Piercy couldn’t breathe. “Ayane,” he said, “get up. Stand up, Ayane.” She had to hear him. She couldn’t be dead. Her body looked so empty, her eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. “Ayane!”
“It’s all right for you to call me Dalessa,” the Witch said. She pushed the heavy cloak back over her shoulders and held Ayane’s knife pressed point-first against her chest, over her heart. “She should be happy to let me use her body. Besides, she won’t be in the Underworld long.”
“No!” Piercy screamed. “Leave her alone! Bring her back!”
The Witch looked at him, startled. “I can’t do that,” she said. “Now, be patient, this won’t take long. I’ll kill this body and take hers before it starts to rot.”
Piercy fought the grip, trying desperately to move the sword, move his arms or legs, anything to reach the Witch and tear her apart. He couldn’t do anything. Ayane was dead and he’d failed her. Dolobeka was too far away. And even if he were close enough, killing the Witch would only let her take Ayane’s body, and then—
The Witch smiled sweetly at him, then drove the knife home. She made no noise, showed no sign of pain, just curled in on the blade. Piercy found himself free of sepera sustelli. He dropped a few feet to the ground and plunged forward, wanting only to tear the woman apart, find some way of stopping her.
He was three feet away when the Witch straightened and gestured again, stopping him in mid-stride. There was no blood on her chest, and she looked puzzled. “That should have hurt,” she said. “This body is broken. I want another.” She dropped the knife on the ground, next to Ayane’s body.
“You don’t deserve anything but to return to the Underworld,” Piercy said. “Release me and I will be happy to oblige you.”
To his surprise, the pressure around his body disappeared. The Witch turned away from him, apparently not caring about the God’s sword. “You must be the only two of your kind,” she said to Dolobeka. “When I have my real body, you and I will have children. I think it’s fitting.”
“You will leave Lady Sethemba’s body alone!” Dolobeka shouted, and rushed at the Witch. Piercy shouted a warning to him, but the Witch merely picked him up and threw him at the trees. He bounced once, then landed at the base of a gnarled oak and lay still.
“Why is this body broken?” the Witch shouted at Piercy, taking several angry steps until she was inches from him. Piercy brought the sword up—and stopped. A thin line of black ran around the base of her neck, black that even in the dim light stood out starkly against the Lady High Chamberlain’s pale skin. The Witch was still wearing the leash.
Kerensa had said it bound spirits to the physical world, even to the point of protecting them from death, which meant Ayane’s knife could have no effect on her. Hodestis had given the madwoman immortality, and she didn’t realize it. Piercy realized he was holding his breath and let it out. He had to get the leash away from the Witch and put it on Ayane, and then they could kill the Witch. And he had to do it without letting her know what she had.
“You must have chosen the wrong body. If you hadn’t killed Ayane, this wouldn’t have happened,” he said, taking a step forward. Could he claim the leash inhibited her power? No, she would know if her magic was weaker than normal. He could try to break it, but that seemed unlikely, given that it belonged to a God.
The Witch blinked at him. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why are you threatening me? I told you I would marry you, so it doesn’t seem right for you to try to kill me.”
“I thank you for your kind offer, but I believe I would rather marry a viper. I rate my chances of surviving my wedding night considerably higher with that partner.” He’d just have to find a convincing lie about it. “I believe—”
The Witch’s face contorted in a snarl. “You don’t deserve to marry me,” she said, and threw up a hand in his face. “Frigo.”
P
iercy heard a terrible cracking noise, as if a
thousand dry branches all snapped at once. Then there was pain, so
much pain—the pain of bones breaking, of splinters jabbing his
organs, the weight of his flesh unsupported by a skeleton. He
collapsed, unable even to scream, trying to support the weight of
the sword that fell atop him. He blinked up at the Witch once, then
closed his eyes and let death claim him.
He lay on a soft, prickly surface and keened in agony as his bones knit back together. His skull reshaped itself with a grinding sound that made his teeth ache, his fingers re-formed with a series of pops, and when the long bones of his thighs were once again solid, he tried to rise and failed. He lay still and breathed deeply, inhaling fresh air scented with the coolness of water, and let his mind go blank. Blue sky high above was dotted with white clouds like lost lambs scooting across the expanse looking for their mothers. It was a slightly mad comparison, but he was having trouble remembering why he was in this place.
