Reign of Ash

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Master? How can it be?”

  “Do you have the disk?”

  There was silence for a moment. “Yes. I wear it still around my neck. The king left me with it to taunt me, I suppose. Its voice keeps me company.”

  Disk? Voice? Connor questioned silently.

  Lorens is a descendent of one of the original thirteen Lords of the Blood, the Wraith Lord explained. As madness took him, he believed that the disk itself had occult power and that it spoke to him in his mother’s voice. The voice he heard drove him to kill.

  “Lorens. Do you regret your deeds?”

  A chilling laugh echoed in the stone corridor. “I regret only that I did not make the rivers run with sweet, warm blood.”

  “See,” Nidhud murmured. “All this time, and he repents of nothing.”

  “We must take the disk. The time is come,” the Wraith Lord said with Connor’s voice.

  “No, please. Master, I beg of you. In the darkness, the disk sings to me. We speak to each other, she and I. Please don’t leave me here without it.”

  “There is no choice, Lorens. We need the disk.” The voice belonged to Connor, but everything about it was foreign, his tone, his phrasing, and the strange hint of an accent.

  How, exactly, are we going to get the disk? Connor asked the Wraith Lord. We’re up here. He’s down there.

  We’re going down to take it.

  Damn. I knew you were going to say that.

  Penhallow took hold of Connor’s arm and steered him away from the oubliette, back to the corridor from which they had come. “I don’t like this, Kierken,” Penhallow said. “We’ve already seen how hard it is on Connor for him to host you.”

  Go down there? No, definitely no! Connor argued silently.

  Kierken, speaking through Connor, sighed. “There is no choice. When the king sent Lorens to the oubliette, he feared other talishte might try to free him. He set traps. Even without magic, those traps are potent. The chains that bind Lorens are overlaid with rope made from rowan-wood fibers to prevent unquiet dead from rising. Masterwort was burned and the ashes sprinkled on his skin and all around him. A tincture made with moonflower, prized for its ability to banish monsters, was allowed to seep into his clothing and bonds. Who knows what other spells of binding and protection were also used?” He paused. “While we no longer need fear the magic, the other traps remain dangerous.”

  Penhallow’s expression was grave. “So all these years, he’s been tormented as well as left alone?”

  The Wraith Lord nodded. “I don’t dispute that his crimes were grievous. But the king’s penalty was merciless. One of us cannot touch him without harm. But none of the elements used were dangerous to mortals.”

  Do I get a vote? You’re not listening. I am not going down there, Connor protested.

  “I gave Connor my word that he would not be harmed,” Penhallow said. His voice was terse, and his eyes glinted in challenge.

  “Then perhaps you’d best rethink your promises, Lanyon. These are dangerous times, for talishte and for mortals. I don’t know that it’s possible to assure anyone’s safety.” He met Penhallow’s gaze. “But if you value the life of your remaining Lord of the Blood, and you hope for the ritual to succeed, you’ll need the disk.”

  “Connor’s the one who needs to give permission. It’s his life,” Penhallow said.

  Relegated to a corner of his own consciousness, Connor felt a wave of panic. I am not going down there. Do you hear me?

  Do you wish to see the magic restored? The voice that answered Connor was that of the Wraith Lord.

  Yes. You know I do.

  The disks have been present for the last two rituals to raise the magic, and perhaps for longer. This is your one chance to take Lorens’s disk: Only I can control him, and I need your body to do it.

  Connor was quiet for a moment as the logic of the Wraith Lord’s argument warred with his own instinct for self-preservation. I’ll go, he said finally. But then, you knew that already.

  The Wraith Lord chuckled. You are a most interesting servant, Bevin Connor. Penhallow chose you well.

  “We are agreed,” the Wraith Lord reported aloud.

  Penhallow muttered a curse under his breath. “What’s your plan? I don’t trust Lorens, no matter how much the king thought he was incapacitated.”

  “Lorens is my get. Although I don’t expect him to be able to fight us, I should be able to compel him, since I have the use of a physical body.”

  “‘Should’ be able to compel him,” Penhallow repeated, distaste clear in his voice. “But there’s no real way of knowing until you – and Connor – are committed to the action, is there?”

  “No. There isn’t.”

  Penhallow was quiet for a moment. “All right. Let’s get going. I’ve only just healed Connor, and I don’t want you burning him up again.”

  Neither do I, Connor seconded silently.

  They returned to where Nidhud waited near the metal grate that capped Lorens’s prison. “While you two were gone, I took a look at the grating,” he said. “The king may have trusted a bit too much in his magical precautions. The lock is heavy, but not particularly difficult to pick. I believe I can get it open.”

  “Can you fasten it again when we’re through?” Penhallow asked. “I don’t wish to be responsible for loosing that monster. The kingdom has sorrows enough as it is.”

  Nidhud nodded. “I should be able to lock it again.” He met Penhallow’s gaze. “You mean to leave him as he is?”

  “That’s entirely up to Lorens,” Penhallow replied. From a scabbard on his belt, he withdrew a short sword, one he kept for fighting with blades in both hands. He gave the sword to Connor.

