A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (38 page)

No, she will kill you.
The burning paper turned to ashes and he hated life, hated the Moonlady and Fate
, but hated Isolde especially.
Because Lalita
was right.
The words were engraved on her palm, the papers now blank, and he
watched a future empty with it. ‘Forgive me, Lalita.
I would not
willingly draw you into this.
There is no way back.’

‘As Fate always intended.’
Unbelievably her mouth curved at the corners as she moved against him and looked up.

Oh Lady scribe, I love you.
‘We must go. We have an hour at best.’
He grabbed the unmarked hand, kissing the palm.

They stepped into the hall, walking toward the kitchen but Jasper moved out of t
he shadows.
‘You go then.’

‘Yes. You know?’
Finnian chafed at the unnecessary stalling.

‘I do.
I discover
ed it in my mirror this night.
Both of
you together and I am sorry.’
Jasper clasped t
hem both and then pushed them. ‘Go now, quickly.
The hous
e sleeps under an enchantment. It will serve for a minute.
But the mists,
Finnian, they are dissolving. You have little time.
I will protect this house as long
as I am able but beyond that…
Now go
.
’

They hurried into the vast kitchen and it was a matter of moment to re
ach for the bronze door latch.
They hastened out the door, the latch closing with a muffled click.

***

Nothing of the
Dawn showed beyond blackness.
The pearly grey fog that had shrouded Jasper’s demesnes had peeled back almost as far as the house and Lalita looked up at Finnian, her heart beating at such a pace she thoug
ht she would fall at his feet.
But they moved on, tracing the path
to the coppice almost by feel.
They slipped through, his hand holding hers as if they were melded to
gether and she was glad.
Her courage fluttered in pieces knowing she was to leave her l
ittle niece, leave this world.
Knowing that she carried his child and tha
t she and the child could die.
If they lived and made haven on the Isle of the Dead, her own child would never know the kind
of life she would want for it.
Cowardice pulled at her and yet she knew she must drag herself after Finnian because it had to be done.

Their boots made no sound on the thick covering of fallen leaves and in a moment they st
ood by the water.
Miniature wavelets tickled the shoreline and a cruel wind lifted across the tops o
f the trees and flowed inland.
The mists had vanished and Lalita realized
that
Jasper had lost his battle against this awful woman
, apart from the dense little fog that surrounded the house
.
Anger of immeasurable proportions filled him. He wanted to roar into the darkness.
‘
Where are you,
old lady?’
The sky in front of them rolled and boiled with insidious storm clouds, thunder rumbling, lightning snapping at the edges of the horizon.

Lalita gasped as a thunderclap shook the shore at her feet; almost as if it was a drum roll announcing the approach of an apocalypse.

Fin
nian whispered and she turned.
‘What did you say?’

‘I said she comes, she
sends the weather before her.
She has always had
a way with the grand gesture.
Lalita,’ he placed taut ha
nds on each of her arms. ‘You know what I must do.
I must kill her before we destroy the char
ms and I have no other way…
’

‘No.’ She backed away from him. ‘No.
You said you must deal with t
he paperweights, not with her.
That is not what you said
we would do. You can’t.
You will cause innocent death for miles hence.’

‘There
is
no other way. Please.’ Finnian reached for her
but she stepped back further.

‘There is,’ she argued.
‘If we g
o to the Isle she will follow.
She can never return and we can still destroy the charms.’

Finnian’s anger began
to build, his face hardening. ‘You think that will stop her?
On her way after us she will be so filled with ire that sh
e will kill anything she sees. Even those in Jasper’s care.
He might have the house under an enchantment right now, but Isolde is the stronger.’

‘No…
’

‘Yes,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you see?
I don’t
know
what her bane is.
I had tho
ught it was yew but it wasn’t.
With a
Cantrip, I can accomplish it.
Bane or no, it will kill her.’ The wind built around them, whipping waves on the lake, lifting twigs and leaves that struck their faces.

Lalita’s hair snaked all around her a
nd she shook it from her eyes. ‘I can’t let you do this!’
She turned and began to run but he sprinted after her and caught her, dragging her round to face him.

‘Listen,’ he shook
her. ‘Jasper’s house is safe for the minute.
He sa
id so, until I have done this. He wants her dead and gone as much as I do.
So if I have to imprison your ha
nd to call the charm, I shall.
It must be done.’

‘You did not say you would use t
he charms so close to the house!
You did not!
You li
ed and deceived Jasper and me.’
She thanked the stars that she had not told him she carried his child because she doubted she could care for a man who could sacrifice hundreds for the sake of revenge against one.

The wind howled like the Caointeach and Lalita put her hands to her ears.
Wailing for someone about to die.

‘Listen,’ he spat.
‘If I don’t destroy Isolde before she lays her hands on the Cantrips, she will decimate the YmpTre
e Orchard and everything in it.
Isabella as well.
This is the chance I must take, that Jasper protects the house and th
at I can kill my grandmother.’
His eyes were colder than ice sheets and Lalita’s skin tightened on her face as she fought against fear, Finnian’s hand reaching for her wrist again and gripping hard.

