Death of a Darklord (9 page)

“Look at the body, Elaine.”

She did.

The man lay on the frozen ground. His face was no longer ordinary. There was some spark left, not of life, but of what he had been. He had been a man who laughed often and was often afraid. What need had driven him out in the darkest part of the year? The question gave the answer—love. He loved his remaining family, his people, his village. She saw the recent loss of his daughter like a shadow across his still face.

How did she know all this? How could she be so certain?

“Do not question yourself, Elaine. You will spoil it if you do.”

She tried not to, but it was hard. Hard to stand there and stare at the flickering light that traced the corpse and gave up all the man’s secrets. She knew him in that instant as no one else had, not even his family, perhaps not even himself. She saw him stripped and pure before her, faults bare to her magic, but strengths there, too. His bravery, his kindness, his fear. Over all was fear. He had traveled far to die in such terror.

It was not fair. Fairness is for children and fools. That soft, sure voice was in her head, Gersalius’s voice inside her head.

The flickering light on the body was the reflected gleam of Pegin Tallyrand’s life. A good life, well loved, generous with what little he had. He would be missed by many. The light shuddered, stumbling as if it had feet to be tripped. The light circled round a small lump in the man’s cloak. It was not a pocket, but something affixed to the lining, sewn in.

Elaine half-fell to her knees, hand reaching for that stumbling light. Her fingertips hesitated, hovering just over the cloth. There was a flash so bright it dazzled the eyes. A smell of burned cloth, and Elaine held a small piece of carved bone in her hand.

It was the finger joint of a human hand, carved and painted with runes she did not know. The light was gone. Everything was gone. She knelt on the frozen ground with the bone on the palm of her hand. The bone gleamed like a ghost in the dark. The silver glow was gone, and the starlight too faint to see by.

Gersalius leaned forward, peering at her hand. His eyes glowed in the dark. Tiny pinpricks of flame burned in his face, green to her violet, but it was the same kind of magic. Had her own eyes glowed just moments before? Elaine glanced up at Tereza. She stood silent and unreadable in the dark. Elaine did not ask if her eyes had glowed with violet flames; she was not ready to hear if the answer were yes.

“Very interesting,” Gersalius said.

“What is it?”

“What did your magic tell you?”

“It wasn’t part of the man. He didn’t know he carried it.”

“Very good, what else?”

She thought it would be hard to recall what the light had shown, now that the light was gone, but it wasn’t. It was easy, as if each moment were carved behind her eyelids where she could never forget it.

“It was a spell. A piece of death sewn into his cloak. It was dormant, waiting, until he touched the great tree.”

“Why did the tree set the spell off?”

She thought about that for a moment, rolling it round in the remembered light. “Its power was death. It had to wait for something dead to come along.”

“And the great tree was dead, killed by lightning.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Would a dead body have triggered the spell?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“The spell animated the dead with a terrible purpose. What was that purpose, Elaine?”

“It wanted Pegin dead.”

“It?”

“The maker of the spell wanted him dead.”

“Why?”

Her hand closed over the piece of bone. “The spell’s creator didn’t want Pegin to bring help. He, or she, fears Jonathan, fears the mage-finder.”

“How do you know that?”

“The bone reeks of fear.”

“Could that not be the fear of the hand from which the bone came?”

Elaine nodded. “It could be that, but the maker of the spell is afraid also.”

“Is it only the mage-finder that the spell’s caster fears?”

“No.”

“What else?”

“Death, he fears death.” She squeezed the shard of bone until the edges bit into her skin. The bones in her hand trembled in sympathy with the thing she held. The pain was sharp and final, the injury so great that the body deadened the nerves. It was not her own pain she was remembering. The finger had been severed while the woman still lived. There had been many spells, many bones, much blood.

Fingers curled around her hand. “Let go, Elaine.” Gersalius tried to open her hand. “Let go.”

“I cannot.”

“Tereza, help me.”

Tereza did not ask questions. She just knelt, flinging her gloves to the snow, helping to pry Elaine’s fingers apart. One finger at a time, they opened her hand.

Gersalius turned her hand palm down, spilling the bone to the snow. Blood welled in a small cut where the bone had bitten into her skin.

Tears trailed down Elaine’s face. She wasn’t sure why she was crying. “What happened?”

“Your magic feeds on light, heat. Other magic feeds on other things,” Gersalius said.

“What other things?”

The wizard held her hand up to the dim starlight. He smeared his thumb through the darkness on her palm. “Blood, Elaine. It feeds on blood.”

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chest. He could feel his face set in a scowl, but didn’t care. If anything was worth scowling about, it was this.

Tereza stood against the far wall. Her arms were also crossed, tucked tight against her stomach, angry. Her long, dark hair gleamed like fur in the lamplight. The rich colors of her clothing glowed with reflected radiance. The strong planes of her face were set in high relief by the light and shadows. The sight of her made his body ache, but what she asked was impossible.

“No, Tereza, I cannot condone it.” His voice sounded firm and reasonable. He was right, and she would see that.

