Parasite Soul (25 page)

“What do you remember of our mother’s death?”
Merequio had asked her once. The question suddenly, truly,
deep-in-the-bones terrified her. What exactly
did
she
remember? She remembered guttering candles and the repellant smell of
sickness. Frail hands and a pallid brow. Listless eyes. She
remembered the doctors and their silly peaked hats, her brother’s concern, her
father’s heavy brow. Mostly, though, she remembered the mother’s wretched
weakness and how it made her feel. The pity she felt, the sorrow…

No
. Cold memory flooded her
.
Contempt
.
I felt disdain, even… hatred? Surely not.
She was my mother, it isn’t possible that I
…

That I…

The cold wave broke.
Vanyon above, I was only nine. I
was nine years old when I suffocated my mother with her pillow
.

Tiera began to shake, so badly that she was barely able to grip on
her saddle. Only the ignominy of pitching face first into the mud in
front of her men kept her upright. Merequio studied her with a sly,
knowing smile.

“What’s the matter, dear sister? You look suddenly
feverish. Have you taken ill?”

“It’s… it’s nothing.” Tiera struggled to regain her bearing.
The ground seemed to be swirling vertiginously into a void beneath her horse’s
hooves. “I’m alright.”

“Indeed,” said Merequio. The insolence in his tone was
maddening. “Human memory, as I said, is a tricky affair.”

“Tricky,” Tiera agreed, her throat dry.

“Don’t worry, little princess. I always knew. But I said
I would protect you, remember? I will always protect you.”

Tiera gulped air. “Well, there’s something I remember
accurately,” she said weakly. She was shaking all over, literally.
If there was a pore in her body which wasn’t atremble, she couldn’t discern
it. She wanted to vomit, but her stomach was empty.

“Lieutenant!” Merequio called to Thornton. “Can we call a
stop? The Princess wishes to rest before we continue on.”

“It’s not far until Sallinger,” Thornton called back. He looked
a little green, as though he’d suffered a sudden bout of ill health. “I
estimate…”

“Phthalam take your estimations! Call a stop.”

“There is an inn just ahead.” Thornton pulled his charger as
level as his station would allow and pointed with his riding crop. Tiera
squinted at the speck without really seeing it. Her skin burned hot then
seemed to freeze, in cycles.

“That will do,” she said as crisply as her quaking voice would
allow. She ran the back of her hand across her brow, to discover that she
was sweating profusely.

“I’ll have the men scout it out.” Thornton sent two of the soldiers
on ahead before resuming his position in the column.

The proprietor of the uninvitingly plain Veiled Faun, who rushed
outside to meet his guests, could scarcely contain his horror at hosting the
notoriously temperamental princess of Cannevish.

“Unexpected, most unexpected, yet a great honor, an honor to be
sure, though unexpected,” he babbled, eyes bulging even more prodigiously than
his ratty waistcoat. He wrung his hands constantly as he was joined his
red-faced, flustered wife. The latter curtseyed so continually that a
frustrated Tiera ordered her, in no uncertain terms, to desist if she valued
her kneecaps. This homely couple’s sullen but more attractive daughter
also wandered out to greet the princess. The girl was visibly less
overwhelmed by the royal presence than her parents, sighing loudly as her
father launched into an interminable spiel about the glories of House
Minus. Offended by this discourtesy, Tiera determined to have the girl
mewling soon enough.

“The guests will be honored, most honored to meet you, your
highness,” the proprietor continued as Thornton helped Tiera down from her
horse and another soldier led it away. “Most honored indeed, they…”

Tiera waved a hand. “Clear them all out.”

The man licked thin lips anxiously. “Y-yes, your
majesty.” He waved frantically at his wife, who scurried inside to get
the ball rolling. Their daughter idled insolently nearby. She
appeared to find Lieutenant Thornton more interesting than the princess.

Just like that damned dragonslaying peasant,
Tiera thought coldly. Well, the little bitch was going to get
a lesson in diplomacy.

She watched impatiently as grumbling patrons were shooed out of the
inn. One or two of them, unimpressed by their host’s predicament,
threatened the innkeeper’s continued good health. The fawning toad hadn’t
bothered to reimburse them, Tiera guessed. When the last of his
disgruntled guests had departed – those initially intent on making a scene had
been discouraged by the sight of Tiera’s armed escort – the proprietor mopped
his brow and invited his distinguished visitors inside. He retreated
before them, bowing repeatedly, until Tiera wanted to slap him. Let Merequio
devour this whole confounded family.

