‘You are mistaken,’ he said, his voice distant. ‘I plan to collect the orphans when this village is no more.’
The last word Edward Mason ever uttered was little more than a hoarse whisper.
‘Please.’
The Inquisitor kicked the peasant in the throat, the toe of his boot suddenly sprouting a blade as he did so. ‘I grow weary of your hollow pleas. This village is guilty.’ He turned with cold indifference from the dying man. ‘Burn it all. Take the children. And bring some of the stronger ones alive.’
Weaver always tried to take some alive. Sometimes they knew about other magi and could be persuaded to part with the information. The dungeons of the Tower were deep, and at least some of the rumours concerning them were true.
Demons: Myth or Truth?
by Brother Edmund of the
Order of St. Aidan, Royal Archivist
from his greater text A History of the
Demon Kings, second edition (1694)
LEGENDS OF DEMONS and monsters have existed as long as Man has walked these isles. The Church writings claim that demons are creatures from Hell; spirits of evil, cruelty and destruction. But the myths are older than Christianity. In pagan texts, demons are just one of many terrible and fantastic creatures. Fairies. Imps. Pixies. Will-o’-the-Wisps. All have their own curious tales.
Much is simple folklore, but many cling to it even in these more enlightened days of science: the maid puts out milk for the pixies to keep them from stealing children away, for example, while the smith nails a horseshoe over the door of his forge to ward off evil. The stories are believed by many, and the superstitions are practised by the peasantry in their thousands. Educated men and the nobility scoff at such fanciful and archaic notions, but is there any truth to the claims of ghosts and ghouls, devils and demons?
There are written accounts of folk suffering visits from what they call ghosts. Most of these stories suggest an unquiet spirit of the dead, a soul denied the peace of the grave, who returns to haunt people and places familiar to them in life whilst they seek restitution. Absolution for their sins, perhaps, or as some fancifully believe, just the right to ensure their families are faring well without them.
Many of these ghosts seem benign, others less so. There are tales of a murderous coachman who returned from the dead and prowls the roads of Kent at night. There is another concerning a headless horseman, and still others of the dreadful beann-sidhe and ghostly wraiths who haunt churchyards, ever yearning for their eternal rest. It is also a sad (but factual) truth that many of those who have claimed to witness these phantoms were peasants who were latterly declared to be mad.
Demons and devils, though, are something apart from these little tales. The Church names them as the minions of Satan, creatures of wickedness to be feared and reviled, tormentors of fallen souls. There is great power in names. Is it not possible, for example, that demon is merely another name for something that others would call a ‘ghost’? Or a fairy, pixie or hobgoblin?
One thing is for certain. All of these things, should they exist, are not of this world, which begs the question—where are they from?
Some folklore suggests the existence of another world; one which lies between life and death. A place through which the spirits of the dead pass on their way to their eternal rest. Sometimes, they cannot find passage, and return to the only world they know—the origin, perhaps, of ghosts. What would such a place be like? Would the shades of the dead and mostly-dead walk freely as we do? Would it be as the world we know, or subtly different? Would good and evil exist in a way we understand, or would they be given form by those who name them demon or angel?
A long dead magus once suggested that this ‘other world’ is closer than we believe, and is the source of all magic. He warned that no good could come from meddling too much in what we did not understand. He chose to call it the Aetherworld and I find the term pleasing.
Those who claim to speak to the dead tend towards being charlatans who ply their trade to bring comfort to the recently bereaved. It is highly unlikely that they truly speak with those who dwell in the Aetherworld. It will likely forever be a mystery, and perhaps, if the magi are to be believed, that is as it should be.
Three
August, 1589,
Cwm Heddychol
Wales
‘YOUR MAGIC IS good, Mathias Eynon.’
The young man at the ‘business end’ of the cow looked up from his task and shook his head. ‘No magic here, Llewellyn. Just patience and understanding.’
