“I’ve forgiven you a long time ago.” Her voice was soft and serene as the snow falling outside the window.
“But how could you? How? What manner of mad, holy angel are you?”
“How could I not?” She looked down at him with her great gentle eyes of glass and smoke.
“But no, oh, do not forgive me! Never!” he ranted suddenly. “It is hell, my place is there, in the deep dark pit! From its bowels I will love you with my last breath, even as I burn, as I am twisted and torn and consumed with black flames and rent asunder, over and over unto eternity, for hurting you—”
“No, please stop!”
“I cannot—I cannot live anymore,” he said, his hand upon her mortal wound. “Not with what I’ve done to you. Life had ended when I put the dagger here—your life and mine.”
“I know,” she said, her gaze upon him never faltering. “And yet, my life had never been—not for that weak, sickly girl that I had been. I was dying inside, since birth, and you transformed me. For that alone, I can only love you, Vlau.”
“You . . . love me?” His breath had stilled to the point that now he too was like a dead man, motionless, fixed in the impossibility, looking up at her in hunger, in disbelieving wonder.
“Vlau,” she said. “My poor Vlau.”`
Chapter 6
Snow was falling.
It had continued falling all through the night and into a weak, pale overcast dawn. The protective wall of roaring flames that had been set to burning intentionally all around the city walls by the defenders of Letheburg, was being softly eroded and quenched by the gentle blanket of whiteness coming down from the sky. Lower and lower the fire-moat burned, sputtering and in places going out altogether.
The inferno had been the city’s main line of defense, keeping the onslaught of the dead at bay. And now they were about to lose its protection.
There was despair and chaos up on the battlements. In many places where the fires were particularly low on the ground below, the dead were now aggressively scaling the walls, and the living could hardly keep up with overturning their ladders, poles, and grappling hooks and casting them back down.
Making matters worse, Hoarfrost’s army had taken the few days of siege to erect and position towers and catapults. And now, the first heavy projectiles loaded with tar and pitch were being sent into the city, set on fire from the very flames readily burning in the defensive fiery moat around the walls. The fires they started on the outskirts of the city interior were now a new cause for distress, as the remote outer neighborhoods of Letheburg burned, wooden structures of the older houses going up in flames, while the more recent buildings of brick and stone holding up better but still charred and damaged. The only thing saving them from a major citywide fire was the same culprit that crippled their defensive firewall beyond the city walls—the falling snow.
King Roland Osenni was awakened from his troubled slumber, soon after first light, by his advisors informing him of the new disaster.
“Begging Pardon of Your Majesties, but what must be done?” they asked him as he lay abed next to his wife, Queen Lucia, and squinted at them.
The soul-weary King momentarily considered just pulling the bed canopy curtains around them, hiding under the warm softness of the royal bedcovers, and pretending none of this was taking place. Queen Lucia opened her eyes, groaned and listened in despair while her spouse was briefed on the ugly details—catapults firing, safety fires going out outside the city while new fires were springing up inside, and now—burning city blocks, in addition to a few new disappearing city blocks.
“And so, I am afraid we are not going to be able to hold them off much longer,” concluded one aged military advisor in an old-fashioned powdered wig and with a thick white brush mustache.
King Roland frowned, rubbed his forehead and held the bridge of his nose. Then he muttered in a sleep-weakened cracking voice. “Ah, what an abomination this is . . . this war, these endless dead, this everything! What do you suggest, Lord Granwell? What can we do?”
Lord Granwell bowed with a resigned expression. “The troops are on their last strength, even as they toil in shifts. Our resources, especially the flammable materials and kindling to keep the fires burning, are running out. Truthfully, there is very little that can be done, Your Majesty—”
“So what are you saying?”
“Regretfully, it appears very likely that Letheburg might not hold out much longer.”
The King felt a debilitating wave of cold in his abdomen. He sat up in the bed. “So soon . . .” he whispered. “Ah-h-h. . . . I had thought we would manage at least a few weeks, at least until some reinforcements arrived. Indeed, our dwindling food was my greater concern. How did this happen?”
