Elisha Magus (7 page)

“
He withered the king and turned weapons to rust! If he’s not a necromancer I don’t know what is.
”

“
Even if he isn’t we cannot afford to have the king’s murderer on our side. Sorry,
”
said Thyme.

“
He’s not one of them, he’s one of us,
”
whispered Chanterelle
.

“
What was that?
”
Watercress demanded.
“
Speak up, child.
”

“He’s one of us, the
indivisi
,”
she said, but no louder than before.

“
He’s an accursed necromancer!
”

Foxglove broke in at a shout, “
I told you, there aren’t any necromancers. They’re just a story told to frighten people. Just believing in them gives our enemies power to suppress us.
”

“
I wasn’t sure there were
indivisi
either,
”
Thyme said,
“
and now we seem to have one.
”

“
The mancers’re real,
”
said Chanterelle.
“
And so close by. I’ve heard them in the earth.
” Her voice grew a little louder. “
Do you feel that?
”

Elisha spread his awareness around him, catching the edge of fear in Chanterelle’s presence. He had not fully attuned himself to the place and started to do so now, sending his awareness into the earth and air, reaching out with his other senses to the darkness. The sun had nearly gone, but moonlight fell around him, turning the scene from gold to silver. The air remained warm, the water chill, but there was a cold beneath the cold, a force that did not flow like water. “
Yes,
” he answered her. “
I feel it
.”

In an instant, she was gone, her presence lifted from the water. With his senses fully alert, Elisha heard a rustle across the water, wide though it was. He rose in time to see a figure spring up from the water’s edge. Slight and long haired, the figure ran through the reeds over the rocky verge to the grass and dove into the earth. It swallowed her up with a tiny spit of dirt, just as a splash of water marked a cormorant’s dive.

“
Just as well she’s left,
” said Watercress. “
The
indivisi
are all mad, every one of them.”

“
It comes of too much knowledge. They devote themselves to one thing so thoroughly they can’t relate to anything else,
” Foxglove replied.

“
But that’s not what we came to talk about,
” Briarrose began.

“
She’s not mad,
” Elisha cut in, “
she’s frightened. Didn’t you feel it? It was like … like an eel slipping through the water to find her.
”

“
Maybe he really is one of them,
” Thyme said.

Then a shriek shot through mud and water, jolting from Elisha’s soles to the crown of his head. He cried out in echo.

From the bank above, Rosalynn’s voice called, “Elisha? Are you hurt?”

He shook himself, casting off the sense of the other’s terror and searching the darkening shore for any sign of her. She seemed to have vanished into the dirt, but how far could she go? Something glimmered—a torch in the hand of a thick figure hard to distinguish from the shadowy trees at its back. The torch dropped as the figure moved away into the trees. Smoke furled upward from a dozen places in the earth, then flickering cracks of flame crept across the heath beyond. That dark figure had set the very ground on fire, kindling the peat which might burn for weeks. Orange and crimson flames worked their way inward from all directions, converging like hunting hounds, tiny flames, but quick and driven. A woman hid beneath that earth, but her enemy was already upon her.

E
lisha splashed into the water,
but it was quickly up to his thighs and pulling hard against him. Damn it! Chanterelle was trapped, might already be burning, and he was helpless.

“Elisha!” Rosalynn stumbled to shore, breathless. “What’s going on? What are you doing out there and why did you cry out like that?”

“A woman’s in trouble—over there!” He jabbed his finger toward the opposite shore. “Where’s the bridge?” He spun about in an arc of water, but Rosalynn caught his hand.

“This way!”

Aside from a few buildings further on, he saw nothing to span the water. “There’s no—”

“This way,” she insisted, tugging at him. “There is no bridge, not for miles. There’s a ferryboat.” Rosalynn pulled and Elisha ran after until they ran together along the bank.

The cottage door stood open when they got there, an old man peering into the twilight, his own fire in the hearth behind him. “What’s on? Thought I heard a scream, I did.”

“There’s someone in trouble on the opposite shore,” Elisha told him. “We need to cross.”

“No night crossings,” the man said stiffly and started to pull the door shut.

“We’ll pay double,” Rosalynn announced. “I’m Lady Rosalynn of Dunbury. We need that crossing, right now.”

He looked her up and down, then stepped out and preceded them around the cottage to a dock at the waterside, only to stop again and peer across the water. “Looks like smoke. Peat fire, eh.”

Elisha steeled himself for another refusal, but the man went on, “Just you stay on the river path when you get across, eh?”

“Yes!” They scrambled into the boat, and the old man cast off, setting his hands to the oars. Elisha leaned out from the bow, willing the boat to hurry. He searched for some way to use his power to speed their passage, some way that wouldn’t result in a wreck. He doubted Rosalynn could swim any more than he.

“Do you know, I have a cousin whose keep guards a ferry crossing, and he got quite close with the ferryman,” Rosalynn said suddenly. “The fellow had to quit when he got older, of course, he couldn’t really pull as strongly then, could he? But we used to have the most fun visiting and seeing just how fast he could get us across the lake, my brothers and me. And I’m sure he wasn’t as strong as you.”