  “Take this down with you, Kierken,” Penhallow said to the Wraith Lord. “You’ll have to leave Connor’s sword with me – the oubliette is too narrow for you to draw it anyway. Lorens should be completely incapacitated. But if not —” The razor-sharp edge of the blade made Penhallow’s meaning clear.

  “How, exactly, do you mean to descend?” Penhallow asked, and it took Connor a moment to realize that the question was directed to his body, but not to him.

  “The oubliette isn’t designed to have visitors,” the Wraith Lord replied. “Or for anyone to ever exit. For all we know, the king might have thrown Lorens into the pit. There’s no way down – or back up, for that matter. Since I can’t levitate in this body, we shall have to descend the mortal way: with a rope.”

  Connor fidgeted as Nidhud constructed a harness for him with part of the rope he carried on his belt. “Stand still,” Nidhud commanded.

  “Make sure those knots hold,” Penhallow said. “I want him brought back up safe and sound.”

  That makes two of us, Connor thought fervently.

  “Are you sure you’re going to have enough rope left to lower him all the way down?” Penhallow asked.

  “Should be enough,” Nidhud said, his attention still on the harness. “We tested the drop with a stone, so we know where the bottom is.”

  “We can lower the lantern with the chain over there,” Penhallow said, giving a nod to a length of chain he had found pushed to the side of the room. “You and I may not need light, but if Kierken is using Connor’s body, he won’t be able to see in the dark.”

  “After all that time down there, Lorens won’t be pretty to look at,” Nidhud replied. “I hope your man has a strong stomach.”

  As Nidhud worked, Connor’s eye was drawn to a deep crack in the room’s far wall. He looked at the floor and saw that the crack extended down through the paving stones and had split the rocks at the upper lip of the oubliette so they gaped nearly the width of his hand. It must have taken something pretty powerful to make that crack, Connor thought.

  The night of the Great Fire, earthquakes were felt all across Donderath, the Wraith Lord’s voice answered him silently. Since then, quakes have often accompanied the magic storms. In the years that Lorens has been captive, a powerful quake or two would not be su
rprising.

  Finally, the harness was ready. Nidhud bent beside the lock on the oubliette’s grate, working at the massive lock. After a while, the old tumblers clicked open. Even with their talishte strength, it took both Nidhud and Penhallow to lift the heavy iron grating.

  “I’m coming down, Lorens,” the Wraith Lord said. “Prepare yourself.”

  Possessed by the Wraith Lord, Connor stepped to the edge of the oubliette. The Wraith Lord’s spirit was confident, yet wary. Locked away in a corner of his consciousness, Connor choked down fear. He sat down with his legs dangling into the darkness. The pit was just slightly farther across than he was tall, meaning that he would have to crouch a bit to avoid scraping the stone sides of the shaft. From the top, the pit appeared bottomless, and even when Penhallow readied the lantern, Connor could see nothing but blackness. The Wraith Lord gripped his sword like a seasoned fighter.

  “Let yourself over the side,” Nidhud said. “I’ll keep the rope taut so you can walk down the wall if it makes you feel better. There isn’t room for you to lie flat and swing, at least not without hitting your head. Move slowly, and you’ll be all right.”

  Mortal terror welled up so strongly that for a moment, Connor could not breathe. The Wraith Lord pushed off from the edge. For a few seconds, Connor fell forward, and then the rope caught. It jerked him, and his breath exhaled in a rush.

  So long since I felt fear as a mortal, the Wraith Lord said in his mind. I had forgotten how it feels to be so… fragile.

  Since you’re using my body, best you start remembering, Connor reprimanded, made bold by his utter terror. I’ve got no intention of being eaten, dropped, crushed, or otherwise killed. Let’s be clear about that.

  Utterly, the Wraith Lord said with the hint of a chuckle.

  Penhallow had dropped the lantern over first so that it descended a few feet sooner than Connor, lighting his way. The walls of the oubliette were dark, stained with water that had seeped in over the years. Here and there, patches of fungus glowed. Connor’s boot slid on a patch of slime.

  He had expected the oubliette to smell like a tomb. After his association with Penhallow, Connor had grown more accustomed than he had ever imagined possible with tombs, crypts, and underground hiding places. Cellars often smelled of mold and damp ground. Crypts had a musty smell, of dust and decaying clothing and the scent of old death. Yet the oubliette’s odor did not evoke any of those places.

  Perhaps it would have been different, Connor thought, if Lorens had been mortal, consigned to a lingering death at the bottom of the pit. Maybe then the darkness would have smelled of stale urine, desiccated flesh, and old blood. Instead, the oubliette had the loamy scent of mushrooms and lichen, with a sharp tang Connor could not identify. He did not know the origin of the scent, but in his mind, he named it all the same: fear.

  He doesn’t merit your pity, the Wraith Lord reprimanded Connor silently. He more than earned his punishment.

