Mathieu (6 page)

“Liar. It’s worse. Remember, I marched through these mountains before there were good roads.”

“I think I hurt more than you did. Nothing personal, but this is a total bitch.”

He snorted and stopped. “You need to rest. Stop. Sit.”

She dropped down, gasping for breath. “We don’t have time to waste on my weakness.”

“And you will waste even more time if you sicken or injure yourself in your haste. A few moments of rest will not change your friend’s situation.” After a few moments of silence he spoke again. “I can feel your people below us. We’re close now. Do you think you can make it?”

“Do I have any other choice?” Her voice was tired and ragged, the mockery of his previous question subdued in her pain.

“Not really.” He looked up at the sky through the trees to judge the daylight left. There wasn’t much, but they couldn’t stop now.

Tonight the stars would come out. Their cold, white light would glimmer down at him, unchanged since his childhood. He’d learned long ago that the stars were each suns, but far, far away. Some of them even had worlds of their own, some like Earth with people and Demons of their own. Gadreel had told him that at one point, he remembered.

He
knew if he squinted hard enough, he would be able to see the curve of infinity, and beyond that was There.

C
hapter Nine

It was cold. Mathieu woke shivering. The heat of Acre was gone, replaced with a deep chill that made his bones feel as if they would fly apart into a million pieces at any second.

The chains around his wrists were colder than the air, which seemed impossible. They burrowed into his flesh, down to his soul, and made him ache.

He was naked as the day he was born. He looked around and the world was gray; gray and flat and so horribly cold. There was nothing here but the place he was and the chains around his wrists that held him in the middle of a strange circle inscribed in the dead earth.

“You’re awake. Good.” The Angel was there and Mathieu breathed in relief. A quick glance at his middle showed that his wounds were healed, the wound from the lance nothing but a small faded red line.

“Am I in Heaven?” Mathieu asked as he made his way to his knees, the chains around his wrists making a sweet chiming sound as he moved. “Is this a test to prove if I am worthy of seeing God?”

“A test?” The blonde angel laughed easily. “I suppose you could call it that.” The angel gestured to the squire and Mathieu cocked his head as the old, withered man with empty eyes walked forward.

“
Damonn,” intoned the angel, “remind me of what I’m supposed to do now. You know how I am about these things.”

The old man looked at Mathieu then for the first time, really looked at him. His gaze was filled with pity for the briefest moment, and then blank again. “Master, you are to force this one to you with as many of the five bindings as you can. You will then take from me all that you have given me over these many years and force it into him so that he may serve you as I have served you. I have drawn the circle as you commanded. Once this is done, you must destroy me before my body fails and all that you have worked for is lost.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Damonn. You’ve always been a good slave.” The angel advanced towards Mathieu, its beautiful visage changing, melting away with every step.

By the time that the Angel reached Mathieu’s side, there was no beauty to be seen.

With a cold but hot hand, the Angel pushed Mathieu onto his back with an evil smile. “I like my slaves pretty,” it said as it ran its hands over Mathieu’s face.

Mathieu screamed as bones shifted under the profane touch. The pain was overwhelming, making the borders of the gray world red and black at the edges of his vision.

As quickly as it came, the pain was gone. “That’s better,” the Angel spoke again. Mathieu studied the Angel’s face and eyes as the creature spoke again. “Pain, Fear, Blood, Sex, Love. I know I can get four of the five now. And I’ll bend you to the fifth one soon enough.” The angel licked its lips and smiled.

C
hapter Ten

Jenn spoke quietly behind him. “I’m okay. I’m ready to move on.”

Mathieu looked at her and saw that while she was in pain, she was no longer radiating it like she had before. “Let’s go then.” He stood and brushed the dirt from his clothes as he waited for her to struggle to her feet. He bore her pack on his back as she was too tired to carry it herself. “We don’t have far now. Your friends will be there and you’ll be able to rest.”

“Good. Resting for just a little while would be good. My head is killing me.” She sounded as if she was about to drop any second.

He stood in the fading light, looked ahead and then back at her. “I don’t suppose you brought anything that would illuminate your path?”

