White Heart of Justice (28 page)

Chapter 26

R
afe had a slight nick on his neck and a dislocated shoulder, but overall his injuries were minor so it didn't take him long to heal himself. I grabbed my clothes from the bottom of the bucket and put on my long-necked sweater, down-filled vest, and heavy, hooded cloak. Just the act of bundling up against the wind and cold seemed to calm and comfort me. If it hadn't been for the discordant music and the ghastly sight of the
mortem animae
in Tartarus' courtyard, I would have felt lighter than air. Instead, I felt only moderately relieved, as if I still had more enemies to defeat, which was not a comfortable feeling.

I was just about to resheath the White Heart when I had an idea. Oh, it was a dangerous one, there was no doubt about that. But it was one I felt I couldn't disregard without some thought. How could I walk out of here as Peter had, leaving the
mortem animae
behind to suffer for another millennium, possibly more, or forever? Turning my back on them when I might hold the key to their salvation seemed like the most egregious sin imaginable. I glanced from the
mortem animae
to the White Heart.

My mother had warned me not to use perennial magic. Or at least not perennial magic that had been artificially placed in things. She seemed to think that it was unnatural and could only lead to
bad things
. Joy also had warned me against using the White Heart. Although her admonishment was slightly more specific. She'd said the sword might be able to “make someone who is absent, present again.”

Think about what that means, Noon. If you had the power to bring someone back, would you?

But it was Joy's ancestor, Kaspar Bialas, who'd been the most direct. He'd said in his letters that he was hiding the White Heart because he believed it was a modern-day Sword of Damocles. Bialas had seemed to believe that the
threat
of the White Heart's use (versus its destruction or actual use) was what kept Halja properly balanced after Metatron introduced it to our world. Bialas too seemed to believe that the White Heart might be capable of far more than just curing the
mortem animae
, which was Metatron's original goal when he'd created it. Like Joy, Bialas had also believed that the White Heart might be able to make someone who is absent, present again. To bring them back, which he most emphatically stated in his letters he did not want. In fact, Bialas had spent eleven years in Tartarus building Orcus' strong room and then he'd imprisoned both Orcus and the sword within it before he left, to avoid the possibility of anyone either using or destroying the sword. Bialas couldn't have been clearer that his preference was an empty throne. I didn't have to pull his letters out again in order to remember his words.

I want my children and my children's children to rule themselves. And if that is a sin I will willingly burn for committing it.

And yet . . .

How could Bialas have turned a blind eye to the
mortem animae
's cursed existence here at Tartarus? It would take more than a blindfold. It would take a heart made of stone. And besides, no one came back to life in Halja, right?

“Spill it, Onyx,” Rafe said, putting on his hat and raising the hood of his cloak. “What are you thinking? You can't possibly be considering resting here before moving on. Are you worried about Aster ambushing us?”

I shook my head slowly and swallowed.

Was what I was considering really as grave as Aurelia, Joy, and Kaspar Bialas thought it was?

I only wanted to find a way to help the
mortem animae
, not bring back one of the lost lords of Armageddon. But I was also aware of that old adage, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Was the
mortem animae
's continued suffering the price all Haljans paid for peace?

I couldn't believe that. Didn't want to. But I also didn't have to make the decision alone. I told Rafe what I was thinking of doing. And I told him all about my spring side discussion with Aurelia and my backyard patio discussion with Joy, and I had Rafe read each of the letters from Kaspar Bialas.

All the while, in back of us, the
mortem animae
repeated the atrocious cycle of torture and abuse that they'd been repeating for almost a thousand years. It had to stop and I laid my case for ending it before Rafe. I didn't want him to be the sole judge of what happened here, but I did want his advice. After listening to what I had to say and reading the letters, he put them back in the box and said, “See? I knew you'd be interesting.” It was one of the things he used to say when we first started working together—that I was like a jar of pickled hearts.

Rafe never told me why he agreed with me. Just that he did. Told me whatever happened as a result of my using
Album Cor Iustitiae
he'd stand by me. That it would take more than ancient magic for him to ever stop believing in
me
.

I nodded and swallowed and turned toward the
mortem animae
.

I didn't know how sentient they were. Enough to still feel pain, longing, and a vague sense of their surroundings at least and obviously a little bit more because when I turned toward them holding the White Heart in my hand, they turned toward me as well. One of them stepped forward. I recognized him. He was the one who had stepped forward at Septembhel. The one who'd eaten the iron “coin” with the hole in it. The coin that had once been a cursed arrow tip embedded in my chest.

The
mortem animae
knelt before me. I tensed. How was I supposed to use the White Heart to cure him? Lop his head off? Ugh. But then I remembered that, in medieval times, some outpost lords had “knighted” their Hyrke sheriffs by giving them an accolade—tapping them on the shoulder with the dull side of a sword blade. That seemed like a much kinder way to bestow the possible blessing of the White Heart upon him.

I met Rafe's gaze and then slowly lowered the White Heart's blade down onto the shoulder of the
mortem animae
who was kneeling in front of me.

What had I expected?

Best-case scenario? That he be cured, of course.

Worst case? That his body would explode and shower Rafe and me with its bits so that we too became infected and unable to help the other 999+ of them, including us.

Worst, worst case? That someone, or someones, who had died a very, very long time ago might be brought back to life, thus ushering in Armageddon II.