The Witch. Frigo. I am dead.
Ayane is dead.
He rolled over, got on his hands and knees, and let his head hang because he was still too weak to lift it. Ayane’s face came to mind, not her vibrant smile and luminous eyes, but that stunned, uncomprehending look just before she died. He was too weary even to weep for her. I ought to save my pity for myself, he thought, and pushed himself to his feet.
The sword lay a short distance from him, or, rather, the hilt of the God’s sword; all that remained of the blade was a couple of metal splinters like cobblers’ needles, as if the blade had shattered like ice. On a whim, he picked at the leather binding until it came apart and unraveled in a long spiral to land on the ground. The metal of the grip was black like the leash and had the same warm/cold feeling. Piercy tugged on the pommel, which was a silver sphere carved with designs too worn to make out, but it wouldn’t come off. He bent to pick up the leather strap and tucked it into his pocket. It seemed wrong to leave any trace of himself here, even if there was no one around to see it.
This didn’t look like the Underworld. Kerensa’s story told of passages thronged with spirits who could lead a living person astray. This place was open to the sky, and Piercy could see no one but himself anywhere. Bright sunlight reflected rainbow shards off the surface of a nearby lake. In the distance, a waterfall cascaded down the face of a black cliff where a channel had been carved out over centuries. It made a sound like wind blowing through a hundred tree tops where it struck the lake.
Fields of green grass dotted with wildflowers extended in every direction, turning into trees where the lake and waterfall met. At the edge of his vision, tiny smudges of mountains lay waiting to be discovered by some explorer. Real sky, real grass, real sun warming his head because he’d lost his hat somewhere. This couldn’t be the Underworld…or was this all some elaborate illusion?
He continued toward the lake for lack of anything better to focus on; the mountains were impossibly far away. When he reached the shore he saw, on the opposite side of the lake, a man dressed in frock coat and trousers, wearing a hat and carrying a walking stick. He seemed to be looking at the lake and not at Piercy, but when Piercy walked in his direction, he approached, letting the stick swing gracefully by his side. Piercy quickened his step. Finally, someone who could explain to him what had happened.
The man was dressed fashionably in a waistcoat exactly like Piercy’s favorite and a cravat tied the way Piercy usually did. Then he tipped his hat, and Piercy stopped in astonishment: the man was him, down to the haircut and the scar at the corner of his mouth from an incautious moment in an illegal duel. “Good morning, Piercy,” the man said, and Piercy was stunned again, because it wasn’t his voice, it was a mellow tenor that rang through his bones and made him long to hear it again. The voice of a God.
“Good morning…my Lord Cath,” he stammered. “You look….”
Cath smiled at him with some amusement. “You wouldn’t be able to bear seeing my true form,” he said. “Yours was far more accessible.”
“It’s…I admit it is unnerving.”
“Really? What about this one?” Cath’s features blurred, swam like cream in coffee, and settled into a bland Santerran face Piercy couldn’t remember ever seeing before.
“Thank you, my Lord, I appreciate your consideration.”
Cath threw back his head and laughed, a hearty, infectious sound that left Piercy even more confused. “Piercy Faranter, you are by far the most well-bred man I’ve ever known, and that’s saying quite a lot. Come, sit with me. We have much to talk about.”
He waved his hand toward two overstuffed armchairs Piercy was certain had not been there two seconds before. Piercy waited for Cath to sit, then took the other chair, perching on it awkwardly. Talk with a God. Nothing in his life had prepared him for that.
“I know what your first question is,” Cath said.
“Then tell me. Where is Ayane?”
“Making her journey through the Underworld to the Death-Lands. Just as all souls must.”
“She shouldn’t have died.”
“That’s the case for many of my children. I have no control over when and how you end your lives, just that you receive justice. I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“That’s all I can tell you, Piercy. Now, to answer your second question, no, you’re not dead,” he said, leaning back and crossing his legs at the ankles. “The sword saw to that.”
“I…wasn’t sure. What does the sword have to do with it?”
“The sword,” Cath repeated. “More accurately, the hilt. It’s made of my blood, as are the leash and…well, that’s not important to you. What matters is that the only way a living person can enter the Underworld is by possessing one of those objects. I admit I cheated to bring you here. You should have come under your own power, but you were close to the door, you were nearly dead, and I thought, who’s going to argue with me? Well, my sister might, but she has her own preoccupations.”