The older of the two men in the cow’s barn shook his head. ‘No,’ he disagreed. ‘She wouldn’t settle for me. Just one pat from you and she calmed.’ Indeed, the cow was contentedly chewing the cud whilst Mathias focused on the extremely physical task of rearranging the tangle of limbs inside her womb. Had he not arrived when he did, the cow would be dead now. She had been struggling to birth the calf, which had been lying badly. Mathias’s efforts had not only calmed the frantic, panicking creature, but had prepared the calf for a more normal delivery. It was hard, heavy, extremely messy work, but Mathias did it anyway. The heifer carried on chewing, her labour pains apparently forgotten whilst the young man worked.
He had always had a way with animals, and it was that ability which had finally given him a skill with which he could return the debt he owed to the small Welsh village in which he resided. He had a ready eye for herbs, and could put together poultices that soothed fractious cattle or horses. He knew instinctively what was wrong with a creature just by sitting quietly with it for a short time. No animal, people laughed, could resist the charms of the friendly young man.
‘It’s her time now, Llewellyn. Do you want to help her with the birthing? I could use a break.’
‘Sure, lad. Go clean up in the water trough. Will you stay close, though? Just in case...?’ The heifer looked up as the two men swapped positions, her soft brown eyes calm. She had birthed two dead calves in the past, and Mathias knew that Llewellyn feared for this third. It had certainly felt very alive to him.
He had stripped his clothing from the waist up on arrival, anticipating the task, and so it was an easy thing to plunge his arms into the trough and let the liquid pour, cool and soothing, over his aching body. He was not particularly large or even particularly strong; ‘all rabbit and little beef’ was a phrase commonly employed to describe him. Llewellyn may not have had Mathias’s way with animals, but he had breadth of shoulder. He took over the delivery with ease.
Mathias knew he had bent the truth just a little. He had used magic to calm the beast. His gift with animals certainly ran far deeper than mere understanding. His instincts were too sharp and well-honed to be natural. But his mother, dead nearly twenty years, had told him of the fate met by a father whose only crime had been to help others, and even here, amongst people to whom magic was a gift and a blessing, Mathias kept his own counsel.
‘She had the calf yet?’ A girl’s voice, much-loved, pulled Mathias from his reverie. He looked over the stall fence to where Tagan, the blacksmith’s eldest daughter, stood. She was still wearing her leather forge apron, and her pretty face was smudged and dirty. With a complete lack of self-consciousness, she gave him a beaming smile. Her dark hair, cut boyishly short, clung to her scalp and face with sweat. The smile woke the dimples in her cheeks and Mathias smiled back. He loved her; she loved him. In an otherwise complicated and frequently confusing world, that was the one certainty.
‘Not yet,’ he reported, ‘but it won’t be long.’ He nodded towards the cow, who had engaged in a sort of push-pull match with the farmer. The big man had his hands around the calf’s legs and was tugging with all his might. The cow seemed reluctant to release her offspring to the world.
Tagan leaned on the wooden stall, watching with bright blue eyes. Mathias allowed himself the luxury of admiring his betrothed. When she and Mathias had first met as children, they had hated one another with a passion. He was quiet and preferred to keep to himself—a produc
t of his mother’s paranoia. Tagan, the eldest of six girls, was boisterous and playful and used to pester Mathias. They fought and argued, scrapped and squabbled and by the time both of them were young adults, it was clear that they were destined to be together.
He adored her. She was everything he was not. Fiery—which, given her magical ability, was not so surprising—and feisty, gregarious and confident, and pragmatic enough for the both of them. She was able to pull Mathias free of the brooding moods into which he frequently slipped, and for that alone he loved her.
‘Here we go!’ Llewellyn couldn’t keep the joy from his voice as the calf slid from its mother onto the straw beneath her. It lay still for a few moments and then four long limbs began to twitch. ‘Well done, old girl!’ Llewellyn patted the cow’s flank. ‘A fine little heifer!’
‘Oh!’ Tagan breathed as she witnessed the calf’s first moments. All of them had seen many animals born over the years—cattle, horses, even cats and dogs—but the miracle of new life never failed to bring joy. ‘Oh, Mathias, she’s lovely!’
