by Mike Shel
Kennah winced. “Gods! The blow killed her.”
“No, thank Belu, or Vanic, or whatever god watched over them that day. Because of the angle the blade hit her, the collar of her cuirass caught and dissipated some of the blow’s force. Don’t mistake me, it was a terrible wound, but not instantly fatal. Lenda’s blood spurted out, and splashed on the thing’s…snout? What do you call a crocodile’s mouth? Its jaw, I suppose. Anyway, that made it halt for a moment—it stood still. Her blood, slick on the stone, started coursing up to the golem’s mouth, as though it was sucking it in.”
“Like a vampire!” Kennah exclaimed.
Agnes grinned at the man, again seeing the boy. “Vampires are a fairy story, brother,” she chided.
Kennah shook his head and smoothed his beard. “I know! You get my point.”
She did. “Well, this brief respite didn’t last long, but their priest, Meric, he ran forward and dragged my bleeding godmother Lenda away. Brenten sprang into action then, drawing his own sword. See, my father always insisted each team member train with a weapon, for just such a situation. Brenten warded off a blow from falling on my still-reeling father as the golem came back to life, all evidence of blood vanished down its stony gullet. My father and the alchemist were parrying the creature’s blades, backing away as it advanced. It was hungry for more blood.”
“Why didn’t they retreat?”
“Lenda was wounded. At the end of the hall, in the direction they had come, was that sheer wall they had climbed—they had driven spikes into the stone, but Lenda couldn’t descend on her own. If they fled, they would have to abandon her.”
Kennah nodded. Syraeic brothers and sisters wouldn’t abandon one of their own while there was any hope left. “So, they stood their ground. They had to defeat it. But how? Their swords were useless.”
“Hah! It was my father who at last recognized a third choice. What do we know of the sorcery associated with golems?”
“That each has been gifted a spark of life by its creator, a fragment of the creator’s soul.”
“And?”
Kennah smiled for the first time since she had known the man, two rows of big white teeth peeking from his bushy beard. “And each carries the means of its own destruction. But what? You haven’t mentioned any features that might be its vulnerability.”
“Well, the clue came when my father stopped a blow so fierce it would have opened Brenten’s neck. The arc of the golem’s blade was deflected so that it chopped off the end of its own jaw, cut through it like a roasted Revival goose.”
“Its own weapon!”
“Yes! It was susceptible to the blades it wielded. About six inches of its long crocodile mouth were lopped off, though the thing didn’t behave as though it felt any injury. But this was how they could dispatch the thing. The question now was how to get control of one of its blades.”
“Disarm it. How could your father disarm it?”
Agnes stopped again to turn the hare so that it would cook evenly. She looked back up at her eager Syraeic brother, who was staring at her intently. “My father asked the same question of himself: ‘How can I disarm it?’ The weapons were one with its hands, carved from a single block of limestone.”
“Well?” asked Kennah, stopping short of tugging at his beard.
“The solvent,” she answered at last. “Brenten held the solvent in his left hand still, in a glass tube sealed with a rubber stopper, warding off the golem’s attacks with the sword in his right. Father dropped his own sword—”
“What?” Kennah was incredulous. The thought of a swordsman discarding his weapon in the middle of a fight was apparently a concept totally alien to the man.
“What he had in mind required two free hands. He dropped his weapon and snatched the solvent from Brenten with his left hand. With that same arm, he blocked the golem’s next blow, the thing’s wrist coming into contact with my father’s leather vambrace. With his right hand he grabbed the golem’s wrist, then brought the glass tube down on its stony hand.”
Kennah winced again. “The tube shattered and spilled out onto the golem’s hand as well as your father’s.”
“Yes. It ate at the limestone, as Brenten intended, and at Father’s hand. My father put all his weight on the golem’s arm then, and the hand snapped free, the blade with it. His left hand was screaming with pain as the acid ate away his skin, but his right held the golem’s sword. Awkwardly, of course. A sculpted crocodile’s fist doesn’t make a good grip for a blade.”
