The Death of Dulgath (40 page)

Novron is with me,
Christopher realized.
The son of Maribor is advocating on my behalf, marking this day with portent of my victory.

Christopher saw the darkness as his personal cloak, the lightning as bursts of his mental acuity, and the thunder as the drumroll announcing his impending achievement. He was the storm, and his god was with him.

As they approached the market, Christopher reined in Derby and raised a hand, telling Knox to do the same.

“What are you doing?” the sheriff demanded. He pointed toward the king’s company, who had taken the split to the right and were riding toward the mountain pass.

“The king is on a goose chase,” Christopher told Knox as he fought with Derby, who wanted to follow after the other horses.

“What are you talking about?”

“They didn’t go that way. Nysa Dulgath is headed for the Abbey of Brecken Moor.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I heard her. It’s where she asked to be taken.” Fawkes watched the last of the king’s retinue disappear around the houses. “If anyone else heard, they didn’t listen. They think Melborn was there to kill her. We know better. He and Blackwater are trying to save her. She thinks she’ll be safe at the abbey—that she can hide up there and recover. Then she’ll return. Melborn probably expects a reward. Thinks the countess will be so indebted to him that she’ll pay a fortune, grant him a title, or give him an estate or some other prize.”

“So what are we doing?” Knox asked. Lightning flashed and in one instant revealed every strand of hair plastered to his head; rivulets of water streamed off his stubble. His eyes were angry, harsh and violent. That was the nature of the man. The truth of him shown to Christopher by the light of Novron. This, too, was a sign for Christopher, who needed such a man now. He needed an animal to help him kill, but Knox was merely a beast, something to be ridden then discarded when no longer of any use.

“We go after them,” Christopher said. “We finish that bitch. Then we’ll claim we arrived too late. Explain that they took her for ransom but she died during the trip. We’ll be seen as heroes for killing them. If we don’t catch up before they reach the abbey, if the monks witness anything, we’ll have to take care of them, too. I trust you don’t have a problem slaughtering monks?”

“Not for a worthy cause.”

Spoken like a true monster—but at least he’s my monster.

“Oh—you can trust it will be, my friend. I’ll take very good care of you,” Fawkes said even while he thought,
I’ll slit your throat when you’re not expecting it and tell King Vincent you were the one who hired the rogues—that you split off from the rest at the market and, being suspicious, I followed you.

“You’d better,” Knox said.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t.”

Chapter Twenty-Two
Long Story Short

Nysa Dulgath was indeed dead. Royce checked: no pulse, no breath, her skin cold. Not chilled, not clammy, but milk-jug-left-out-in-the-rain-over-night cold. He didn’t panic or have an overwhelming need to put space between himself and the unexpected corpse he was pressed against. This wasn’t the first dead body he had held. Corpses didn’t upset him—still, talking ones were a new experience.

Royce leaned backward, holding her out to the full extent of his arms and glared into eyes that were staring back at him. He no longer supported her—its—head. He didn’t need to. She—it—was holding her—its—own head up.

“Hmm. I’m not on the ground, and you’re not galloping away,” Nysa’s corpse said. “Does that mean you’re willing to hear the rest of the story?”

“First, tell me who or
what
you are.”

“My name doesn’t matter. Won’t mean anything to you. I was a Fhrey; that’s what our kind was called in the days before Nyphron. Before the First Empire.
Elf
is a human word, not ours.”

“You
were
an elf?”

“Best if you let me start at the beginning or this will get very confusing.”

Nysa’s corpse waited, watching him as the horse continued to plod.

“Okay,” was all Royce could think to say.

“Who I really am is too long a tale to tell just now. I wouldn’t mind explaining everything, but we don’t have the time.”

You’re already dead so, what’s the hurry?
Royce thought.

“The first thing you need to know is that Fhrey are nothing like you think. We are an ancient and noble—and granted, also an arrogant—race. We once ruled the world. Even this place was under our dominion.

Royce smirked. He wasn’t about to be intimidated or hoodwinked, even by a talking corpse.

“It’s true. There’s evidence everywhere. Those smooth bluish stone ruins on Amber Heights above the Gula River near Colnora…that was once a Fhrey fortress called Alon Rhist. And words like Avryn, Ervanon, and Galewyr are Fhrey words. Rhenydd, too—at least the
ydd
part. The oldest of my kind can live for more than three thousand years.”

“So is that what’s going on here? You’re practically immortal. You can’t die?”

“Oh, no—I already died. My body turned to dust thousands of years ago. But I broke Ferrol’s Law, and you need to be careful not to do the same. Ignorance of the law won’t protect you, and having a little human blood won’t either. You are part Fhrey, and as such you are forbidden from killing another Fhrey. Ever.”

“Unlawful killing of anyone is called murder, and universally frowned upon. Unless you’re at a higher social level than your victim, in which case it’s called justice.”

“Not the same thing. Humans have laws against killing one another, laws made by men. The law forbidding one Fhrey from killing another is made by Ferrol, our god, and it is
he
—not other Fhrey—who dispenses punishment for that crime. Ferrol’s will is the cornerstone of our society, and since the dawn of time only a few have violated his sacred law.”

Royce couldn’t hide the sarcasm in his voice. “The punishment for murder in any society is death. What more could Ferrol do?”

“If a Fhrey kills another Fhrey, they are forever denied entrance to Alysin, the Sacred Grove, the afterlife. You might know it as Phyre, Rel, Nifrel, or even Eberdeen. For us, there is no greater loss. It means we are outcasts and will never again see the ones we love, and those who love us.”

Royce, who’d never had much use for religion, didn’t know any of those terms beyond how to curse with them, as in
Go to Rel
or
I hope you burn in Phyre,
which until that moment he’d assumed referred to a funeral fire.