“I apologize for the state of the sword. The Witch must have shattered it when she cast frigo.”
“Don’t worry about it. The blade can be re-forged. No, don’t offer it to me, I can’t touch it or there really would be hell to pay.” Cath withdrew his hand when Piercy held the hilt out to him. “Foolish of me to have made those things, but I was young and this world was new and I thought…well, never mind about that. It’s risky, letting them free in the living world, but far riskier to keep them close to me. But there are more important things to deal with.”
“The Witch. My Lord, why did you allow her to leave?”
“I had no choice,” Cath said grimly. “I couldn’t touch the leash, which protected Dalessa, and mortals can’t die here, so I couldn’t exert any power over Atheron. I thought that idiot Alvor had obeyed my command to take the leash to safety, but his solution was obviously impermanent. And then he had to spread the story to every traveling bard looking to make a name for herself. At least no one knew the sword was anything but a very elegant weapon.”
“Is the Witch capable of cracking open the Underworld?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can stop her.”
Cath looked off into the distance. “I can. It would be at a tremendous cost. I can lock the gates against her magic, but that will lock them…not permanently, but for a long time. People will die and have nowhere to go. The living world will become populated with the dead, who will go insane under the load of their debt. It would be catastrophic beyond measure.”
“What happens if she succeeds?”
“I imagine Dalessa believes her spell will be permanent, which it won’t be. Spirits will escape into the living world before I can counter her spell, though, and the result will be the same, but on a smaller scale. Tradeoffs, Piercy. I have to choose between two evils. And there’s more at stake than the world.”
“I don’t understand. Surely protecting the world is the most important thing.”
Cath turned his gaze on Piercy. He still wore the same bland face, but those eyes belonged to nothing human. “It’s not something I expect a mortal to understand. Dalessa had a lot of debt to work off, some of it not her fault, but the law is the law. A thousand years brought her to a point where she was nearly able to shed her madness and truly advance. I had so much joy in her…but again, that’s not something you’d understand. She can open the door for a time, and then it will close again, and everything will be as it was except for the devastation the living world will endure. But if she succeeds, she will damn herself utterly, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Piercy had to look away from Cath’s face, which showed such unbearable sorrow he felt uncomfortable witnessing it, as if he’d seen the God naked. “But if she intends to do it, does not that damn her already?”
“The law is the law, Piercy, and I won’t explain it to you,” Cath said, “but the law judges actions first and intentions after. I know you have sometimes thought of doing harm to people you encounter, but you’ve rarely acted on those thoughts, and the law won’t hold you culpable for the ones you overcame. Dalessa still has a chance.”
“You are correct, I don’t understand,” Piercy said angrily. “You would devastate the living world for the sake of one spirit? One who has already caused so many horrors?”
“You’re my children, Piercy, every one of you,” Cath said. He put his hand over Piercy’s and squeezed it gently. “You think it doesn’t hurt every time one of you disappears into the Maelstrom? You all start out with such hope, and then Belia watches over you, but she cares more for the law than she does for you, so she’s—but I’m not going to criticize my sister just because she and I think differently. No, Piercy, I’m not going to stop Dalessa. You are.”
“I beg your pardon?” Piercy pulled away from the God’s grip. “I may not be dead, but I am certainly in no position to fight a mad Witch. I have no magic and, thanks to her frigo, I no longer have a weapon. And while I am willing to attack her armed with nothing but these two hands, I question whether such an attack would truly be effective.”
“You came armed with more than one weapon,” Cath said, pointing. The hawk-headed walking stick stood propped against the arm of the chair, the silver head gleaming in the sunlight.
“My Lord, I doubt that stick is sufficiently powerful to achieve the Witch’s death. Which I presume is your intention.”
“You presume correctly. I want you to kill Dalessa and free her spirit to return here. With luck, she won’t have much ground to regain on her road to Paradise.”
Piercy closed his eyes. “My Lord,” he said, “you realize I hold you in the highest esteem and would not for the world disrespect you, but I am forced to conclude you are out of your mind.”
“Piercy, you’re one of a kind,” Cath said, laughing. “Did you ever wonder why the sword responded to you so well? You’ve been my servant for years and never known it.”