Thornton made to follow the princess and her brother inside, but
Tiera held up her hand.

“Thank you, lieutenant, we will be quite alright. Wait
outside.”

Thornton eyed Merequio with obvious misgivings. Eventually, Tiera
knew, the lieutenant was going to ask the questions he kept swallowing,
potential promotion be damned.

“Yes, m’lady,” he said reluctantly. Grinning, Merequio
closed the door in his face.

Tiera found herself standing in a pig sty. The walls were largely
undecorated and the cobwebs hadn’t been swept away in ages. A scattering
of ash surrounded the empty hearth, which the innkeeper’s wife was frantically
sweeping into a dustpan. Mud caked the floor in places, days old, where
guests had tracked it back and forth. The coarsely-hewn wooden tables
were stained and dirty, and there wasn’t a stool in the place upon which Tiera
would have deigned to perch, even if she hadn’t been unpleasantly sore from
several unanticipated hours on horseback. She hated to imagine was the
privy might look like.

Merequio was studying her face. “What do you think, princess?”

She wasn’t sure if he was soliciting her opinion on the inn or
seeking permission to dine on the family who ran it.

“This place is an insult to the kingdom,” she returned coldly.
The proprietor flinched theatrically; his wife squeezed her bulk anxiously up
next to him.

“I’ve lived in worse,” Merequio said dryly.

“Are your drinks as foul as your sense of hygiene?” Tiera
snapped. Even the girl looked worried now. Her parents were
sweating buckets.

“No, no, my lady, no,” the innkeeper gasped. The handkerchief
with which he mopped his pate was already soaked. “Only the best, the
best for you, my lady. Fawn, fetch the princess our finest wine, our personal
reserve, the best we have.”

The girl started on her mission, but Tiera called her back.

“Water,” she said coolly, inspecting a dusty troll’s head mounted
over the bar. “Just water. I need a clear head today.”

“As you say, your majesty.
Water
, Fawn, bring her
water
,”
he snarled at his daughter as though suggesting wine had been her idea all
along. “Not – not from the river, either. From the well.”

Fawn nodded and disappeared through a back door.

“You have a fine daughter,” Merequio told them. The vampire
had planted himself on a tabletop, where he half-sat, half-lounged, idly
picking his teeth. The innkeeper and his wife stared at him, uncertain as
to whom was addressing them or why such a strange apparition should be in the
company of the Princess of Cannevish.

“Your honor,” the man said carefully, “I know not whom I have the
pleasure of serving…”

Merequio flicked his wrist. “Simply know that you will indeed
serve me,” he said. “In point of fact, you will serve yourself
to
me.”

The innkeeper exchanged a fearful glance with his wife. “I…I’m
afraid I don’t understand.”

Tiera couldn’t believe how swiftly her brother moved. Within
the space of no more than two heartbeats, the vampire appeared to vanish from
the tabletop and reappeared behind the unlucky couple. Tiera raised an
eyebrow as she witnessed gaping wounds appear in both their throats, as if by
magic. She knew the unfortunate proprietor and his wife were dead before
they did.

“Your daughter is next,” Merequio whispered. He stood between
the gasping, gurgling couple, his arms wrapped about both their shoulders in a
comradely fashion, his face framed by theirs so that he might poison both ears
with his promise. The woman sank slowly to her knees as though she was
praying. The man’s legs buckled all at once. Blood gushed and
spurted from their sundered throats, mingling on the filthy floor. Had
Tiera cared about their fates, it might have seemed poetic.

“Aren’t you going to feed?” she asked her brother, after both bodies
lay still amidst expanding crimson pools.

Merequio, who’d wandered off to examine his golden locks in a dusty
mirror, chuckled. “On those bulbous old monstrosities? Sister,
would you eat rotten fruit when you could have it crisp and ripe?”

Tiera shrugged. “The girl? She’s no prize.”

“There’s something about peasant girls,” Merequio mused. “I
would toy with them from time to time, when I was alive. I expect I have
a bastard child or two, somewhere.”

Tiera blinked with surprise and no little revulsion.
“Merequio!”