‘Thank you, lad.’ Llewellyn watched as the little calf struggled to her feet and stumbled blindly for a moment or two before finding her mother and beginning to suckle noisily. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ Mathias said, watching the mother and daughter for a moment as he gathered his things together. ‘She did all the work. She should be fine, but sprinkle some of this on her feed. It’ll keep her milk rich and give the little one strength.’ He handed over a pouch, which Llewellyn took gratefully. ‘I’ll look in on her tomorrow.’ His gaze roved over to where Tagan stood, her eyes held by the beauty of the little creature, and Llewellyn smiled.
‘Sure, lad.’ The farmer paused for a moment, then lowered his voice to a gentle tone that was rare for him. ‘Your mother would have been proud.’
THE WORDS HAD been simple, but it was clear to Tagan that Llewellyn’s parting sentence to Mathias had left an impression. She didn’t really recall Elizabeth Eynon that well, and Mathias rarely— if ever—spoke of her. Today, prompted by Llewellyn’s words, she felt a moment of bravery.
‘You never talk about her much.’
Her arm was linked through Mathias’s. They were walking down from Llewellyn’s farm to the village. Nestled in a dell deep within the Welsh valleys, the settlement lived in the shadow of craggy hills on three sides. Several streams splashed down from the moors, often swollen by the rains, and gathered in a pond in the centre of the village before flowing away down the valley. The current was not naturally strong enough to turn a mill, but it did so anyway, with a little arcane encouragement.
He looked at her, pulled out of his reverie. ‘I wasn’t that old when she died. I suppose I don’t really remember that much about her. She was happy when she came here, though. I remember that. I understand why.’ They were walking alongside one of the brooks, going slightly out of their way so they could steal a few precious moments together. Mathias paused to reach down, trailing one hand through the cool running waters. A few sticklebacks flitted about anxiously, disturbed by the motion, then settled back into lazily drifting along with the current. A little way up-river, Mathias knew, was a small settlement of monks who used the pure water in their brewing process. The ale from the monastery was unsurpassed in the region.
The summer had been hot and dry everywhere in the country that year, but the hanging trees alongside the brook offered some relief from the stifling heat of the day, and for Tagan, the heat of the forge.
‘Do you think she is happy for you? I mean, do you think...’ Her hesitant question brought a laugh to Mathias’s lips.
‘Sometimes you confuse me, Tagan. You’re so strong, and yet there are times when you seem as shy as a little girl. But to answer your question, yes. She would have loved you.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Tagan knew what his answer would be, but she pushed for it anyway. Mathias stopped walking and reached over, stroking a finger down the line of her jaw. For months she had pulled away from him, unable to believe that Mathias liked her that much. Time had worn down her natural defence and shyness and now she turned her head to rest it in the palm of his hand.
‘I’m sure that my mother would have loved you, Tagan, because I love you.’ She’d expected the reply, anticipated it. It was artless and without poetry or drama. But the truth of the answer still filled her with joy. That Mathias Eynon, the most intelligent man she had ever known, had chosen her above the other girls of the village... it still left her breathless. And when he acknowledged it with the words, her heart stood still.
The two of them sat down beside the small brook and she revelled in the moment. His words filled her often restless thoughts with calm, as they always had. They sat in companionable silence for a little while, and then she found her answer.
‘I love you, too,’ she replied in as soft a voice as she could manage. Her usual rough voice, constantly hoarse from shouting to be heard over the cacophony of the forge, was not easy to repress, but she tried. To her eyes, Mathias deserved a proper lady on his arm. So she tried to overcome her tomboyish tendencies and to be more ladylike. What she had never realised, in all the time they had been together, was that Mathias loved her for precisely who she was.
‘Watch this,’ she said, made embarrassed by her sudden display of emotion. ‘I’ve been practising.’
