The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) (8 page)

I rummaged in my pouch, past the silver mask, and located the wrapped heel of a loaf of bread, all that remained of my scant provisions since leaving home.  I knew I would not find anything I could eat in this wretched city, but I dared not let myself become too weak either.  I sat on the steps of an unoccupied porch and gnawed my scant fare slowly, trying to convince my stomach that it was getting far more than I had to offer.

Azrael watched me with a pained expression.  He seemed to carry a woman’s soft heart within his shadow.  I wondered that Providence had ever chosen to make him a reaver.  Guardian angel seemed a more suitable avocation for one so sensitive. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I must leave you now.  I am summoned.  I will return when I can.”

Summoned
by whom, Death or his son?  I nodded.  “I will manage.  You owe me nothing.”  It was only the truth, yet my words seemed to wound him.  I could not understand why, but regretted the effect.  Before I could explain myself further, he turned in upon himself, darkness consuming darkness.  The last bit of his cloak wiggled away to nowhere down the throat of a black star-point.

I continued my meager meal, glad that a little warmth had crept back into my bones.  Resting, I noticed an old woman emerge from the adjoining house to sweep the porch next over.  Her every effort was made a torture due to chubby clay children tugging at her clothing, clinging desperately to her arms and legs, riding her back.  Like a mongrel beset by fleas, the woman went into a shaking frenzy, ripping the little tyrants away, flinging them everywhere without regard for those passing by.

She gained freedom for a brief time, but the blunt-featured dolls returned with a vengeance, more insistent than ever to hang on to her skirts.  Her broom lashed out, indenting a head here, breaking stubby limbs there, a futile defiance.  She could not keep up efforts to dislodge them, and in time, they were all back in place.

My sword might do a little better, but I hesitated to help. 
A little wisdom was sinking in.  I could not accept every fight that offered itself to me if I hoped to last throughout my quest.  What was it that the hanged man had said about the city dwellers when I first arrived?  I strained to recall his words.

The pattern they set in life is their pattern in death
.

I called to the old woman, “What are those things that afflict you?”

“These are my grudges.”  Her voice rasped as if eroded by many years of constant use.  “I nursed them in life, and carried them everywhere I went.  Now, they will not let me do
otherwise.”  Tears slid down her face.  “If only I’d spent as much time on a forgiving heart…”

Character
is
Fate.  Nothing I did could help anyone but the living.  That insight brought another.  The girl I
thought
I’d rescued from Dupree, if it was her habit to trust the wrong men, she would be in someone else’s clutches soon enough, crying piteously for rescue.  Depressed, I climbed to my feet, feeling the aches of recent falls.  I pressed on, leaving the old woman with her torments, but I would carry her lesson with me.

In truth, I do not know how many cross streets I plodded past
while fighting my way toward a hopeful disposition.  I stopped more and more frequently to rest and take bearings.  I thought I might have drifted into sleep while walking.  It was fortunate I gave myself a mental shake, for I caught the sound of careful footsteps dogging my trail.  But try as I might, I saw no one paying any more attention to me than anyone else.

I dismissed my misgivings as nerves and wondered at the speed with which this realm was unraveling me.  Was this natural or some effect of the cursed city?  The general air of despair and depression made each breath I drew an increment of defeat.  I longed for a clean wind anywhere, and an open patch of sky. 

An alley’s dead-end forced me to retrace my route half a block.  A skeletal, black-suited man stopped in the middle of the road as I approached.  Under bushy white eyebrows, his dark eyes flared with guilty panic.  He remained where he was while I chose a side passage between buildings.  Coming out of the alleyway, into a deserted stretch of street, I heard the man’s footsteps echoing behind, hesitant and careful.  Or was the city driving me mad?

He
was
the one following me.  It could not be for good reason.  I had to find out why. 

After rounding the corner, I stopped in a doorway where he could not see me and waited.  I heard the footfalls quicken as soon as he lost sight of me.  I eased my rapier free of its leather sheath and held it loosely at my side.  As the old man appeared, I emerged and stopped him with my point to his throat.  He trembled in fear, or maybe infirmity, but held his ground.

