Edge of Darkness ~ A Darkness & Light Novel Book Three (3 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

"Come now, small one, don't be stubborn."

Grumnlin folded his arms across his chest and turned his back on the nightshade. Having spent two passes of the silver face with them, he could tell most of them apart. This one he called Skitterbug, because she darted about like the long-legged insects that skated on the open pools of water in his beloved swamp.

"I only want to see it. To look at it. Not to touch it. Just to look."

Grumnlin waved his hands in the air as though batting away midges. "Go away."

"I could take it from you."

"Pretty Witch give to me to hold."

"Yes. So she could find her way back. Certainly. Back to us. To here. Where does she walk? Bring her forth."

Grumnlin gave a startled screech and stumbled backwards as Skitterbug thrust her head towards his, the blackness beneath her cowl showed nothing but deep dark. He landed on his backside, scowling as the nightshade twirled above him, her laughter rippling across the grasslands.

"Show me, small one. Show me what will bring home she who calls us. She who walks with us. Our mistress. Our sister. Show me."

Skitterbug dropped back to the ground, landing lightly beside Grumnlin. She held out a hand, waggling long, delicate fingers at him. Grumnlin propped himself up on his elbows and glowered. He reached into a pocket on his vest, fingers feeling past the crumbs of some forgotten snack, a small scrap of parchment, a stick -- stopped on the smooth, curved surface of the trinket Pretty Witch had given him.

Lights danced beneath Skitterbug's cowl where eager eyes might have been. "Bring it forth. Show it to the dark. Show it to the night. Show it to me. I won't touch. I want only to see."

Grumnlin wrapped the trinket in his fingers and drew his hand slowly from the pocket as he got to his feet. He pulled his knife with his other hand, for what good it was against nightshades.

"Mine to keep," he said. "Not for skittery shades."

"Not for me. Not for my sisters. Let us see."

Skitterbug's hands hovered close to Grumnlin's clenched fist, waiting for him to uncurl his fingers and show her the treasure. He'd kept it hidden until it slipped from his pocket one night when the twining grasses of Barrowdown wrapped about his feet and spilled him to the ground.

Grasses. Grumnlin hated grasses. Long and tall, sharp-edged, whispering and hissing in the barest of winds, telling stories he couldn't understand. No tall trees. No hanging moss. Breezes that smelled clean and empty.

"Pretty Witch tell me to hold and keep," he said and poked his knife toward Skitterbug in warning. "Me."

"Yes. Yes." The nightshade's voice held an irritated note. "Come, small one, games are done. The night grows long. Sisters call me to dance among the wraiths. The silver one is deep asleep, her eyes closed to all we do. Show me."

Grumnlin chewed at his mustache but slowly opened his hand. Skitterbug lowered her head. Her fingers moved in random patterns above his palm and the trinket laying there.

"A shell? Some creature's discarded home? A frail and translucent bone, wound about itself, scattered with color?" The cowl shifted. "The mistress gave this thing to you? To hold? What words did she give with it?"

"No words."

"Lies."

"No words." Grumnlin's voice cracked. He put his knife away and drew a symbol in the air using the stubby forefinger of his right hand. "This."

"Again," Skitterbug said, her voice eager.

Grumnlin repeated the gesture and, this time, Skitterbug mimicked his moves.

"Sisters." She leapt skyward, twirling, arms spread wide. "Sisters, attend me. The secret is revealed. Our hope is renewed."

Grumnlin backed away, fingers securing his treasure in a tight yet gentle grip, his eyes wide. Above him, against the inky black of the sky, darker figures rushed like ragged storm clouds blown by the wind, spinning and dancing against the stars. They darted down to swarm around him, and the grasses swayed and bent in their wake.

Skitterbug gripped Grumnlin's wrist. "Show the sisters. Show us all. Time is here. Night is full as the mother with a babe now to birth. The dark face blesses us. Show the sisters."

"Show the sisters," said another. Then another. Until they all chanted the words with one voice.