She turned to a small pile of dried grass, which she had absently gathered and laid between a couple of small rocks. She reached into the pocket of her leather apron and pulled out flint and tinder. She struck them together expertly and the dried grass ignited immediately. She blew gently on the burgeoning flame until the tinder caught properly.
Mathias watched the fire, then stole a glance at Tagan. Her expression was a picture of concentration. He allowed a brief smile to flicker onto his face. She flattened out her palm, passing it through the flame of the tiny fire. She moved her hand back and forward and then Mathias felt it. The rush of air as though the world itself drew a breath, ready to exhale something.
Tagan’s flat hand closed into a fist and she drew it closely to her chest for a moment. Her eyes closed and her lips moved silently. Then she slowly unfurled her hand. In the centre of her palm, the flame that had been born from dead grass and a single spark from her flint twisted and turned, a living thing that she controlled through fierce determination.
Carefully, she began to shape the fire into something else. Fascinated, Mathias watched Tagan as the flame in her hand stretched and twisted according to her will. When she was done, a few moments later, a fiery butterfly lay in her palm. She closed both hands together, creating a cage of sorts, and the fire-butterfly began to flit against the bars of her fingers. It did not seem to singe her flesh.
The year before, Tagan’s spirit walk had resulted in her happily confirming what everyone had long suspected. The butterfly had chosen her. The spirit of change. The spirit of joy and colour. Tagan brought joy and colour to the lives of all she came into contact with, just as Mathias brought peace and calm.
When Mathias had attempted a spirit walk of his own, he had failed to find a guardian creature. He had been sorely disappointed. He still tried from time to time, but the spirits could apparently never agree amongst themselves. He stared at the fire butterfly and a beaming smile lit his face.
‘Tagan, it’s beautiful. You are finding the shaping of the fire so easy, now. Your skill is growing by the day.’
‘No,’ she replied candidly. ‘No, it’s never easy. But it is... always a pleasure.’ She opened her fingers and the fire-butterfly hesitantly broke free of its fleshy prison. It was caught instantly in a rogue breeze and broke into a trail of smoke.
‘The more I can control the fire,’ she said, watching the dark trails of her creation as it dissipated into the day, ‘the more I can control the forge. And the more I control the forge, the better the goods are that I make.’
Tagan sorely undervalued her own skill. Mathias knew from having watched he
r work that the remarkable young woman could turn untempered steel into an axle for a cart in under an hour. Or refine it into a sword for a warrior in two. Sometimes she employed her exceptionally artistic side and would create a bracelet or brooch for a gift. Her talent for creating fine jewellery was rare, and one which brought the family prestige and wealth.
She had also, so she told Mathias, crafted their wedding rings. She would not let him see them.
‘There need to be some surprises between us,’ she always said.
‘I am jealous,’ said Mathias eventually. He slid his hand into Tagan’s. ‘All I can do...’
‘Shut up, Matty.’
She kissed him.
Their hands entwined, the two young people sat in contented silence for a while, the sound of the brook and the occasional whisper of the hanging leaves the only sound that intruded on their peace. They were content like this, safe in each other’s company and with no demands or expectations on them.
Sadly, the peace was not to last.
‘Tagan! Mathias!’
The voice pulled the idling pair from their comfortable reverie. It wasn’t so much the volume—which was considerable—as the urgency in the tone. It was a young voice; female, heavily accented. Tagan’s youngest sister, fourteen-year-old Angharad. She pushed her way through the overhanging willows until she emerged by the waterside. She was blonde and lissom where her sister was dark and square. Stand the two girls side by side, and one would have been hard pressed to spot the familial relationship between them. Except for the eyes. Both girls had their late mother’s eyes.
‘Wyn needs you,’ she said. She was breathless, having run from the village without stopping. Her eyes were deeply anxious and there was something close to fear in them.
Mathias didn’t wait for an explanation. Already he was back on his feet, ready to head back to the village. Tagan also rose, but held back a little. ‘You go,’ she prompted. ‘If you need me, you know where I am.’
Heirs of the Demon King: Uprising Page 6