“All good gods, the pain must have been terrible. How did he even keep his hold on the golem’s weapon, let alone manage an attack?”
“I don’t know. Somehow, he did. But a single swing was all that was required: an upward arc that caught the thing in the left side of its neck—sliced clean through the stone as though it was the stem of a daisy. Decapitated in one blow. The golem collapsed in a heap, like so much cave-in rubble.”
Kennah, grinning, brought his hands together in a great clap. “Belu’s blue nightie, what a tale!”
Agnes felt a sort of giddy satisfaction at her Syraeic brother’s response to the story. It was a triumph of sorts, Kennah smiling at her.
As they ate, Agnes wrapped up the telling by detailing Meric the priest healing her father’s and Lenda’s grievous wounds, then described the great fortune they went on to discover in Myrgan’s crypt. Kennah had more questions and comments, shaking his head and grinning all along. By the time they were ready to turn in for the night, he pronounced both hare and story splendid.
In the morning, the two ate rock-hard biscuits and cheese from their packs before saddling their mounts. Agnes offered to carry Ruben’s body on her horse that day, but Kennah refused—he would be the one to take his friend all the way to Daurhim and back. There was no reason to argue with him.
Because the ambush and aftermath had slowed their progress, they rode through the next night so they might reach the village by the following morning. It was a cool summer night, after all, with a clear, star-blanketed sky, and the highway rolled over hills free of trees that might hide bandits or beasts. She slept in her saddle for an hour or so and Kennah later did the same. As the sun shone on their shoulders once more, peering up from the horizon behind them, they caught their first sight of stone towers. Agnes recognized it as the keep of Lady Hannah Dyre, Baroness of Daurhim and her father’s lover. Lady Hannah governed the little town from the small castle crowning the settlement’s highest hill.
“Looks like there’s been some sort of fire,” observed Kennah, pointing to the hazy gray sky in the west and the scattering remnants of a broad column of darker smoke illuminated by the rising sun.
Agnes stood in her stirrups and strained to see. “Too much smoke to be a funeral pyre.”
Kennah nodded. “And no one’s burning leaves and brush in midsummer.”
Agnes spurred her horse into a gallop, leaving behind Kennah with his heavier burden, anxiety rising in her breast, though she couldn’t say why. As she crested the next hill, she spied the source of the smoke: a familiar stone manor home set on a hill west of Dyrekeep was now a smoky ruin, its wooden roof consumed, the brickwork about its windows stained black with soot. The place must have burned down that very night, and even from this distance she knew it had been gutted by the blaze. She kicked her mount to speed it down that last hill.
The fire-scarred manse was her father’s home.
3
The Fire
Auric held an old black kettle brimming with stew that sloshed over its side. He served gathered diners one at a time, scooping portions from the kettle into their waiting bowls with a ladle made of a skeletal human arm, its bony hand cupped. The guests at the long, elaborately decorated table were seated in high-backed mahogany chairs, carved with images that suggested much, but blurred to nothing when he tried focusing on them. He ladled the stew into a bowl of bl
ack porcelain for his wife, Marta. She stared ahead, a slight smile on her face, her dark eyes empty, brown hair gathered in a bow, clad in the simple homespun clothes of the innkeeper’s daughter she was. The telltale burns of a rope encircled her neck, purpled and bruised.
His drunken father was seated next to her, a surly scowl on his florid face, wiry tufts of hair springing from his nostrils and ears, his tunic stained with the noxious stink of the beamhouse. Auric filled his father’s bleached white bowl to brimming with stew. Its surface had an oily sheen, with bits of feathers, bone, and what looked like the scales of a serpent.
Auric served his son Tomas, who was nothing more than a head and an absurd tangle of limbs embracing the wedge of Busker stone that had crushed the life from him. Tomas gave him an insanely cheery smile and wiggled his mangled limbs. Next were the bowls of Auric’s brutally slain Syraeic colleagues, Lenda, Brenten, Ursula, and Meric, as well as several other brothers and sisters killed in service of the League over the years. Gnaeus Valesen waved with his free hand, the other fused with his neck, fingers wrapped around his own throat. Belech Potts and Del Ogara were there, too, Del with an obscene yawning gash marring her tattooed neck, Belech showing the signs of his cruel strangulation by the monstrous avatar of a bloodthirsty god.