Around them, the wind began to drop.

Chapter Twenty Four

In the chilling silence that came afte
r the gale, not a thing moved.
It seemed a
s if the world held its breath.
Lalita’s eyes opened wide and seeing her expression, Finnian spun
round.
A figure walked toward them, limping a
nd leaning heavily on a staff.
The woman’s ice-white hair had been pulled into a severe knot at the nape of the neck and apart from her face, every inch of Isolde’s body was covered in
dark drifting folds
.

She smiled thinly, her voice cutting into Finnian’s sensibilities as if sh
e stove a sword into his soul.
‘Well my
boy, I have found you at last. And with a Raji whore.
But then is it really any surprise that you still tup whores?’

‘Keep your insults, Iso
lde, I have no time for them.’
Finnian’s voice cracked, his heart cold, terror clouding his thoughts.

His grandmother came closer and moved around Lalita
, examining every inch of her.
She lifted a veined hand and ran a long nail down Lalita’s cheek
, raising spots of blood
and Finnian could see her flinch, but she stood with her chin held high and her eyes clear and full of nothing but bravery.
Oh Lalita, I am so sorry.

‘Leave her!’
He grabbed his grandmother’s hand and pulled it away from Lalita’s cheek, an unguarded action that as he did it, made him wonder why he had pushed her to the edge so quickly.

But she ignored his anger, wrapping her hand around the staff and leaning on it,
a calcalting look in her eye.
Finnian cursed that he had revealed his feelings.
Idiot, fool.  Beware
.

‘You
have been gone long, Finnian.
What
were
you thinking? I was concerned.
And on my sick bed too.’

‘Concerned?’ He snorted.
‘You would have as much conc
ern for me as I have for you.
Let’s not pretend with each other.’

‘Ah,’ she sai
d.
‘But you
should
be concerned about me, I am
your grandmother, lately ill. Don’t you care at all?’
She pinioned him to the ground with her eyes. ‘But then perhaps you’ve been t
oo busy to give me a thought.’
She walked around him to stare again at Lalita but then snapped her a
ttention back to her grandson. ‘You have them boy, don’t you?
Give them to me.’

‘Be disappointed, Isolde.
I don’t have them.’

‘You lie.’ She spoke with icy equanimity.
‘A goo
d try but a lie nevertheless.’
She tapped her nose
with a swollen, twisted finger. ‘Spies, Finnian, spies.
Everywhere.
I have always watched you. Always, even as a child.
And thanks to my spies, I hear that the antiquarian in Fahsi has a collection of Venichese paperweights that were stolen from the Palazzo Di Accia.  I hear one is sold to a paper-merchant for his ni
ece who is in the royal harem.
Then I hear the woman has supposedly jumped to her
death from the seraglio tower.
Soon I hear a woman
like
her has stolen a paperweight from the same antiquarian and later that you and the little hourie here have gone to the Gat
e between Fahsi and Trevallyn.
And
I think to myself, these paperweights have become important, why should that be?
Then I learn the antiquarian is wandering around in a disheveled state claiming some strange noblewoman from a place called Killymoon
purchased other paperweights.
And then, Finnian,’ she poked him in the chest, ‘I hear that you and the whore her
e were seen fleeing Killymoon.
Now – what – do – you – think – I
– should – make – of – that?’

She emphasized each of the words, pushing him with the staff, but he said nothing, just stared Isolde down, feeling a muscle in his cheek flicking away, conscious of Lalita by his side, hearing her breath coming in anxious spurts.

Isolde smiled, a movement of muscles that barely stretched her mouth and fell
a long way short of her eyes.
‘Well, shall we conduct a business arrangement then?
My
sort of business?’
In a second she had flashed round behind Lalita and her staff was held across the delicat
e throat and pulled back hard.
Lalita coughe
d and choked, gasping for air.
Finnian lunged
forward
but as his hand closed over the piece of wood Isolde threw down a mesmer and he pulled back quickly, a white burn etched across the other scars on his palm.

‘Business, Finnian.
We shall
play
for them.’
Isolde let the staff drop away and Lalita fell to her knees, retching on the grass.

‘Finnian,’ she gasped.  ‘Don’t.’

Isolde looked at the girl on the ground and back at Finnian and he knew h
e could hide nothing from her.
She knew they were lovers, that they were joined by
something great and powerful.
Her eyes displayed such malicious confi
dence it took his breath away.
She stared at her grandson and Finnian felt the power of the black gaze, even in the dark shadow
of night that she had spawned.
‘We shall play
shatranj
and the whore here shall be one of my pi
eces and the paperweights…
let me see, how many do you have?’

He said nothing but she read his face.

‘You clever
boy, you have the four.
Well then, shall we
say two your end and two mine?
I shall make the whore my
shah
and my two paperweights shall be
vazir
and
alfil
.
Give them to me.’