“Well, Your Majesty, having the dead attacking ’round the clock was unprecedented, and no one could have prepared for such a peculiar manner of warfare narrowly limited to using ordinary fire as opposed to the more traditional artillery and flammables such as black powder and explosives.”
“There has to be something! Something more that can be done!”
“I am afraid, Your Majesty” Lord Granwell said carefully, biting his upper lip with its thick white mustache, “that the carrier birds sent to Goraque had prompted no reply. We might try sending again today, after the snow slows down—”
“Yes, yes, do it!”
“There is another thing, Your Majesty. There is a notion being discussed up on the battlements that the next step in our defense might be to employ sorcery and the more positive of the occult arts—in conjunction with common prayer, naturally, since I do believe the Archbishop will be saying a series of extended masses all throughout the day—”
“Grial!” Queen Lucia exclaimed suddenly, interrupting Lord Granwell. “Oh, we must send for Grial!”
“Oh Heaven, no! Not that nuisance of a woman!” the King muttered.
“Actually,” Granwell said in a diplomatic tone, “Your Majesty might be interested to know that this very same Grial person has been indeed seen up on the battlements every night—doing quite a bit of good for the soldiers, it must be added. They do seem to love her, Your Majesty, and a morale boost can work wonders to keep them going. Furthermore, it is rumored that she might indeed be up there doing more than just passing out pies and rolls, if one might venture to surmise—”
“That’s it, my dear, we must summon Grial immediately,” Queen Lucia persisted. “I know she can help! I am certain of it!”
The King sighed, untangled himself from the bedding, pulled up his long fine silk sleeping shirt up past his knees and started to get out of bed, while his valet rushed forward with the royal silk slippers. “Very well,” he said. “Lucia, my dear, I capitulate as always to your pleasure. Send for that ridiculous woman.”
Snow was falling.
Ebrai Fiomarre rode through the countryside, a dreary white landscape of uniform pallor and contrasting black shrubbery, with only occasional traces of a road underfoot. It was a deceptive serenity, he knew, for even now, underneath the snow they crawled, slowly and inevitably, the endless dead. . . . At times, like mushrooms breaking through cracked earth, the snowdrifts churned, and broken man-shapes would become visible. Limbs appeared, clawing bone-white hands, damaged torsos, heads barely recognizable as human, and there would be a transient flicker of color from bits of their coat fabric—pomegranate for the Trovadii, sienna brown for the Balmue, a scattering of tan and teal of Morphaea. . . . They came in the wake of the Sovereign’s main army, these pitiful and broken dead, some aimless, others single-minded and thus dangerous.
Did they even know where they were crawling, or why?
Ebrai steeled his heart and paid them minimal attention. Instead he drew his nondescript grey cloak and hood closer about him from the relentless ice-wind, and held on to the reins with his leather gauntlet. Although he wore no full suit of armor to draw less attention to himself, there was a fine chain mail hauberk underneath his plain unmarked surcoat, and beneath i
t a thick warm gambeson. And attached at his waist was a discreet and compact sword.
For the moment he rode a sturdy grey gelding that he had procured from his Imperial contacts just outside Silver Court, after a hurried exchange of intelligence and a change of horses.
He had been moving carefully in the wake of the Trovadii Army, keeping just half a day behind their progress through devastated Morphaea and now Lethe. As soon as the Sovereign and her armies had swept past Silver Court, he made his rendezvous a mile outside the citadel walls in a small cabin surrounded by sparse forest and knee-deep snowdrifts. Here he was told to continue executing his directive, which at present meant following the Sovereign’s original command to find the village girl from Oarclaven, and use this as the means to maintain his proximity to Rumanar Avalais.
“It is Our Will,” the Emperor’s words were conveyed to him, “that you seek the opportunity to find the Sovereign’s greatest weakness and vulnerability, if such exists, and to use it to our immediate advantage. There is no longer any necessity to bide your time. When the first opportunity arises, you must act upon it.”
Ebrai understood very well what this meant. He was to destroy the Sovereign. Before the Event of death’s cessation it would have meant a simple solution—assassination. But now that there was no death, things had become exceedingly complex.