Auric’s faithful hound Margaret barked insistently in the distance, warning him of danger, an intruder, as he came upon the god. He had gutted the supposedly divine being with his sorcerous Djao sword, both literally and figuratively, but now the deity wore the pleasing guise of a beautiful, manicured aristocrat, unconcerned by the livid crimson stain on his white silk shirt. Auric refused to fill the dead god’s bowl, passing the bloody bastard by.
And then he was at the head of the table, where a dark-skinned old man whom he did not recognize was seated, a foreigner from the distant south. The man had a broad smile on his face, eyes black and full of wisdom, nodding slowly. In an instant Auric was uncomfortably warm. He looked down at the rich black velvet tunic he wore. The kettle and macabre serving spoon had vanished, the Djao sword Szaa’da’shaela in his hand instead. Tufts of smoke began peeling off his shirt, as though a fire burned within his chest. There was sudden pressure on his heart, and he heard more of Margaret’s insistent barking, closer now. The old man looked at him with eyes like polished coal, teeth as white as flawless marble, smiling wide, his skin wrinkled and thin. And this old man spoke to him, his voice a deep baritone, filled with authority, commanding obedience. He said: “You must wake, Auric Manteo.”
Margaret stood on his chest with her great paws, barking in Auric’s face. Fire engulfed the wood paneling of his bedchamber, spreading now to the curtains, the rugs, nipping hungrily at his bed’s canopy and linens. He felt sluggish, as though he were drunk. Margaret stopped her urgent barking and seized the collar of his bedclothes in her teeth, catching a bit of skin in the effort, and pulled. The shot of pain stirred Auric into action. He flung back the blanket covering him, swung his legs around and off the bed. Szaa’da’shaela, the Djao blade gifted him by the mad Duke of Kelse a year ago, was propped against his nightstand in its sheath. He grabbed hold of its leather scabbard and lurched toward the door. The flames were spreading to the heavy oak beams overhead. He breathed in a hot gust of smoke, and a choking cough overwhelmed him. After a moment, he staggered, gagging, to the bedchamber door.
Margaret was at his side, her barking done now that Auric was moving, replaced by a worried, imperative whine. He hesitated before the door, placing his palm against the wood. It was hot to the touch. Roaring fire blocked the second-story window, eliminating it as a possible egress. He turned back to the door and burned his hand on the brass handle when he reached out to grab it, recoiling with a curse. Tearing his nightshirt, he wrapped a hand in the cloth to shield him from the heat of the metal. Still painful to hold, he turned it to the left and gave it a push.
It wouldn’t budge.
Auric reached for the bolt but saw that it was unlocked. Was something blocking it on the other side? He was struck that moment with an urge to draw the sword. It was a foolish impulse—what good could the blade do him now? He held the sleeve of his nightshirt to his mouth and nose as the nerve-racking crackle of burning wood filled his ears like a swarm of insects. But through that noise he heard the insistent voice of Szaa’da’shaela, for the first time since he had been in the bowels of the Aching God’s sanctum, deep in the Barrowlands.
Draw me. Allow me to guide you.
Hearing the blade speak to him again elicited a new sort of fear Auric couldn’t name. Instead of obeying its words, he threw his shoulder into the door. The wood shuddered, cracked, but held.
Draw me, Auric.
He drew the sword from its sheath, unfurling its metallic gray, rune-etched length, then drove his weight against the door once again. This time the wood gave way, splintering and depositing Auric into the inferno that was the upper hall of his manse. The woodland scenes painted on the walls bubbled and cracked, the crossbeams on the ceiling were alight like logs in a campfire, and smoke obscured both ends of the corridor. His bedchamber was at the middle of the hall, with staircases at either end. If he went to the right, it would lead him to the front parlor and out of the manse; to the left, the kitchen and servants’ quarters, where Hanouer and Pala slept.