“It’s true, dear sister. I found them quite refreshing.
Highborn women can be so depressingly rigid, and navigating the minefield of
noble gossip is counterintuitive to pleasure. Plus all those imported
powders and perfumes tended to make me quite nauseous. Even more so
nowadays, I’m afraid. Heightened senses and all. Peasant girls are
simply more fun.”

“Huh,” Tiera said crisply, suddenly acutely aware of her own
decorative cosmetics and scents. “That’s why father was always having you
dragged home from the rural public houses.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Is ‘fun’ what you intend to have with this girl?” Tiera asked.

“More, perhaps, along the line of ‘sport.’”

At that moment, a crash interrupted their conversation. Fawn was
standing in the doorway, gaping at her dead parents. Water glopped from
the overturned bucket which had landed at her feet, seeping between the
floorboards into thirsty soil. Slowly, the girl raised her eyes toward
Tiera. Merequio, supernaturally fast, was already behind her.

Fawn’s lips parted slightly. Her left hand flew to her chest
as if to ask
Me?

Tiera smiled icily back.
You.

“I’ve caught us a hare, little princess,” said Merequio
softly. One arm snaked about Fawn’s waist while he clapped the other over
her mouth.

“I’ll find us a rock,” Tiera returned, excitement swelling in her
breast.

It felt good to hunt with her brother again.

“I miss cranmallows,” Niu sighed, stooping to straighten a fern
which Simon had unthinkingly crushed beneath his boots. Simon wasn’t sure
whether the plant’s wellbeing genuinely concerned her or she’d simply noticed
the venomous look Hezben had shot his way. The leshy did not look
favorably upon any damage to his woodland, no matter how minor or
unintentional.

“Cranmallows,” Simon repeated, thinking of the spongy buns, popular
only amongst culinary masochists thanks to their unpleasantly bitter liquid
center.

“Yes. They are the only thing from your kingdom which I will
remember fondly.” Niu straightened and continued. She began to hum
softly, almost nervously, a tune unfamiliar to Simon.

Simon couldn’t think of anything to say, so he said nothing.
Did she truly think so poorly of Cannevish, or was she perhaps just avoiding
any deeper line of conversation? Either way, Simon felt a sharp prickling
of annoyance. Denying that Cannevish had its problems would be foolish,
but it was
his
home,
his
kingdom, and if anyone was going to
criticize it, it should be
him
, not some foreigner.

Some foreigner.
Simon surprised
himself with his sudden vitriol. He’d never thought of Niu as
some
foreigner
before; he’d viewed her as exciting and exotic, a lily in a field
of dandelions. He was in love with her, whatever she said, yet at times
she felt like an unwelcome outsider. Was that the heartstopper’s
influence or his own bitterness taking? He couldn’t say.

Would I feel this way if she hadn’t made it clear that her heart
belonged to this dead bastard Cihau?
He delved
into his feelings, unable to unearth a satisfactory answer. All he knew
is that he was depressed, stressed out, fatigued, and lonely. He missed
his simple life - his father, his friend Jeb, even his bullying cousin Dannon –
and didn’t care how childish that seemed. His companions made no secret
of their wariness; conversation was sporadic and peppered with forced
jollity. All efforts to keep the mood light and insubstantial had the
opposite of the intended soothing effect; before long the very sound of their
voices were grating violently on Simon’s nerves. He felt as though he
were building inevitably toward another explosion.

“Sallinger ain’t far now,” Oswald announced throatily. The
giant wasn’t fond of silence. Whenever it threatened to consume the
group, he forced it into retreat with some irrelevant remark. Comradeship
seemed important to the big man. As far as Simon was concerned, no such
unity existed within this group. He felt as though he were surrounded by
a bubble, that
all
of them were, and were simply floating in the same
direction, blown by the wind. No compelling cause unified them; they
drifted on a current of fate. He could only pray that the flow wasn’t
aimless, that there was some purpose to everything he’d endured.

Lost avatar of aimlessness that she was, Sasha wandered along beside
him. Simon had ceased to wonder why the bruxa had thrown her lot in with
them. She was lonely and lacking direction; that was how he
explained it. Sasha had no more idea who she was or what her purpose
might be than Simon. Maybe less. Murderous corpse she might be, but
despite his misgivings as to her nature, Simon currently felt closer to her
than anyone else in the party, possibly the world. She was a monster; so
was he. He was now a part of her cold world.