Ebrai had fewer clean options remaining. Capture and isolation of Her Brilliance in a remote and secret prison cell where she could be left to rot in anonymity was the least distasteful, and also the least likely possibility. Had it been anyone else—anyone a bit more ordinary, more human, and less tainted with something he was certain now was dark sorcery—then he would have started making plans for capture and abduction and come up with a solid method long before he even caught up with the Trovadii.
But now—now, Ebrai was at a loss. He rode, thinking grimly on the fact of the Sovereign’s undeniable charismatic effect upon all those who served her—including himself. In her presence, the loss of personal will was astounding. . . . One look from her, an almost tangible caress of her blue-eyed gaze, and Ebrai had to make a superhuman effort to keep himself in control and retain focus of his true secret mission. To capture the Sovereign would have been an extraordinary effort considering the loyalty of her men, but at least it was a remote possibility. However, to keep her held and contained after the fact would have been impossible. Ebrai imagined numerous scenarios where the Sovereign seduced her guards, both male and female, with a look or a voice, bribed them with a smile, and consequently all doors were opened before her.
No, there was no way to hold and keep her, he finally admitted to himself.
The ugly options remained. Taking her captive and immediately cutting off her limbs, beheading and separating parts of her flesh in separate locations. Burning her body until it was no longer recognizable as such. . . . Or else, drugging her and keeping her thus unconscious round the clock—but here again, the charismatic effect of her as the innocent victim might cause her guards to become attached, sympathetic, and then become lax. And then her dose of drugs would be tapered off, reduced intentionally or not, and one day she would make her escape. . . . Finally, there was the option of breaking her mind—driving her to insanity with privation and torture. . . .
The more Ebrai thought, the more horrified he became. Not only were the solutions gruesome and morally reprehensible, but there was also the very strong probability that whatever method was ultimately used by him in the name of the Imperial Crown of the Realm, it would create a martyr.
There had to be another way. . . .
And Ebrai suddenly had a sharp stroke of inspiration. The girl from Oarclaven! The one who supposedly could send the dead to their final rest! All he had to do was continue his mission, find her, then tell her the truth and convince her to play along while he took her with him before the Sovereign. There, he would strike Rumanar Avalais a killing blow, and the girl would simply finish her off by performing whatever miracles necessary in order to send the Sovereign off to the devil below, once and for all.
Such a marvelous solution it was to their problem that Ebrai felt better for the first time in what felt like months and years of his clandestine post and service ordeal.
Of course the supremely difficult details were still to be worked out, and carrying out this operation together with some untrained village girl was going to be a challenge, but it was the best option before him.
Ebrai exhaled a sigh of relief and gripped the reins with more confidence than he had in months.
As he rode across what might have been a small ravine, emerging carefully on the rise, past occasional crawling shapes of the broken dead, he saw before him a definite road.
And across from it, only about fifty feet away was a camped army, consisting of at least several hundred men, infantry and a company of mounted knights. They had made no fires and were near-silent, snow falling upon them as they sat in clumps, apparently taking a small rest in their march to chew dried meat and bread, and thus there was no warning to be had.
Ebrai slowed, pulling up his horse, his mind racing swiftly, but he was completely in plain view, and there was no avoiding it.
Fortunately, he also saw their banners, red-and-gold, with a familiar crest of Goraque. These were men of Lethe, and he had nothing to fear as long as he acted forthright.
“You! Halt!” A nearby soldier guard had seen him and challenged his approach. Heads turned, and a few seated men sprang for their weapons.
Ebrai calmly raised one arm in greeting, keeping the other visibly on the reins, and spoke in a loud measured baritone. “Peace be with you, soldiers of Goraque! I am alone and I am on your side.”
“Who are you?” said one dark bearded knight, immediately approaching on foot, his iron-plated boots sinking in the snow. “Quickly, your name!”
“My name is of no consequence,” Ebrai replied. “However, my mission on behalf of the Emperor is. I am headed to Oarclaven—”
“Why should we believe you if you refuse to give your name?” The knight had stopped across the road from him, and folded his arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Ebrai simply pointed to the ground near the knight’s feet, where an arm suddenly emerged out of a snowdrift.