Grumnlin clapped his free hand over his ear. He turned one way and then another, but Skitterbug held firm to his wrist, strong, dark fingers digging into his flesh. "Let go. Let go. Pretty Witch say--"

"Lady of the shadows."

"Sister of the nightshades."

"Mistress of the wraiths."

"Show us. Bring her forth."

"No!" Grumnlin screeched, and tugged against Skitterbug's hold. Other hands groped at him, clung to his clothing, tugged at his hair, held him firm and still. His screech turned whimper. "No do."

Skitterbug stroked the side of his face, her touch frigid as ice. "Hush, small one. Still your thoughts. Time to call she who called us."

"She who walks with us."

"She who guides the dark."

"She who is the dark."

"Show us."

Grumnlin stared into the depths of the cowl before him, the glittering points of light within holding him transfixed. He opened his hand, trembling, his heart lurching against his chest in chaotic bursts.

"Draw the shape. Show the sisters. All shall make the sigil and the deep will open."

"Pretty Witch will come?" Grumnlin asked.

"Time to call her."

"Call her."

"Call her."

"Mistress of the nightshades."

"Call her home."

Grumnlin's arm felt heavy as he lifted it. His finger moved through the air, drawing the symbol Pretty Witch taught him on their last walk in the swamp. She'd caught him a toadie, whispered see-crets to him, told him where to go. She held his hand and together they traced the symbol over and over before she hid it within the snail's shell and told him to keep it safe. Then, she placed a kiss on his lips and left him. Left him to go kill Lady and leave with Lor-del-ing.

Grumnlin sniffed. Tears trickled down his cheeks, winding through the hairs of his beard. Around him the nightshades began to mirror his finger's motion. Over and over they drew it, and the air became thick with many of the same symbol.

"The words now," Skitterbug said. "There were words. Whispered. Told in secret. Held in memory."

"No words," Grumnlin said.

Another nightshade, Iron Claws, replaced Skitterbug in front of him and gripped his chin tight, jerking his face to the emptiness of hers.

"The words are here." A sharp-nailed finger pressed against Grumnlin's brow. "I shall find them. We shall claim them. All will say them."

"All will say them."

"Claim them."

"Call her."

"Call her home."

"No words." Grumnlin twisted but couldn't break free. Iron Claws tightened her hold, lowered her head to be level with his, and placed the edges of her cowl around his face. Grumnlin stiffened, eyes widening, though he could see not even the hint of a shape where her face might have been. Sweat ran down his back, chill against his skin. Grumnlin shivered as the cold of earth seeped through him.

Memories tumbled in his head, and Iron Claws dug through them like a swamp hound picking through bones, tossing them aside until she found the one she wanted.

Pretty Witch knelt before him in the depths of the swamp, and placed her lips against his.

"You are free of him," she whispered. "Now you must hold something for me until I have need of it."

Once again her mouth covered his. Her tongue forced his lips to part. Her breath filled him, stole his own. Ancient words full of power teased along his skin and wound like vines through his skull.

"Yessssss," Iron Claws said, releasing Grumnlin and rising back into the air. "The words, sisters. Now call her. Call her home."

Grumnlin collapsed, trembling. The nightshades spiraled upwards, the symbols they had drawn swirled around them, blurring behind the tears streaming from Grumnlin's eyes. Their voice consumed the night as they recited the words Iron Claws had found in his memories. The grasses for once ceased their slithering chatter. No insects called. No night birds trilled. Not a sound reached Grumnlin's ears save for the chanting of the nightshades now far above him.

The sky, already dark, became smothered in blackness. Even the stars didn't dare show their faces. They hid behind the surge of power Grumnlin could feel in his bones as it drew near. He curled into a ball and hid his face, whimpering, as terror reached up through the ground and closed around him. Snot bubbled from his nose and he hugged himself tightly. The nightshade's collective voice filled his head. He clenched his fist and the delicate shell within his palm shattered, the tiny shards piercing his skin as he squeezed them into dust.