She leaned earnestly toward the ferryman. Elisha couldn’t see the man’s face, but he noted the tightening of his neck and the quickening of his strokes. Rosalynn’s admiring chatter undertook to inspire the man, and Elisha nearly smiled. He clung to the edges of the boat as it swayed with wind, water, the pressure of the oars. So quickly, the movement made him queasy, and he clamped his jaw against the roiling of his stomach. The shore grew closer, the flames still low and fierce, crackling through the earth, weaving back and forth. Smoke carried toward them on the breeze, then away.

When they were a few feet off the dock, Elisha leapt from the boat into waist-deep water and ran, his feet slithering over muck and submerged stone.

“Here, you!” The ferryman called. “Mind the peat! It’ll be burning below, where you can’t even see. Your man’s gone off his course, he has,” he added to Rosalynn.

“Never you mind,” she replied stiffly. “You may go once I’m ashore.”

Their voices fell lower, then splashing followed by the creak of oars told of the ferryman’s retreat into the gathering darkness. Elisha ignored them and ran for the burning earth. Several acres between the reeds and the forest edge crackled with heat and shifting smoke. He gasped and coughed hard, doubled over.

“Elisha?” A gentle hand caught his shoulder. “I don’t see anyone.”

“She’s here,” he gulped. “I have to find her.” He spread his awareness, this time reaching deep into dirt. He had a little knowledge, thanks to the farm where he was raised, but it still felt like breaking untilled soil with his fingers. Then his spreading senses reached the edge of the peat. The deposit was dense and crumbled, layer on layer of moss and bog myrtle compressed, dry from the growing heat, most of it already smoldering. It throbbed with fear and pressure, and presence, more than one. Old and new. He tried to call to her, but his voice could not pass. The twisting mass of earth defied him. Already sweat streamed down his face from the heat, and his lips felt dry. He searched the area with his eyes and found no sign. His hands and knees grew hot, and his wet clothing dried in seconds. The fear that thrummed beneath him grew to terror. He drew breath in gulps of smoke that seared his throat. He had only moments left before he could stand it no longer.

“Elisha?” Rosalynn kneaded his shoulder. “There’s nobody here.”

Summoning. If he could not get to her, he could bring her to him. He pulled out his talisman, a strip of cloth given by a friend, used to bind the wound of another. Gripping it in his fist, Elisha called out again through his awareness. In the strength of the memories it carried, the talisman resonated with his power. If his senses were right, there was more than one presence in the earth. Chanterelle and her enemies? But the land was a confusing mix of cold and heat, dead and living, and he could not tell where she was or who the others might be. It was as if the other presences screened her from him. Even if he could not hold them, he might force them to be seen. “Whoever you are, I call you to rise,” Elisha growled to the earth. “Come to me,” he whispered. “If you be willing, come to me.”

Willingness was key. If Chanterelle were reaching back, she could break free, but if she denied him, he could do nothing to touch her. The confounded peat gave him contact: her need must do the rest. The power rushed through him, redoubling with his talisman, and he pushed it out through his hands and feet into the earth all around him, trembling with it, shaping the urge to reach the surface.

Rosalynn’s fingers dug into his shoulder, and she started screaming. Elisha raised his head and started back against her legs, her arms wrapping him as she, too, dropped to her knees, her scream rebounding in his ears.

The peat before them bubbled and broke, and a body emerged, tumbling dirt to lie on the surface as if it had just fallen in a dreadful war. Crushed sideways, its ancient face stared at them with empty eyes beneath a ragged drape of hair. Brown, withered skin wrapped the twisted limbs, and a leg dragged behind, shards of bone rattling free.

Another emerged beyond that, a fragmented torso, with hands bound fast by sinew across a broken chest.

Elisha forced himself to stare. As each body broke the surface, he shed his contact with it, abandoning them to the flames as quickly as he knew what they were. An arm here, a skull there, a leather shoe still clasped around a foot.

A body broke the surface with a moan, and Elisha sprang up, shaking off the sobbing Rosalynn. He shattered his contact, snatching back his spell as he sprinted over the burning ground, leaping the remains that spread about his feet. A woman—a girl, really—writhed before him, flames streaking toward her. Elisha swept her up, and she wailed as he touched her burned skin.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said as much as sent into her. The forest edge was nearer now than going back and he ran for it, his feet sizzling with every touch of the ground. Her trailing hair sparked as a flame leapt nearby. He spun away from it, stumbling, and fetched up against a low stone. Digging his arms and elbows and toes against the rock, he pushed them both up, dragging his feet as far as he could from the burning ground, coughing hard over the girl. He let her roll onto her side on the stone, scrabbling up beside her as soon as the coughing subsided. Even then, his lungs and throat felt raw, and his muscles shivered.

“Elisha!” Rosalynn wailed from across the cackling flames.