“What is your business with me?” I asked.

“Business?  I am simply out for a walk.”

He lied.  The naked hunger in his gaze betrayed him.  I let my point rise, flicking past his right cheek, leaving a stinging scratch.  He winced, but stayed put.  “I want the truth,” I said.  The scratch closed, healing instantly.  He brushed blood away as if it were a trivial matter.  That he healed made me discount him as a player; the duels were for the living, not the dead.  I could not make him fear death, but torture was another matter.  “I can make your recurring existence a lot more unpleasant if I have to.”  To emphasize the point, I flicked my rapier again—this time deeper.  “With each breath a misery, you will beg to speak the truth.”

He smiled, but I was not disarmed.

“It is only that I am a doctor, and though I hate to intrude upon your affairs, it seems to me that you are showing signs of illness.  You should let me help you.”

“And do you have some leech to thin my blood or a tonic to lend vitality?”

He let a hand flutter up between us like a great pale moth.  “If you’d only let me examine you…”

His image split in two as I fought to focus.  Strength bled from me as if from some gaping wound.  My head ached, as the sound of cathedral bells burst across me.  They were ringing just for me
—quiet until I fought for my life.  I was in serious trouble.  My sword tip grounded.  I wavered on my feet.  Trembling, I swayed to the side and caught myself against the wall of the red brick building at my back. 

The doctor followed my steps.  He touched my sword hand and it lost sensation.  I heard my blade clatter on the street, then clatter once again, kicked farther away from me.  Fear took me by the throat and shook me
—no, it was the doctor!  He gripped me with steel fingers, pinning me to the wall as he stripped away the thorn whip riding my hip, casting it aside.

He did not let me suffocate, loosening his hold, allowing shallow breaths.  My life meant more to him than my death—I knew this as my sight cleared, and I saw years sloughed off his face.  Wrinkles faded with the infusion of youth and his hair darkened close to his head, lengthening visibly in a frenzy of growth.  His back lost its stoop, and his muscles swelled, tearing the seams of his clothes. 

Without a mirror’s help, I understood that in some way the very energy of my life escaped, flowing into him, healing him.  He was a leech, right enough, though no kind I had ever heard of.  Unless I stopped him, I would be left a withered husk, spent and useless, my quest unattainable.  Worse than dead, he might leave me an aged wreck, hobbling these streets without strength, an object of ridicule to one and all.  And my child would be lost to me forever.

No!

As though sensing my thoughts, he laughed, his creaking voice thickening to a booming timbre.  “There is nothing you can do.”

His hand released me and I slid down the wall.  He removed an item from a pocket, a ring with a serpent face, gripping a sickly yellow stone in its fanged mouth.  This vampire of the soul was a player of the game that I had known nothing of, so he had to be alive after all, though he regenerates as the dead do.

In a few moments, he would return to feeding.  I had only seconds to act.  My hand went to the one hope left me, the silver mask in my pouch.  I fumbled at the bag as shod hooves clattered closer.  My opponent turned to look for the sound’s source, and I offered a prayer of gratitude for the distraction, desperately needing the extra time.  The wretched lethargy from his touch encased me in the heaviest of armor, but I extracted the mask and set it against my face, softly breathing out Silver Wolf’s true name.  “Altair!”

His skills were mine to invoke, one time only
. 
But I dare not save the option for later; unless I stopped the Leech now, all hope of finishing my quest died here. 

As the mask sealed around my face, strength returned.  I breathed freely.  Either the shade I summoned shielded me from the draining, or some charm lay in the silver mask itself.  Had I weapon in hand, I might not have needed to use the name, just the mask that clung to my features all on its own.

An icy coldness settled on me, but it was a clean, refreshing sensation, replacing the weary ache of the Leech’s touch.  A knight’s shadow-shape hovered over me.  I recognized the spectral face of the Silver Wolf.  He rotated, sinking, copying my posture as if to sit in my lap.  The shade sank into my flesh, and I heard wind-song in my ears, like the voices of spirits in limbo. 