“Uhm. I don’t think so. I’m not really sure what’s in there. They just gave it to me when I got here.” She made as if to reach for the pack on his back but he avoided her touch.

He frowned in the growing darkness before sighed and shook his head. “Follow me closely. I will light your way.” He paused and glanced around nervously. “We’re safe enough for the moment, but I do not want anything to see us.”

Nodding hesitantly, Jenn asked, “Who would see us? There’s no one around for miles except our people.”

Mathieu looked back at her with dark, frightened eyes as he absently scrubbed at invisible dirt on his hands. “You mean what would see us. Your people do not concern me.”

After a quick glance at the dark woods, Jenn raised an eyebrow. “They’re our people while you’re working with us. You need to get used to that.”

Mathieu
raised an eyebrow back at her before repeating, “They do not concern me. There is more in this world than just humans and their intrigues.” He turned quickly and started downslope.

Jenn rushed to stay close behind him and nearly collided with him when he suddenly stopped. He glanced at her before turning his attention to his hands. “Stay close, but not too close. I don’t want to hurt you.” There was a strange tone to his voice as he spoke. “It would kill me to hurt you, Yve… Jenn.” She said nothing, instead watching his hands as they gracefully traced symbols in the dark, symbols that seemed to shine and hang in the air for a few seconds before dissolving into a shower of faintly glowing golden dust.

Mathieu took a few steps and smiled tightly. The dust fell and dimly illuminated a small path, leading through the trees and rocks to the track where the climbers left her earlier in the day.

“You did it.” Marcus sounded amazed. He stepped forward and held Jenn’s arm as she dropped to the ground with a sigh of relief. “You brought him down.” He wrapped her in a crushing hug and nuzzled her hair while she limply rested her head on his chest.

The clearing had been set up as a base camp, tents surrounding a central fire pit. He’d steered her to the tent they would share, her breath coming in small whimpers of pain with each step.

After she’d caught her breath she answered back, “Of course I did it. Failure is not an option.”

She sounded exhausted, stretched to her limit. He helped her pull her boots off and held open the tent flap so she could crawl in and collapse on the sleeping bags he’d rolled out for them to share. “I’ll be in in a few minutes.” She didn’t hear him. She was already unconscious.

Marcus stood and looked out past the ring of firelight. Mathieu had stopped there, refusing to come any closer to the humans who had come to lure him down from the heights. Even now he stood there, arms folded, back to them, staring up at the stars.

With a sigh, Marcus walked into the darkness.

Mathieu didn’t look at him, but simply spoke. “Marcus.”

Marcus
waited for a moment and then answered. “Mathieu. You’re not going to say that you’re happy to see me? Well met and all that courtly stuff you people used to say?”

At that Mathieu turned and looked at him full on with eyes that seemed darker than the sky above. “Lying is a sin. Wouldn’t you agree that I have problems enough without further adding to my list of transgressions?”

With half shake of his head, Marcus looked up at the sky. “Why did you come back? I thought you’d be up there ‘till trumpets sounded the end of the world. I was willing to put money on you not coming down, no matter what she said.”

Mathieu looked up again as well. “She’s very convincing. With the guilt she inflicted, how could I refuse?”

“She gives a great guilt trip, without a doubt. I’ve been on the receiving end of that one too many times. It sucks how good she is at it.”

“Sucks?” Mathieu looked down and over at him, crooking an eyebrow. “I do not think that means what I think it means.”

Marcus shrugged. “It means it’s bad. Not good. Not fun. You know, SUCKS.”

“Oh.” Mathieu shook his head. “Sucks.” His voice held a musing tone.

“What?”

“Hm?” Mathieu looked back at Marcus. “Oh. I was just thinking how much the world has changed and how strange it is to me. Even though Gadreel ‘gifted’ me with his knowledge on his death and even though I have seen many things, everything still feels foreign. Even such a small thing like the meaning of a single word.” He paused and looked back up. “The stars are the only things that remain the same. And even now I see things moving there that weren’t there when I was born.”