A chill ran through him. “That is not as comforting as you seem to think.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not as if I’ve been manipulating you. Some people by their natures forward my intentions for the world. Or Belia’s, though her servants tend to be more obvious. Something for you to think about. What matters is that I could make use of anyone, but it gives me pleasure to ask this of you.”
“You’re asking, then?”
“Of course.”
“But it is hardly something I can say no to.”
“That you cannot say no to. It’s who you are. It’s why I love you.”
Piercy flushed. “I…thank you.”
“Then, will you do it?”
The hawk head of the walking stick was cool under his fingers. “I will. But I have a condition.”
“I can’t bring Ayane back to life. That would warp the law.”
“Alvor saved Carall.”
“Alvor had the leash. You don’t.”
“I have this.” Piercy brandished the hilt at the God. “It must have some of the same properties.”
“The sword was made to dispense justice, not to bind souls.”
“Then let the sword judge. Give me the chance to rescue her. If it’s justice that she be returned to life, the sword can make that happen. If not…my Lord, I only want the same chance Alvor had.”
“You lack everything he used to retrieve his friend. Piercy, this is not a simple task. You could be lost in the Underworld. Your body would gradually decay around your spirit, which would be driven mad by the process. You would likely become so corrupt you would be captured by the Maelstrom, never to return. Is this really something you want to do for the sake of a woman who’s rejected you?”
Piercy gripped the hawk head more tightly. “I love her,” he said, “and even if she will not spend her life with me, I want her to have that life to live as she chooses.”
Cath regarded him dispassionately. “You will have to find her,” he said. “I can’t send you to her. But the sword will lead you back to the living world. You’re my weapon, Piercy, and I can’t afford to lose you. Swear you will return to the living world when you know your quest is hopeless.”
“It’s not hopeless.”
“Swear it, Piercy.”
“…I swear.”
“Let me see the stick, now.” Piercy handed it to him, and the God took it by the shaft and sighted along it as if it were a rifle. “You’ve used this as a weapon before.”
“I have, but never to kill.”
“I know.” Cath reversed it and held the hawk head level with his nose. He looked almost cross-eyed, which struck Piercy as the most ludicrous aspect of this whole encounter. Then Cath rubbed the silver of the stick’s head, blew on it, and handed it back to Piercy. “When this is over, take the hilt to the priests in Belicath; they’ll know what to do with it. But this stick is now your weapon. Strike once, and it will drive Dalessa out of her captured body and return her to my domain.”
“What of the leash? Will it not keep her attached to her body?”
“What I’ve done to the stick will overcome any magic—once. It will discharge its power on the first person, or thing, you hit from this moment on. Striking her will break the connection the leash has made with her body and it will have no power to bind her spirit. But if you strike anything else, it becomes an ordinary stick again and you’ll have to kill Dalessa the old-fashioned way. Including getting the leash away from her.” Cath leaned forward. “But whatever you do, don’t let the stick touch the leash.”
“What will happen if it does?”
“Let’s just say you won’t be around to find out.”
Piercy examined his walking stick. It didn’t look any different than before. “Does it matter where I strike her?”
“A solid blow will do. It’s not enough to let it graze her fingers, if that’s what you’re asking.” Cath stood and straightened his trousers. “Any other questions?”
“They are all the sort of question I am certain you will not answer, for my own good.”
“You’re a wise man, Piercy. Now, walk toward the waterfall—yes, directly into the lake. Have faith, Piercy. I haven’t brought you all this way to let you drown.” He vanished. So did the armchairs. Piercy was left facing the great blue eye of the lake and the foaming spray of the waterfall.
He let out a slow breath and tried to make his shoulders relax. He’d spoken to a God. He’d been disrespectful to a God. Two weeks ago he’d been nothing more than a town dandy and secret spy for the Foreign Office, and now…well, this was definitely not the way he’d ever imagined his life going. He rolled his shoulders a final time and walked into the lake.
It was cold. His toes went numb, and the feeling spread upward over his calves and knees and thighs. He raised his arms high to keep the hilt and the stick out of the water, but it kept rising, and when it reached his chest he realized it was pointless. The hilt kept his left hand warm, but the rest of him was as frozen as a wintry statue. Shortly he had his chin tilted high to keep his face out of the water. He kicked off the bottom to swim the rest of the way and found one of his feet was attached to the lake bed at all times, only releasing him to take another step. He drew in a deep breath and submerged entirely.