  The lantern bobbed for a few moments, twisting on the chain until it steadied. Its light did not go all the way to the bottom of the pit, but what it illuminated made the part of him that was still Connor recoil. Festooned down the pit, angled from the side to side, was a tangle of filmy spiderwebs.

  I really don’t want to go down there, he thought. Those webs didn’t spin themselves.

  He strained to see in the dim light, but he could not make out any spiders on the webs. Maybe they’re old webs. Maybe the spiders are long gone, he thought.

  No, he corrected himself before the Wraith Lord could speak. Old webs would be in tatters. Those are new enough to be in good shape. And, Sweet Mother Esthrane, there are so many of them!

  No helping it, lad, the Wraith Lord said. We’ve got to go down.

  Stop calling me ‘lad.’

  The Wraith Lord chuckled. I am over one thousand years old. To me, even Penhallow is a youth.

  For a moment or two, Connor let himself think about the Wraith Lord’s words, and what it would be like to be so great an age. It was a pleasant, but brief, respite from dwelling on the task at hand. The Wraith Lord slashed through the webs, kicking at them to clear a path through the filmy strands. Even so, tendrils of the sticky fibers brushed his neck and arms, clinging to his hair, like the breath of a ghostly lover.

  With the Wraith Lord controlling his movements, Connor worked his way toward the bottom of the pit, rappelling down the wall. The oubliette was a narrow stone tube. To remain upright during the descent meant that Connor faced the wall. He would have preferred to keep his focus on the vampire below, even if there was nothing to see in the darkness.

  His boot slipped, and the abrupt movement jostled the lantern, sending it twirling, so that for a moment, as Connor dangled in midair, the lantern spun: light, dark, light, dark. Spiderwebs festooned around him, clinging to his face and his clothing. He fought panic.

  Don’t lose your nerve, boy, the Wraith Lord said in his mind.

  It’s not your body in the harness, Connor snapped.

  For now it is, the Wraith Lord replied. Not too much farther.

  What do we do when we get down there?

  Lorens wore the disk on a strap around his neck, under his shirt. We reach beneath what remains of his clothing and take the disk. Mind not to dislodge the stake.

  That would be bad, Connor said.

  That would be very bad.

  His boot found purchase on the rough stone once more, and he steadied himself to resume the descent. But as he worked his way down the wet stones, he noticed that the crack in the wall continued from the lip of the oubliette. It narrowed somewhat from the gaping, hand-width fissure at the top, but the crack was still several fingers wide.

  That’s a pretty deep crack, he noted. Do you think the walls are still sturdy?

  If the prison hadn’t been built to withstand the worst that men and nature could hurl at it, the entire room would have caved in by now, the Wraith Lord replied.

  The top of the shaft seemed small and dim, so that Connor could barely make out the shadows of Penhallow and Nidhud, who were anxiously peering over the edge. The lantern cast flickering shadows, and more than once, Connor caught the movement of his own silhouette out of the corner of his eye, startling him and sending his pulse racing.

  Steady, Connor. Nearly there, the Wraith Lord’s voice coached.

  What’s that? In the silence of the pit, even the slightest noise attracted attention. Connor glanced up to see a large black spider scrabbling from inside the crack in the wall. He shuddered reflexively.

  Up above, he heard a sudden shift and saw Nidhud and Penhallow disappear from their vigil. There were footsteps, and the swish of a sword through the air, then a loud screech. “What’s happening up there?” the Wraith Lord called.

  “Rats!” Penhallow shouted. “Nothing to be concerned about. We’ve got it taken care of.”

  Scratching noises sounded, close at hand. More spiders emerged from the crack in the wall. They were shiny and black, and counting the reach of their legs, as big around as a gold coin. The body of each spider was easily as thick as his finger.

  The Wraith Lord’s movements were swift and sure, though Connor kept a wary eye on the crack in the wall. Several more spiders had made their way out of it, and in the half-light there was no way he could see where they had gone on the black walls of the oubliette. Between the seeping dampness and the patches of slime, Connor could not make out the difference between dark spots on the walls and the spiders, and he was grateful that the Wraith Lord controlled his movements.

  Connor could hear the clink of a sword up at the top of the shaft, scraping against rock, hurried footsteps, and more desperate squeaking. A large, flailing object hurtled over the lip of the oubliette and straight toward Connor.

  The Wraith Lord shifted to get out of the way, heedless of the wall of spiderwebs Connor’s body brushed against. The walls above them were now crawling with spiders, with more being disgorged from the crevice between the stones. The rope brushed aga
inst the wall, sending a dozen or more of the spiders falling toward him, but the Wraith Lord brushed them off as if they were gnats.

  The rope gave a sudden jerk and Connor plummeted several feet, ripping his way through the gauzy webs. The rope caught, and he jolted to a stop. The lantern was overhead, too far away to illuminate his new position, and for a breath, it was as if he had been plunged into darkness.

  The Wraith Lord regained a foothold against the wall. He moved with a focused battle-calm that Connor guessed had been honed over centuries. In the dim light of the glowing fungus, shadows seemed to creep across the stones. The lantern’s chain clanked and rattled, dropping the light down to where Connor hung.