“So you’re a ghost?”

“Sort of.” Nysa’s shoulders shrugged.

Realizing this wasn’t Nysa, Royce imagined a marionette and grimaced.

“What you think of as ghosts are actually humans who through stubbornness or ignorance
refuse
to go to their reward. But it’s true we are both disembodied spirits unable to interact with this world in any meaningful way.”

“You seem to be interacting just fine.”

“In a body I can, as any spirit does. With a body I’m as capable as everyone else—more so, in fact.”

More so
? Like her comment,
We don’t have much time,
this jumped out at Royce, but he kept quiet.

“The problem is, bodies don’t last, and it’s rare to find one unoccupied. I was lucky with Maddie Oldcorn, sort of like a squirrel moving into a bird’s vacant nest. Caught in a blizzard, Maddie died, but her body was mostly intact. Toes were never right, but I was able to live with that.”

“So Nysa isn’t in there with you?”

“No, she was gone before I arrived. If she had been alive, even lingering between worlds, I could have saved her. Same with Maddie. I can’t enter a body unless it’s vacant. A body with a spirit is like a candle with a flame—the original spirit must be extinguished before the body can be relit.”

Royce had heard many bizarre tales over the years. Most he didn’t believe, but he’d actually seen a few things that made him wonder. He’d watched a four-day-old corpse sit partway up, burp, and then lie back down. And he’d watched a dead man shaking his head, although that turned out to be a rat rolling around inside an emptied skull. He had personally witnessed the fight on top of the Crown Tower and couldn’t understand why there hadn’t been any bodies at the bottom afterward. That last one still haunted him. But, if he were really talking with a three-thousand-year-old dead elf, this bizarre conversation took first place.

“Who’d you kill?”

“It doesn’t matter. I was young and foolish and oh, so arrogant. When I died, I was alone—a face pressed up against a window looking in at the world I used to know but couldn’t touch. I didn’t know about entering bodies then and could only watch helplessly as the people I used to know made terrible decisions. The person I cared the most about was another Fhrey, who, like me, also broke our sacred law. I wanted to be with him when he died, but once separated, I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere. Then…well…I just kept heading west until I came to the land’s end, to this place, and here I stopped.”

“Nice place.”

“Yes, until the humans came. I tried to keep them out. Can’t do much without a body, but if I try really hard, I can make things move. I even possessed a few dead animals. Got a raccoon once. They have fingers, you know? Hands make all the difference and soon these will be too stiff to be of use. With hands I’m able to—” She stopped, refusing to look at him.

Said more than she wanted to. More than it wanted to,
he corrected.
This isn’t Nysa.

He was having trouble remembering that and had to remind himself that if he touched her skin it would be like ice.

“So you were Dul the Ghast’s nature spirit,” Royce said.

“Ugly, ugly man. Sunken eyes, looked just like a skeleton. I don’t know why I did it. I was lonely, I guess. He was up on top of this mountain crying and begging for help. They were starving to death, you see. Dul’s son and daughter had died, and his wife was sick. The whole lot of them wouldn’t have survived another month, so he climbed up and begged for help. I like it up here, nice view. I sat on top of the mountain often and was watching the sunset when Dul came up bawling and wailing. I’d started to leave when I heard him say,
I know you’re there. I know you can hear me. Please help us.
At that time, no one had spoken to me for centuries, but here this creepy little man was talking right to me. I don’t think I can explain how that felt—to be acknowledged after so long—to have someone recognize that you exist when even you had started to doubt.

“I didn’t know what I could do. I followed him home. Together we watched his wife die, and I performed my first miracle.”

“I take it she made an unexpected recovery.”

“Yes, as far as everyone else knew. There really wasn’t anything wrong with her, except the discomfort of acute hunger, the pain of losing her children, and a fever that was gone by the time I stepped in. Mostly, she’d just given up. People do that, more often than you’d think.”

“So the squirrel settled into the bird’s nest.”

“Yes, and with human hands, hands nearly like my own, I was able to—” She stopped herself again. “I was able to help them.”

“Did he know?”

“Oh yes. I set him straight right away. Did I mention how ugly Dul was? Didn’t want him touching me. I’ve never liked humans. Dirty, awful things. It’s why I never thought I’d find anyone to be with. Their kind can be so repulsive.”

You’re a talking corpse spitting up blood, and you think
we’re
repulsive?

“And yet you helped them.”

“Was nice being alive again, to be able to do things. I thought I had found a way to survive, but then
he
came.”

“He?”

“The rumors of my miracles had traveled all the way to Percepliquis. When he heard, he came looking for answers.”

“Who is
he
?”

“Perhaps the most remarkable human—no,
person
—I’ve ever met, and I’ve been around a
long
time. His name was Bran and he was looking for someone. Not me, as it turned out, but I think something led him here and brought us together. Bran recognized me the moment we met. Not specifically, not my name, but he said he knew what I was. What I’d done. He’d been taught about
my sort
and knew what to look for. He told me the most amazing story, about a woman named Brin. At first, I thought he was making it up, but he spoke of places where I had lived—oh, so long ago—and told stories that were handed down from this Brin. Then, just like Dul the Ghast, I started crying. I didn’t think I could anymore, but that story—
Brin’s
story—gave me hope.”

“What was this story?”

“That eternity isn’t nearly as long as I thought; that there will come a day when I’ll have a chance to redeem myself. That this time, these moments right now, are my chance to learn, to practice, and to improve. But most of all, that both Bran and Brin will be watching and rooting for me.”

“Are these people still alive? Are they Fhrey like you were?”

“No, they were human and both died thousands of years ago. So long ago that the monks who practically worship Brin as a demigod have most of her story wrong—so wrong they actually think she was a man. I’d set them straight, but they wouldn’t believe me.”