“There’s a dead man crawling at your feet, about to pull you down. You may choose not to believe me. Or you might want to back away—”
“Ah, merde!” the knight stepped back, while a few foot soldiers approached, carrying long pikes, and they unceremoniously prodded the corpse away with the sharp ends.
“These damn things keep coming up and they are everywhere,” muttered the knight, wiping snowflakes from his nose and beard and watching his men deal with the dead man. However his stern expression loosened and he nodded at Ebrai. “If you’re really on our side and have useful news from the Emperor, the Duke will want to see you.”
“By all means.” Ebrai nodded in turn. He then directed the gelding to cross the road toward the knight and soldiers. The horse snorted in displeasure, shook its head, scattering the fresh snow powder frosting its mane, and carefully stepped around the spot with the floundering corpse and the pikemen.
“By the way,” said the knight tiredly, starting to walk alongside Ebrai and his mount. “If you must know, there is no more Oarclaven. For that matter, most of Goraque is gone too, up north, and to the east especially. There’s nothing there; hardly any of our land left before the foreign border begins. You can now see the Valley of the Rhine, they say, and the Holy Roman Empire. . . .”
Ebrai took a deep breath, exhaled, once more feeling the compounding weight of the new complications. Following the walking knight, he slowly rode through the spare camp, greeted by halfway indifferent stares of the Goraque soldiers.
The knight was talkative. “We’re making our way toward Letheburg now, collecting reinforcements, and whoever you are, you might consider joining us. The city is under siege, and we are told the Sovereign’s armies are headed
that way. Indeed, we watched them pass only hours ago, as we lay low in hiding, in the forest just a few miles back.”
“I’ve been following the Trovadii, yes,” Ebrai responded. “They swept past Silver Court and did not stop. They are moving north.”
“I am sure His Grace the Duke Vitalio Goraque will be curious to hear all this and anything else you have to say.”
“I have no doubt. . . .” Ebrai spoke, looking up at the sky, for in that moment the overcast thickened and the flakes sped downward in thick flurries.
“Aye, it’s really coming down now,” muttered the knight, seeing the direction of Ebrai’s gaze. “Just our luck.”
Snow was falling.
Great big flakes swirled, blanketing Rollins Way, on the other side of the glass window and past the bright chintz curtains of the cheerful parlor of Grial’s house.
Hecate, also known as Grial, sat in a wooden rocking chair with her back to the window, looking as mundane and human as she had been for so long that it had almost become a habit. Even her frizzy hair was back, and her dingy patchwork housedress with it grease-stained apron. Only her eyes were different, darker than black, filled indeed with the weight of immortality.
“Well, girlies,” she said to the room full of very attentive, truly mesmerized girls who were attending her every word, and in some cases still shaking in residual holy terror. “In about ten minutes, there will be a knock on the front door. I am about to be summoned to see the King in the Winter Palace, so I am going to pop on over there right now to save everyone some precious time. Time is in very short order, dumplings, so there’s simply no excuse to waste it, not even to let nature run its temporal course.”
“Oh, goodness, yes, Your Divine Grace—that is, Your Sacredness, o Great Goddess Hecate—” began Lizabette, stammering and sitting very primly on the sofa with her feet together and her back straight.
“Now, now, phooey,” said Hecate. “I told you to stop that nonsense. I am still Grial as far as all of you are concerned. ‘Grial’ is a perfectly lovely name, and it is definitely one of my names, so please, do be kind enough to use it. Now then, there’s the big kettle of potato soup still not done boiling and needing a few chunks of Gorgonzola to be stirred in toward the end, so please be on the lookout for it, Marie. And Catrine, have yourself and Niosta a few apple tarts from the pantry, top right shelf, but don’t touch the one just below it—oh, might as well bring the whole platter out for all of you to have while I’m gone. Faeline, be a dear and stop hyperventilating, that’s it, just remember what I told you, breathe through the right nostril, then the left, and count to ten. . . .”