A soft wail rose from somewhere far distant and the nightshades added their own. Grumnlin's howl rose unbidden from his throat to join in. When he thought he could no longer bear it, the cacophony ceased. A gentle hand touched his shoulder.

"Rise, Grumnlin. Come and walk with me. I have missed you, little man."

CHAPTER SIX

Donovan drifted in a sea of black, nothing more than disembodied consciousness. It was not the lack of a physical form that unsettled him, but his inability to gather his power, even though he could sense it swirling about him.

His carefully laid plans had turned sour. The Imperial Mages, so sure of their power, so superior in their own minds, proved weak. Even the priestess had failed him and, in the end, the crone's power that had come to him after the battle in the swamp, betrayed him. Throwing himself from Nisair's wall and scattering his essence to the ethereal wind may have been rash, but the alternative would have been death at the hands of inferior enemies, so he judged it worth the risk.

Voices chattered around him, drawing Donovan from his musing. He had never been one to visit the realm of memory. He committed far too many atrocities over the course of his years to waste time revisiting any of them. Were he the type of man given over to regret, such a thing would have driven him to madness. The creatures surrounding him now, however, seemed intent on delving into every tiny crevice of his life since the moment of his conception.

The boy they showed him, growing up the product of doting parents, bore little resemblance to the man he would become.
That
boy lacked ambition. At six years of age, he had not yet felt the power growing in him. His privileged existence made him soft. That boy, the son of a Lord of the Empire, saw in his future a lifetime of devotion to the Mother Goddess. He would follow in his father's stead, taking over the family estates upon the old man's death. He would find a wife and raise a family, living and dying within a handful of decades, and leaving nothing behind but land and titles.

That
boy would die before reaching the age of maturity. His love for the Goddess would turn sour. His parent's codling would rankle. Within him, the power of the Ancients found seed and took root.

Still, he could have used his gift for the goodness of man. He could have put himself into the service of the Emperor, perhaps sat on the Council of Mages.

"Such a rare gift,"
his mother had said to that boy. Her pride glowed in the softness of her eyes, in the gentleness of her hand brushing the hair back from his face.
"The Goddess has truly blessed you." 

Donovan laughed aloud at the memory, and the cold, harsh sound set the creatures around him to chattering.

"She turned from you," the voices hissed, the sound of them slithering around him as though caught on the wind and tossed from one point to another. "The Goddess would not have you."

A flash of anger knifed through Donovan. The creatures followed it and pulled that memory from the others to hold before him.

"I am meant for bigger things,"
that boy said to his mother.

"What bigger thing is there than service to the Goddess?"
his mother asked, her hand trailing along his cheek. She loved her son. Her only child. The jewel of her life. The answer to her dreams, and her hope for the future.

"Does the Goddess love me?"
that boy asked.

"Without a doubt,"
his mother answered.
"The Goddess loves all her children."

"Then I will sit at her side."

"She turned from you," the voices whispered.

That boy's mother smiled, an expression of such adoration and tenderness that, for a moment, it softened the hardness growing around his heart.
"You will sit at the Goddess's feet--"

"I will be no one's servant."
That boy had his father's pride.

His mother's smile faltered at the edges.

"If the Goddess truly loves me, I will sit by her side, and if not, I will sit in her place."

That boy never saw his mother smile the same way again.

"The Goddess would not have you," the voices taunted
.

"Her mistake," Donovan said, and though he tried to deny it, bitterness touched his words.

He
had
loved the Goddess. As that boy, he had adored her and worshipped her. When he grew older, he yearned for her with the hunger of a man for a woman. When he felt the first tingling of his power, he thought it a gift from her, and would have laid it at her feet. Pride he inherited from his father, along with lands and title. It rankled him to see his father bend knee to the Emperor. Why should he? Birth and privilege alone separated his father from the Emperor.

And power.

The Emperor wielded more than even the Imperial Mages. The boy's father wielded none at all. Strength of arms, riches, command of men, none of that mattered. Physical power paled in comparison to what could be found in the ethereal.

Gift of the Goddess? Perhaps. But one should be cautious to whom they bestowed their gifts.