We’ve also both been marked for death for reasons that no sane
person could consider just,
he thought,
conveniently forgetting that just a few days previously, he’d been all for
Sasha and her hunters’ mutual elimination. The unfairness of his own
predicament continued to prey on him. Had he snubbed a peasant girl,
would she have been allowed to misappropriate kingdom resources to have him
hunted? Obviously not. He couldn’t comprehend how the nobility
could just ignore rules which would have landed any normal citizen, at the very
least, some time in a gaol. Had his father survived, perhaps he would
have been able to explain why a courtly faux pas was as deserving of a
country-wide manhunt as the most vicious of murders.

Some time passed as Simon stewed in his despair. The
oppressively endless sea of trees perpetuated his funk. He began to long
for another jaggermund attack, if only to break the monotony. All the
while, Oswald’s puffing, Hezben’s dark backward glances, Niu’s humming and
Sasha’s eerie silence eroded his patience.

Suddenly, the giant stopped. Cursing, Simon narrowly avoiding
colliding with him.

“Oh, Hezben,” Oswald said sadly. “Did you have to bring them
this way?”

The leshy merely grunted and kept walking. For a moment, Simon
didn’t understand what the giant meant. The same claustrophobic tangle of
forest still crowded about him, branches clawing his hair, vines snagging his
boots. But… was that a wall? Squinting, Simon strove to peer past
Oswald’s enormous bulk. Yes, that was certainly the ruin of a dwelling -
a modest little cottage by the look of it - the stonework shattered by thick
trunks, the wooden roof having been lifted clean off and suspended in the
canopy above. Nor did the wreckage look that old – the wood of the roof
hadn’t rotted significantly. Simon doubted the building was older than he
was.

“I understand what you’re trying to tell them, Hez,” Oswald
continued, “But I don’t think they mean harm.”

No answer. Simon passed the overgrown ruin warily – if he was
correct in assuming that the destruction was relatively recent, how then had
the trees responsible for the demolition grown so swiftly?

“What happened here?” Sasha asked curiously. The giant shook
his head unhappily and the leshy’s lips were locked. Another choked and
fractured building followed the first, then another, a little larger.
Simon realized with a shock that this had once been a small village. The
forest had reclaimed it with startling speed. That Hezben had been
involved was abundantly clear: the grim leshy was demonstrating what
befell unwelcome guests in his forest. Nor were the ruins only of
buildings: the inhabitants of this doomed hamlet hadn’t managed to escape
the reclamation. Skeletons lay scattered about in attitudes of flight or
struggle, many overgrown, mossy, or partially concealed by aggressive sprays of
ferns. Some of them were quite small.

“You did all this?” Niu shuddered as she studied a skeleton
suspended in a tangle of vines. Its lower jaw lay amidst the mosses on
the forest floor, making for the widest scream Simon had ever seen.

“Humans,” Hezben returned coldly, “Are not welcome in my forest.”

“This might have been Brand,” Simon said softly. No one heard
him but Sasha, and she made no response.

“Then why not just
evict
them?” Niu continued, her voice was
rising in pitch.

“I’ve endured enough encounters with humankind to despise their
duplicity. Humans cannot stand the thought that any territory is denied
them. They would have been back in force. I take no chances with
your
kind
.” The last two words were acidic.

“Some of these were
children.”

“Indeed. And they would have grown to adopt the attitude of
their parents.” The leshy’s speed increased. Where Simon might have
expected a cold satisfaction, Hezben was instead trembling with ill-disguised
rage. Simon was grateful for Oswald, without whom he was sure he and his
companions would already be nourishing the plant life.

The unwelcome tour of the dead village culminated in a visit to the
ruins of a small mill, constructed next to a large and sludgy pond. Here,
Hezben called a halt, announcing that he ‘had business’, and stalked off into
the forest. Simon, grateful for the opportunity to rest but unnerved by
his surroundings – if anywhere was haunted, it was this place – settled himself
near the pond and contemplated the scummy water. Reluctant to slake his
thirst with the greyish muck, particularly since his imagination screamed that
bodies probably huddled beneath the surface scum, he looked to Oswald for an
explanation.

“You have to understand,” the giant said uncomfortably, beset by
three demanding sets of eyes, “Hez has had… trouble… with humans in the past.”

“Trouble with
children
?” Niu persisted furiously. Tears
pricked her eyes.