My thoughts turned amorphous and distant as another will drove me to my feet.  My body answered this call with its old speed and sureness, and perhaps a bit more.  Either my sudden movement or the end of the energy he drew returned the Leech’s attention to me. 

The loudness of hooves suggested an immediate arrival, but I would not let myself get distracted.  Hunched forward, I jammed my shoulder into my enemy’s midsection, driving away his breath, forcing him back several steps so I could fall upon the closest weapon.  It turned out to be the barbed
whip.  Its handle came to my hand as I rolled, the energy of the fall carrying me to my feet again in a smooth roll.  I suspected I was doing it correctly this time, and would have no bruises from the spill.

I had no experience with using a whip, but the ghost within me had no trouble.  The lash cracked like the break of Judgment Day, slashing across the Leech’s face.  The braid cut to the bone, twisting him into a defensive posture with his arms reflexively guarding vital targets.  Acting with a relentless fury, my arm repeated the maneuver and more cracks reverberated in the narrow street.  I became a relentless machine, finding purpose in motion as I struck out at the abomination.  Soon the creature’s clothing became blood-drenched tatters that matched the skin underneath.

The Leech fell under the rain of blows, huddling face down as his back ripped open, spurting blood.  I flayed deep muscle from bone while the miserable worm sunk in upon himself, turning old and decrepit once more.  His bellows of pain shrunk to piteous mewling, but my arm did not slow its vengeance.  Even when I would have changed over to the sword to finish him mercifully, my body continued, driven by another will, that of Silver Wolf.

He knew and hated this creature.  I felt a backwash of vicious satisfaction and a rage that went beyond any I had known before.  The doctor had at least one death coming to him, and Silver Wolf was making sure he got the most unpleasant one available.  Whatever past issue fermented this black savagery, being the instrument of its delivery left me soiled and violated--though I’d invited this upon myself. 

Unicorn and rider barred my way.  The elf slid from the saddle with fluid grace, confronting me without a weapon as the unicorn went off to the side to wait.  The elf looked at the mask I wore and spoke to the spirit within me.  “Enough, Wolf.  Do not destroy yourself by destroying him.  Besides, avenging Myla is my right, no matter what oath you swore.  You are her friend, but I am her husband.”

My arm relaxed, dropping to acknowledge his superior claim.  Breath ragged from exertion, I coiled the whip, unmindful of the scratches I gathered from the barbs.  I held the ugly thing out to him as my lips formed words I could not anticipate, “Take it then, and let justice be done.”

He refused to take the whip.  “There are not enough deaths to fill the void in my life.  I have no time for useless indulgence that cannot bring her home.”

“Hold!” a young voice cried.  “Who breaks the sanctity of the game?  This interference is intolerable!” 

I shifted my weight to the side and pivoted to see the latest intruder, recognizing his midnight-blue robes, the silver chain he wore, and the scythe in his hand.  He was identical to the miniature image from the game board at the tavern.  The Gamesman had finally stepped out of the wings, taking center-stage.  My stare of hate clung to him, for here was the one who had stolen my son’s soul, callously condemning his body to a lingering death.

Unimpressed by the Gamesman, the elf answered with cold contempt.  “Silence whelp!  My affairs will ever take precedence over your
piddling wishes.  You and your cursed game are nothing but a break of wind.  As for your father, Death shall be held accountable for holding captive a princess of Avalon.  Tell him, ‘Death-slayer is coming.’”

A princess of Avalon
.  All of us were fighting for something precious it seemed.

The Gamesman s
aid, “Amberyn, I might have known it would be you causing this ruckus, breaking my rules.  This city is as far as you will ever travel.  My father’s wards will see to that.”

“Ha!  I think not.  I have found a weakness in Death’s defenses, which is your precious city itself.  It breaks the warding just by being.  Once I find the
Key,
I will destroy this place, and then the Courts of Death will fall!”