot of time around Spiritualists are pretty active, but it’s quiet as the dead down here.”

  “That’s no different from anything else in Gaol,” Miranda said. “Hern’s got a stranglehold on this place.”

  “You keep saying that,” Mellinor murmured. “But something’s been bothering me. You said before that Hern was always in Zarin, right?”

  “Right,” Miranda answered.

  “Well,” the water rippled in her head, “whatever’s controlling the spirits in Gaol, it’s acting like a Great Spirit. That kind of control doesn’t work if the controlling power’s not constantly in contact with the land, like a Great Spirit is. A land without a Great Spirit becomes sleepy and stupid, more so than usual. Just look at my old basin. But this land is disciplined, and easily woken. That’s not something you see when the commanding power is always somewhere else.”

  Miranda bit her lip. Mellinor made a good point, and he would be the expert on this sort of thing. “But,” she said, “if it wasn’t Hern, then who? Who’s running Gaol?”

  “The duke, of course,” said a cheery voice above her.

  Miranda looked up in alarm, biting back a curse as she whacked her head again. She knew that voice, she realized, rubbing her poor, abused skull, but she certainly hadn’t expected to hear it here.

  “Monpress?”

  “Who else?” Eli’s laughing voice was muted, like he was behind something large and heavy.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “I was caught.” She could almost hear his shrug. “It happens from time to time. The trouble, as always, is keeping me caught. I was just exhausting my options when I heard your voice. Now, I think I can safely assume, unless your little oration about the powdered poison was a cruel and elaborate ploy, that you are also an unwilling guest of our illustrious host, Duke Edward?”

  “Duke Edward?” Miranda stood up. “The Duke of Gaol?”

  “No, the Duke of Farley,” Eli said, sighing. “Yes, the Duke of Gaol. As I said, he’s the one running everything. Whose castle do you think we’re in?”

  “Nonsense,” Miranda said. “The duke isn’t even a wizard.”

  “Who told you that?” Eli scoffed. “Just because a man doesn’t wear rings or have WIZARD written across his forehead doesn’t mean he isn’t one.”

  Miranda shut her mouth. Now that she thought about it, everything she knew about the Duke of Gaol came from Hern’s annual reports. This situation was getting stranger by the minute.

  “So,” she said slowly, “the Duke of Gaol is a wizard, and he’s the one controlling the spirits, not Hern?”

  “I don’t know who Hern is,” Eli said, “but that’s correct. Now that you know, however, I can’t imagine it makes you any happier to be locked up, so how about we work together and get out of here? It’ll be just like Mellinor, only with less enslavement and near-drowning.”

  “ Me ,” Miranda cried, “help you ? Do you have any idea how much trouble helping you has caused me?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Eli said. “But think on this: I wouldn’t be sitting here talking if I had a way out, would I? I’m proper trapped, same as you. Now, the duke will be back in less than half an hour to take me away, and after that, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. Are you really going to let a wizard who runs his spirits through a system of fear and intimidation be the one to catch me?”

  Miranda scowled. The thief had a point. She’d put Monpress to the side while she focused on getting dirt on Hern, and it had landed her in here. If circumstance had delivered the thief, and possibly her freedom, right into her hands, who was she to argue? Plus, she now knew who was behind the strange happenings in Gaol. If the duke had indeed set
himself up as the tyrant Great Spirit of Gaol that would certainly fit the West Wind’s concern. If she played things carefully, she could very well walk out of Gaol with everything she’d come here to get, and that was worth taking a risk. After all, she thought and glared at the grimy filth on her skin, what did she have to lose?

  “All right,” she called back up. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Catch!” Eli shouted, and she heard the jingle of something metal flying through the air before a set of keys landed with a jangle on the grate to her cell. They tottered there a moment, and then fell. She caught them in her outstretched hand.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “How did you get keys? And how did you know what cell I was in?”

  “You are the only source of light in the room. It’s kind of hard to miss,” Eli said. “As for the first part, who do you think you’re dealing with? I’m Eli Monpress, the—”

  “Greatest thief in the world. Yes, I know,” Miranda sighed, looking up at the lock high, high overhead. “How am I supposed to use these?”

  “I can’t do everything for you,” Eli said. “Figure it out, and do it fast. The duke could come in at any moment.”

  “Right,” Miranda grumbled. “No pressure.” She looked around at the walls for anything she could use as a grip to climb, but they were smooth, almost glossy, and she couldn’t find so much as a hairline fracture. Jumping was out of the question. Even standing on tiptoe on the wooden bucket, stretching with all her might, she couldn’t reach the halfway mark. She put her fists on her hips, scanning the cell. There had to be a way.

  Her roving eyes stopped on the bucket under her feet. It was wide and low like a wash bucket, which was probably what it had been before being repurposed. It was made of cheap, light wood, but the joints were tight and waxed to hold water. Suddenly, she began to smile.