It didn't matter what I expected. Because nothing happened. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

I raised the sword up and placed it on the shoulder of the
mortem animae
again. It was less of a tap this time and more of a smack. Then I placed it on his other shoulder. Then, after some deliberation with Rafe, I gave him first a ceremonial cut and then a full-fledged beheading. I was afraid it would be gruesome, but
nothing happened
.

Each time I tried to touch him with the White Heart, it passed through him as if he were made of smoke.

Finally, the
mortem animae
pointed. As he had back at Septembhel. But this time he pointed to my backpack.

I picked it up and started riffling through it, trying to think of what might be in there that this cursed man would be interested in. I'd already given him the only bit of iron I had. The only metal I had left was the tin box full of letters and the bizarre burlap sack full of gardening tools.

I looked up. And pulled the burlap sack out of my pack. The sack hummed with perennial magic—
naturally imbued
perennial magic.

Of course,
I thought.
Shoulda been obvious, right? I mean who doesn't use their gardening tools to remove curses?
I would have snorted and laughed out loud if the situation weren't so serious.

I resheathed the White Heart and took the scythe out of Aurelia's burlap sack. All it took was a nick from its blade and the
mortem animae
was gone in an explosion of light, heat, and sparks.
Huh,
I thought.
Perennial magic. You turn it on; you turn it off.
The iron coin I'd given the cursed man at Septembhel dropped to the ground in front of me. It was all that was left of him, but instead of mourning his passing, I celebrated it.

One by one, each of the
mortem animae
came up to be released from their curse. I knew that some of them had been guilty of the sins they'd been accused of when they'd been judged guilty by the Sanguine Scales, but many more had not been, and
all
had suffered enough by now.

It took until daylight to free them all. After the last one had been liberated, I picked the iron coin up off the ground and held it to my eye. It appeared that the world was the same. The only difference was that there were no more
mortem animae
. That could only be a good thing.

I yanked out a few more strands of my hair and tied the coin around my neck again. The world was so unchanged in fact that the damned discordant music was still playing.

*   *   *

W
e could have left. There was nothing to keep us in Tartarus. I'd found the White Heart and freed the
mortem animae
from their curse.

But we didn't leave.

It was the out of tune melody, tickling the back of my ear, crawling into my brain, poking around my subconscious, as if there was still unfinished business here.

Shouldn't ghostly, ghastly music stop once the villain is defeated and the victims saved?

Tartarus' courtyard appeared eerily empty now that the
mortem animae
were gone. We made our way past the bile-inducing torture devices and ascended the tower stairs of Orcus' old keep. This is where the false trail laid by Bialas' journal had led past White Heart hunters. Even though I felt a strong sense of foreboding, it was still amazing to know that I was treading on the same set of stairs that Graemite, Percevalus, and Jacindus had tread on. And it was even more amazing to know that I'd found what they hadn't. (Although I'd had help, of course.)

I realized, as we navigated our way up the spiral staircase, that the inharmonious sounds were coming from above. At the top was a small room with arched windows that looked in every direction. To the north, I could see the Fiddleback and the remains of the old elevated rail line. To the east, low mountains in shades of copper and pine. To the south, taller mountains in shades of pitch, pearl, and blue. To the west, the mining pit I'd crawled out of earlier, the horrid metal structures in the courtyard below, and farther off, the ravine that served as the castle's moat and the barbican and portcullis that Peter had left through.

In the center of the room was an enormous metal frame. On one side was a wheel and, lying all over the scarred wooden floor, were the broken bits of whatever had hung on the frame.

It had been a bell. And the sound was coming from its pieces.

Apparently Tartarus' keep had been built around one of Halja's ancient pre-Apocalyptic bell towers. And pieces of the old bell were still here. It was remarkable.

But that isn't why I did what I did. I did it because I'd seen this broken bell before in Demeter's spring when I'd taken that healing swim with my mother. I realized that nearly all of the things I'd seen then were things that I'd seen before or during my trip to Tartarus: a bloody tooth, a bonfire, an arrow, a crossroads, a jail cell, a set of Sanguine Scales, the iron coin with a hole in it—which I now wore around my neck—and a white sword. There were only three things I hadn't yet seen: the huge, slobbering, grinning beast with a star on its forehead, although I'd seen a miniature version of it (Telesto and Brisaya's whelp, which we'd left behind in Maize), the dam with lightning in the sky above it, and the broken bell.

But in my vision the broken bell had been welded back together.

“I want to fix it,” I said to Rafe.

“Why?”

I didn't answer him at first, just stared out of the window at the wreckage in Tartarus' courtyard and at the base of Tartarus in the Fiddleback. After a while, I said simply:

“Because I think I'm supposed to.”

Rafe raised his eyebrows, staring at me, and then finally shrugged.

“How?”

I think lack of sleep was making him monosyllabic. I smiled at him.

“With waning magic. Let's gather up the pieces and I'll weld them back together again. Come on, let's ring the Angel's bell just once before we go.”

Rafe looked skeptical about my plan but helped bring the pieces to me one by one. After I'd patched up all the holes and sealed all the edges back together, it looked like the version of it that I'd seen beneath the water in Maize.

Rafe walked over to the wheel and gave it a whirl. At that point, I think he just wanted to leave—to get away from Tartarus so that we could find somewhere safe to sleep. But, as with the first time I'd tried to use the White Heart, nothing happened.