Hanouer and Pala.
Auric turned left and stumbled down the corridor, Margaret close on his heels, the heated air cooking his skin. He reached the staircase, thanking the gods it was made of stone, but the space was filled with smoke—the downstairs level was afire as well. He stood there a moment, coughing violently, his throat already raw and protesting. Every second was precious. Should he plunge down into that smoky gloom? Then he remembered the words the sword had spoken to him: Allow me to guide you.
Auric held the blade out before him, like a holy relic brandished to keep some demonic creature at bay. When he did so, the thickening smoke parted before him, as though recoiling in obsequious deference to the sword’s majesty. He descended the stone stairs, the smoke opening in front of him and closing again after he and Margaret had passed.
The sounds of fire were muffled when he reached the first floor, as though the flames were contained in a great malicious balloon above him. But if the fire was upstairs, why did smoke fill the hall? He turned right, toward the kitchen and back entrance, then corrected himself, turning left for his servants’ apartment. When he reached the door, he half-expected it would be barred like his own. But the brass handle, cold to the touch, turned with ease and Auric stepped into the room.
It was filled with smoke. As Auric moved forward he spied Hanouer and Pala, asleep in their canopied bed, appearing before him as Szaa’da’shaela miraculously parted the billowy clouds. Auric called out to them, but his two gray-haired servants lay still, taking short, unnatural breaths, hands folded over their breasts as though posed in their coffins. Auric arrived at the bedside and grabbed Hanouer by his nightshirt, shaking him with urgent violence.
“Wake up, you great bullock! The house is in flames!”
Hanouer remained unconscious, inhaling and exhaling short, woefully inadequate breaths, his eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids. Margaret leapt up on the bed and started barking over sleeping Pala, nipping at her fingers, but to no avail. Auric obeyed another odd impulse, placing the hand gripping the pommel of his Djao sword against Hanouer’s forehead. The man’s eyes shot open and he cried out.
“St. Malan preserve us!”
“Fire!” yelled Auric at the now conscious man. “We must flee, now!”
Hanouer’s eyes were wild and he began hacking painfully, his lungs laboring to expel the smoke they had inhaled. He turned to his still-sleeping wife, trying to shake her awake, his eyes brimming with tears.
“M’love, awake! Awake!”
Pala continued sleeping, her breaths short and rapid. Auric went around the bed to her and held the sword to her forehea
d, but it did not rouse her.
“We’ll have to carry her!” shouted Auric to Hanouer, who was shaking his wife without effect. Pala was a generously proportioned woman, plump and taller than both men. The two of them managed to get her out of the bed and carry her under her armpits to the door, but Auric discovered he needed to brandish Szaa’da’shaela before him to drive away the voluminous smoke so they could find their way forward and breathe. They made slow progress down the hall, with Auric leading the way, Hanouer dragging his wife, and Margaret taking the rear. They followed the smoke-filled corridor toward the kitchen.
Two gouts of fire burst forth from a pair of small holes that appeared in the wood panel to the right. Auric held the Djao blade before them and they receded, like the heads of fiery turtles retreating into their shells. Auric rushed forward again. He turned the corner into the kitchen and found a fire roared in the hearth there, as though fed by a mighty, inexhaustible fuel. The cabinets were engulfed in flames, the table and curtains as well. He heard an inhuman growl from the hearth and turned back to it. The flames curved and shimmered, forming a bestial face, like the head of an enormous jackal. Its fiery snout poked forth from the brick fireplace and opened its mouth, jagged teeth of fire, dancing tongue wagging, its throat a raging furnace.
Hanouer grunted and cursed as he tried to open the back door.
“Throw open the bloody bolt!” cried Auric as the unnatural beast emerged from the hearth, bits of fiery saliva spilling from its mouth and sizzling as they struck the kitchen’s stone floor. Auric risked a quick look back at his servant. Soot stained the old man’s face; he was showing the strain of dragging his plump wife through a burning house with smoke-tainted lungs.