“Trouble with… well, see, it’s like this,” Oswald began to pace,
leaving huge depressions in the soggy ground. “Hez used to share this
stretch of forest with his woodwives. Caretakers of various parts of the
forest,” he explained. “Seven of ‘em, I’ve been told, can’t remember most
of their names, and Hez won’t let even me visit their graves. Going to
that place is a death sentence for anyone. It’s absolutely sacred to Hez,
and… well, I guess I gave away what happened to them.”

“Humans killed them,” Sasha said without inflection. She stood
near the millhouse, arms dangling limp at her sides, eyes glinting darkly.

“All seven. Hunters and foresters and criminals, they managed
to butcher the lot. Weren’t hunting them specifically, they just got in
the way, you know?”

Niu didn’t look mollified. “Surely it was not these villagers who
killed them?”

“Well… no… but like Hez says, you lot think every domain under the
sun belongs to you and damned who or what you step on to take it.” The
giant’s voice was both reproving and anxious. “Each woodwife killed
shrank Hez’s territory. He doesn’t control as much of the forest as he
lets on, not anymore. Plus he lost seven wives.”

“He also apparently lost a taste for them,” Sasha noted tonelessly.
Scratching at his antlers with obvious agitation, Oswald didn’t look like he
knew whether to acquiesce or wince. Simon had no idea what the bruxa
meant, though he was aggrieved that her words also appeared to resonate with
Niu while he stewed in ignorance.

“Hez is a man of many tastes,” said the giant after a beat.

“So,” Simon said gruffly, anxious to show that he’d understood
something, too, “Hezben punishes any human who enters his territory with
death.”

“Can you blame him? Still, he grows ever so slightly softer in
his ways in his old age. He
might
simply have ejected you,” Oswald
said. “But I was glad to find you first.”

“We mean the forest no harm.” Niu drifted over to the millhouse,
trailing her fingers along a buckling old fence.

“I know,” the giant replied as she disappeared inside.

“Did these people?” Simon swept an arm around. “Did
they
mean it harm?” But for a twist of fortune, his father might have chosen
to settle here, or Jeb’s family. Vines might be snaking in and out of his
own
skull.

Oswald wiped imaginary sweat from his expansive brow. “These
folk,” he admitted at length, “Simply chose to settle in the wrong place.
Of course,” he added defensively, “They also cut down a good amount of trees
without permission. That’s something Hez takes personally as well.”

Simon decided that it might be best to avoid stepping on any more
ferns in future.

“There is water in here,” Niu called. Eager to abandon the
conversation, Simon hopped to his feet.

“Water’s all very well, but I’m hungry again,” Sasha complained as
he passed her. Shivering, he followed Niu into the millhouse.

The living area of this building was better-preserved than much of
the village. Both the ceiling and the floor were mainly intact.
Some furniture had survived the forest’s reclamation, including a wooden table,
three-legged chair, and a bed – the latter of which was infested, judging by
the smell, by mice. Niu knelt by the remains of a barrel which had
collected a substantial amount of rainwater due to a rift in the roof.
Simon joined her, gulping down the musty water and splashing his grimy
face.

“This is a tragic place,” Niu said at length.

“Yes,” Simon agreed. “I wonder what it was called.” Somehow
that seemed important.

Niu smiled sadly. “I suppose this is how we all wind up.”

Water dripping from his chin, Simon stared at her.

“You know what I mean. All of us. You. Me.
Those who we have loved and those who have wronged us. All just bones in
the end.”

At length, Simon nodded. “I suppose.” Oddly, this
melancholy sentiment lifted his spirits ever so slightly.
We flail and
struggle all the way to the grave,
he reflected
, but then – at the end,
there is peace. Perhaps being bones won’t be so bad.
Rather
than finding the concept of definitive finality frightening or oppressive, as
he surely once would have, he felt strangely comforted.
If there is no
afterlife, no Great Hall - and I’m not saying that’s true! -
then at
least I won’t have to bear my burdens forever
.

Once his situation had improved - and with it, his state of mind -
he would be sure to apologize to Vanyon and renew his beliefs. For now,
weary of the world’s weight, he instead reveled in the idea of an
end
.

“We should move on.” Hezben’s voice drifted to him from
without. Apparently the leshy had successfully controlled his temper and
was once again eager to be rid of his guests. “Sallinger will be visible
over the next rise.”