“My lady! I need your skirts. Wet—and hurry!” He shifted position, crawling around Chanterelle until he could get a better sense of her injuries. Thankfully, though she was singed all over, she had few bad burns. She must have been aware enough to protect herself, at least for a time.

“Elisha.” More like a whimper this time. “There’s dead men. Burning.”

Elisha had nearly been one of them. Evidently, Rosalynn wasn’t coming. He had to find a different way to soothe the girl’s burns. Carefully, he rose, balancing on the stone to look around. They were on a great rectangular rock, dragged here by the heathens of old. It lay tilted but relatively smooth at the edge of a road that bordered the trees. Another pathway branched off into the woods to the south. The heat and smoke of the peat lay before him and to both sides but did not extend too far, from what he could see. It must be a small deposit. Hopefully, the woods and adjoining heath were still moist enough to withstand the smoldering fire. Here and there among the low flames, the ancient dead twitched and stretched with the heat, contributing the smell of burning bone. Had those men brought the stone here—or had they been sacrificed to the unholy spirit it represented? Elisha swallowed and looked away. Toward the river, he heard sloshing and strange noises, then a woman’s silhouette came into view, edging around the smoke, keeping to the path as the ferryman advised.

“Bring mud, if you can,” Elisha called out to her. She paused, then moved nearer the river and scraping sounds followed.

Elisha knelt at Chanterelle’s side and touched her with his barest fingertips. He sent her comfort and soothing thoughts as he attuned himself to the changing dusk. Slowly, he became aware of her body, how she lay, how she breathed, everything that might indicate her condition. The last rays of sun showed her nakedness, her body barely a woman’s. She might be old enough to marry or not, but her face looked old beyond her years, even in this uneasy rest. Dirt rimmed her short nails, both hands and feet, and edged every line and wrinkle.

“Good gracious!” Rosalynn stopped short, staring at the girl, her outer skirt hugged in both arms. “But she’s—did the fire burn off her clothing then? My goodness!” Her tone was faint. She leaned down to let the sodden lump of fabric onto the surface of the stone. “Mud, plenty, I hope. I’m not strong.”

“You were strong enough when we needed you,” Elisha told her. “The ferryman wouldn’t have rowed for me.” He flicked back the top fabric and scooped some of the oozy stuff gently over Chanterelle’s limbs. Her arms seemed to have the worst of it, as if she had kept them before her after her dive into the earth. She sighed as he smoothed the mud over her burns, and some of the tension left her.

“It’s not really proper, is it? You, touching her, like that.” Rosalynn hugged herself.

“I am a barber,” Elisha pointed out, continuing his ministrations.

“Yes, but—”

“I’m what she has,” he growled. “I don’t suppose the ferryman is waiting to take us back?” Although if the man had witnessed this scene, he’d take Elisha for the Devil, surrounded by the burning dead.

“No,” she said timidly. “Well, no. He’s going to the abbey to let my maid know I’m fine.”

“We can’t stay here, my lady. This was an attack, and they might return.”

“An attack? Somebody lit the fire to burn her?” She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She turned away and moved behind a screen of trees. Behind this cover, she grumbled as fabric strained and sometimes tore. Elisha finished with his mud-daubing and sat back, puzzled. Then Rosalynn re-appeared, carrying a pale shift. Her remaining undergown, stained with mud and smoke, splashed with water and now torn along one side, hung askew from her shoulders. “She can’t go … like that. Here.” Elisha carefully helped the girl sit up, and Rosalynn pulled the yards of fabric down over her unresisting arms and head, then drew back as Elisha let Chanterelle settle back against him. She stirred and mumbled. “Better, yes.” Lady Rosalynn nodded to herself, holding the torn side of her dress closed. “These things are not meant for me to do on my own, you see? I ought to have my maid with me, or it’s a bit much to manage. But I trust they shall bring over my things in the morning, and I can be properly assisted then.”

“In the morning.” Elisha met Rosalynn’s eyes over Chanterelle’s lolling head.

Rosalynn looked away quickly. “I asked the ferryman to tell my maid that we would meet them at Beaulieu Abbey. Really, though, the lodge you’re looking for is nearer. If you need to tend her, that would be easiest. We just need to go along the path, there, and—”

“What will it mean if you and I are over here without your maid or any soldiers?” Elisha asked firmly.

“Perhaps they would think we are together,” she whispered. “You are a handsome man, and I am a duke’s daughter. They might think you … wanted … to be with me. But it’s fine. I shall go to the convent. I could be happy there. With God, you know.”

“If you would act with courage instead of fear, as you have tonight, my lady, you would find someone who wants to be with you.” Elisha held her gaze as her eyes widened. “In the meantime, take us to the lodge.”

“This way.” She gripped the torn fabric and started toward the trail. “Courage. Do you really think so?”

“Talking less might also help.” Elisha edged over the rock and dropped down to his feet, nearly overbalancing as his singed soles struck the packed dirt. He bit down on the pain.