With a cock of his head, Marcus looked up. “Satellites, space stations and planes. You probably don’t know anything about them.”

Mathieu
made a gesture with his left hand. Marcus suspected it probably had been insulting and obscene hundreds of years ago. “Gadreel belonged to the Agshekeloh. Anything that could be used to kill, hurt or maim was of great interest to him. Machines that could kill, hurt or maim gave him especial joy. Don’t think I don’t know of or don’t understand the concepts of such things.”

Marcus nodded curtly. “Fine.” He then sighed and gestured towards the camp. “We have a tent for you, if you want it. We leave in the morning. You might want to get some rest.”

With a wary look towards the camp, Mathieu shook his head. “I thank you, but no. I will be fine here.”

“It’s not a trap. I swear it.”

With an audible snort, Mathieu shook his head. “Your supposed ability to trap me is the least of my worries.” He looked back at the ring of firelight with an odd combination of hunger and fear and then over to Marcus. “I have other concerns that do not involve you.”

“You know we’re married, right?”

“I noticed the rings. I congratulate you and wish you a long life with many healthy children.” Mathieu paused and then smiled gently, the first genuine smile Marcus had ever seen from him. “I truly do.”

Marcus hesitated. “I thought you recognized her, remembered her.”

Now Mathieu hesitated. “I do.”

“Aren’t you jealous?”

“Of what? The woman I loved died long, long ago. And even then she wasn’t mine.” Now Mathieu looked back up at the stars and wrapped his arms tighter around himself. “Everyone I knew is dead, Marcus. They’ve been dead for hundreds of years. The entire world dances to a song that I don’t hear. I can stand here and speak with you and make some sense of your words but I truly can’t understand you.”

“You seem to be doing fine right now.”

Mathieu shook his head. “No, I’m not. You just don’t see how out of step with the dance I am yet.”

Marcus
had nothing to say to that. He just nodded and then turned back to the tents. “The tent is over there if you change your mind. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning. Early.”

Mathieu didn’t answer as he listened to the footsteps fade into the distance. Instead he watched the sky and listened to the sounds of the people in the tents behind him.

He’d discovered over the centuries that humanity had a distinctive sound--sighs, burps, farts, but also a kind of buzzing undertone. He wasn’t sure what caused that, maybe the air in their lungs or the blood in their veins, but it was ever present. And it was all the more noticeable when he hadn’t heard it for months.

The fire died down quickly. He looked back over his shoulder and shook his head. Of course they wouldn’t set a watch here and now. They had no reason to fear bandits or infidel attack. He’d felt the light touch of wards when he’d come into the camp—it had been tempting to break them simply to show these people how insufficient their precautions were, but he’d refrained in the interest of getting Yv… Jenn to her resting place.

The night grew darker around him, the stars brighter above. The trees framed the constellations nicely and the undertone of sound from the humans slowly faded into the background.

He’d watched the stars every night since he’d been freed. It kept him from sleeping, which kept him from remembering. That was his theory, at least.

After a while he lost track of time and thought of other things. That place deep inside where he’d hidden all those years and watched the world go by—that was a comfortable place. It was so easy to reach; it would be easy to hide instead of dealing with the new world around him. It was seductive in a way. Once there, he wouldn’t have to feel. All he would have to do was stay small and quiet and all the pain, confusion and fear would stop. All he’d have to do was watch from a distance.

Mathieu
wrenched himself back to the present with a physical jerk of his head. Gadreel was gone. Mathieu was free. There was no more hiding.

No matter how much he wanted to crawl into that safe place and pull the door in after him.

It was then that he looked down at his feet.

“Merda.” The word slipped from his lips before he could stop it.

He stepped back from the patch of dead, blackened grass on which he’d been standing. “Merda. Shit shit shit shit.”

It grew before his eyes, sending black tendrils of death out towards the ring of tents barely illuminated by the dying coals. He imagined he could hear it hissing with malice.

“Control this,” he ordered himself curtly. Taking a deep breath, he dropped to his knees and placed his hands in the center of the burned area. Eyes closed, he whispered again, “Control.”