He dragged the glass pieces out of h
is pocket, pulling at courage.
‘We shall play Grandmother, as you say, but
I
shall have Lalita as my shah.’
He was astonished when she didn’t argue and a quick glance at Lalita on her knees and rubbing at the livid mark across her neck made him glad he had the
woman he cherished by his side.
I ca
n protect you if you are close.

As the giant
shatranj
board appeared, he knew he must play the game of his life to keep her on t
he board until his chance came.
He gave Lalita his hand and helped her up, placing he
r on a square in front of him.
She trembled und
er his touch and he whispered.
‘
Think, what do the strips say? I did not see.
One will be enough.’

‘Enough of your love-talk.
Give me the charms.’

He threw two of the balls to his grandmother and she tossed them in the crooked fists of her hands and then laid them in their positions.

‘Come on Finnian, hasten’, she grunted as he positioned a strip of pap
er on the board under his toe.
Lalita sucked in her breath and he prayed she would not g
ive the game to the old woman.
He weighted another strip with Ibn’s stone in his
vazir’s
square and Isolde sighed as she gazed at the paper.

‘So. There they are. They were like these?’
She gestured to the paperweights at her own feet.

‘The others broke,’ was all he said because he knew he would spit venom and anger but the old woman clapped her hands like a child.

‘Temper, my boy.
Oh I
am
looking forward to this.
Remember our games when you were young?’

How could I not?
Every time I lost a piece to your
aliyat
skill, you would beat me for my inadequacy and I grew to fear the board and its pieces like another child would fear the strap.
Only later when he had matured and had begun to develop a certain tactical mentality, did she sit up straight with sick delight, saying that she could finally play with some
one who might test her mettle.
He won occasionally but not enough to claim to be an
aliyat
.
And as she surveyed the board with a proprietary swe
ep, he knew she could win…
the paperweights, his life and Lalita’s and the future of an entire world.

That she could have taken the paperweights in an instant Finnian knew, but he knew also that she enjoyed malevolent games above all else
– such was the nature of Færan.
It was why he had been stolen as a babe,
purely as a game of malintent.
In fact per
haps she hadn’t been ill at all most recently.
Perhaps it was all just cat and mouse and he had been set up utterly to find the charms. It would be like the old bitch to play that sort of game, to twi
st the mind and wrench it…

‘Are you ready?’

He nodded, wiping his hands down his breeches.

‘
Sarbaz
forward two.’
The black piece slid forward.

Finnian moved his end
sarbaz
forward two in response, the white piece gleaming in the evil nightlight Isolde manifested.

The game began.

Finnian took a hundred deep breaths as he thought through each move, mentally delivering an outcome in his head bef
ore he shifted an actual piece.
Isolde claimed one of his
alfils
and a number of his
sarbaz
, but she still had two p
aperweights and he had Lalita.
But the dynamics of the board began to change – he attacked well and at the same time set up defensive lines of his own.

His grandmother snorted a
s she surveyed the next move. ‘I am surprised, Finnian.
You play as if you have s
omething worth holding on to.’
Her gaze swept a
round the board as she talked. ‘There’s something I want to know, boy. Why use yew to poison me? An odd choice to be sure.’

He could hardly bear to answer but to keep her talking gave him time. ‘You always seemed wary of it. You had no yew amongst your poisons and there was my father’s staff.’

Her eyebrows rose as a look of incredulity swept across her face. ‘How absolutely amusing! I hated yew but I was never afraid of it. Yew was what the bed my daughters died in was made of. The stinking shrub was used by your father because he had a love of it, had a ridiculous bed carved into legends and myths for his concupiscent delight. Yew turned out to be my daughters’ bane, not mine. You idiot, I can’t believe you did not know. I had the staff destroyed because it was how I wanted to destroy your father – to have him burned and to scatter his ashes off a cliff.’ Her voice sank to a mean hiss. ‘I hated him.’

She shifted her gaze to Finnian and he pulled his shoulders back, arming himself against her. ‘
You know boy, there were times when I would look at you and catch a look of your mother and I would think that I co
uld almost love you as my own.
But then the light would change and all I could see would
be your son-of-a-bitch father.
What d
o you think I see in you now?’
In one swift counter move, leaving him gasping with her audacity, she thrust a
vazir
diagonally and one of his paper strips flew out from under his toe to lie at her feet.

Lalita’s head jerked around to catch his eye as the old woma
n unrolled the crinkled strip.
He shook his head faintly at her… a warning.

‘What is this?’ snar
led Isolde.
‘There is nothing on this paper.’

He dissembled. ‘You must hold it to a flame.
The words appear.’

She laughed. ‘Really.
You say?’

‘I do say.
Believe me or not’.

‘Aren’t you c
lever that you found this out. For sure I did not know.
Never
mind, let’s play on.
I am ever honourable in my games and would never take things wantonly.’

Finnian gritted his teeth
.
Think Lalita, think.
Three c
harms were now in his grandmother’s possession. Two were real, one was fake.
He had some moves that could give the old woman pause for tho
ught but she had him at check.
All she did now was toy with him like a cat with a mouse.