"I will see her fall."

***

Donovan startled. He had been become unaware for a time, which, he supposed, passed for sleep in the vast nothingness he currently inhabited. He found it easier to ignore the creatures that surrounded him, to accept their endless obsession with his past. He had no aches here. No wants. He felt neither hot nor cold, no more so than he suffered hunger pains or thirst. He merely existed. A plaything for whatever held him.

There had been pain. The Dominion priestess had once called the crone's power a curse, and so it had proven itself to be. Its sharp tines had dug into Donovan's consciousness with a ferocity that spoke of desperation, as though, even in death, the crone sought to destroy him. He tried to capture all the fragments of it, along with the scattered bits of his own self. Both futile tasks. Pain and anger slammed him between them for a time, and Donovan fought both.

With no concept of time, he drifted, fighting a battle he could not win until forced to concede the point. He gave acceptance grudgingly. He lived. Or, at the very least, he existed. That meant, even now, the chance of vengeance on his enemies remained within his grasp.

A gentle hand brushed the hair from his face. No, the boy's face, the boy he had been, because the creatures surrounding him were still intent on digging through the past.

"Must we?" Donovan asked.

"A mother's love could not save you," the voices said. "Love for the Goddess destroyed you."

"Destroyed me? No. Say rather, created me. Her greatest accomplishment had she the wits to see it."

"She turned from you. Shunned you."

Donovan sighed. "I am weary of your chatter. What is it you hope to achieve?"

"Your father is dead,"
that boy's mother told him in a voice shaking with loss and a touch of fear. Uncertainty, perhaps, for her future. For the boy's future.

"I know."
The boy showed little emotion. A single tear to mark the passing of a man who had denied his son nothing, yet left him only material wealth and position. He shed the tear, not so much from grief, as from disappointment. He had deserved a father more befitting what he would become. He should have been born the son of the Emperor.

Would the Goddess have looked more kindly on him then? Would she have accepted him at her side? Looked on him as an equal instead of a fawning sycophant?

"You desire her still."

"Desire is a base and worthless emotion," Donovan said. "A weakness to be exploited by one's enemies."

"You desire power."

"I seek power."

"You desire her."

"Perhaps once. Now? I would sooner see her stretched across the veil, laid open to her enemies and devoured."

"As I would seek the same for you."

Donovan recognized this woman's voice instantly. He thought never to hear it again, though he felt no great surprise. It was likely no more than an illusion, just like his mother's voice. Another attempt at torment by his captors. It would not shock him to hear the crone's next.

A hand trailed across his chest and Donovan flinched. A moment later, the realization he once again had a body overrode all other thoughts. The elation of that discovery vanished with the first beat of his heart, because with the return of his physical form came touch, sensation, thirst, hunger, and pain. A great deal of pain.

Donovan clenched his teeth against the onslaught. Legs, unused to bearing weight, collapsed beneath him and he fell, shivering, arms wrapped tightly around himself. Torrent after torrent of agony drenched him in sweat, left his chest heaving, his throat raw from the screams that tore through him despite his best efforts at keeping them locked behind clenched teeth. It may have lasted only a moment, or perhaps an eternity, and it left him drained.

Light pierced his skull, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for it to dull before peering out through barely parted lashes. From his vantage point, he could see only bare feet. He did not need to see more than that.

"Did you think to so easily escape me?" The priestess lowered herself, multi-colored skirts flaring out around her as she squatted and tipped her head down to look at him with violet eyes. She had not changed from the first time Donovan had laid eyes on her in the hovel in the swamp.

"You…are dead," he said through chattering teeth.

"No more dead than you," she said. "It appears, however, our positions have been reversed."

"This is…illusion."

"This" --she pinched the skin of his arm-- "is illusion. You are not. I am not. I" --she gripped his chin and forced his face around-- "am your nightmares."

Donovan laughed despite it all. "I do not have nightmares, Priestess."

Her lips curved into the expression of a wolf eyeing its prey. "You will now."