“You did not see Elaine in the shed tonight, Jonathan. Now that she knows she is a mage, her magic is coming out stronger, faster. If Gersalius had not been there, she might have been sucked to death’s door again.”

“From what you tell me, if the wizard had not urged it, she would not have tried this … magic.”

“No, but the next vision would have endangered her. At least now she knows how to control the magic, a little.” She pushed away from the wall and began to pace the small room. Her energy
seemed to fill the room, making it shrink and pale compared to her. She was so very alive, all nerve endings and emotion, all physical. Jonathan was aware that she balanced him, his careful calculation to her impetuousness, his thinking to her heart, his age to her youth. Even as he argued, part of him wanted to say yes just because it was her. But no, not this time. He would, by the gods, stand his ground.

“Before tonight, I would have agreed with you.” She stopped in front of him, hands on hips. “Gersalius must accompany us to Cortton.”

He shook his head. “No.” One simple word; why couldn’t she understand it?

Tereza paced away from him, stalking the room as though it were a cage. “Then Elaine must remain behind, with the wizard.”

“No.”

She whirled. “Why not?”

“I do not trust the wizard here at our home with us away. He could bewitch the entire household, including Elaine, before we return.”

“Do you really believe that?” She was standing in front of him again, dark eyes gentle and searching. The anger was seeping out of her. Tereza could never stay angry long, at least not at him. Frankly, this new reasonableness was more dangerous. As long as she ranted and raved, he could simply fight. But how to argue with reason?

He looked away from those searching eyes. It was a bad sign that he could not meet her gaze. He was losing, and not sure why. “Surely you see that we cannot take a wizard along on our work. I am the mage-finder. I cannot cart a mage along to aid me.”

“He won’t be there to aid you, Jonathan. He will be there to see that Elaine does not inadvertently kill herself.”

“It can’t be that serious. She has gone on all these years.”

Tereza shook her head, dark hair sliding along her shoulders. “I told you what happened tonight. She was like a stranger, Jonathan.” Her face when she turned to him showed something he had not expected … fear.

He reached out for her without thinking, touching her arm. “Are you truly afraid of our little Elaine?”

She cupped her hand over his, pressing gently. “She would never harm us on purpose—I know that. Before tonight I was only worried for her safety, but now.…” She knelt at his feet, hands encircling his hand. She gazed up at him. “She is going to be a powerful mage, Jonathan. We cannot change that.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but her fingertips touched his lips and the protest died, unspoken.

“We cannot change it, Jonathan. After what I saw tonight, I know that for a certainty. All we can do is train her to be a power for good and see she does no harm to herself or anyone else by accident.”

He pulled her hand away from his mouth. “There is no such thing as good magic. It is all evil.”

“Then Elaine is evil,” she said softly. “But you don’t believe that. We’ve raised the girl for eight years. You know her heart is kind and gentle. You know that.”

Jonathan stood, pulling away from her hands, the smell of her skin. He would not be persuaded by beauty to override his common sense. He walked to the window, staring down into the cold courtyard.

There was a gleam of firelight in the wizard’s cottage. He
smashed his fist into the wall beside the glass. “Magic corrupts all it touches. I have seen proof of that, again and again.”

He felt her approach behind him. He did not need eyes to sense her movements. He could sense her like some great irresistible force. Love and passion can be as strong as any star.

Her strong hands touched his shoulders, her body pressing against his back. “We cannot change what has happened to Elaine. All we can do is protect her as best we can, as any parents would.”

He leaned his forehead against the icy glass. A wizard was sleeping just below, behind stout walls that Jonathan had built. A mage inside his defenses. It was outrageous.

“Leave Elaine here in Gersalius’s care, or bring them both with us. Those are our choices, my love.” Her voice was soft and warm against his neck.

He straightened. Her arms encircled his waist, and he pressed his hands over hers. “They will come with us.” Her arms tightened against him, snuggling closer. Why was that small movement worth losing a dozen fights?

“Perhaps we might have the wizard look at Blaine.”

Tereza was very still against him. “What do you mean?”

“His ability to feel animals, plants; he said the tree was dead, even when it attacked them, he knew it was dead. You tell me Elaine’s magic said the same.”

“You think Blaine might be a mage, as well?” Her voice was very soft, very careful.

“I don’t know.”

“But you fear it?”

“I fear we have harbored serpents in our midst without knowing it.”

“You can’t believe the twins are evil, Jonathan.” Her arms tightened around him. “You can’t.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore, Tereza. If you had told me two days ago that I would allow a wizard within my home …” He let the thought trail off.

She softly kissed the back of his neck. “You were very brave to allow Gersalius inside.”

“I cannot let Elaine die because of my prejudices. That would be evil all its own.”

Tereza turned him away from the window to face her and the warm, familiar room. “You are a good man, Jonathan Ambrose.”

“Am I? If Elaine is not evil, then what of the other mages I have destroyed over the years? Were some of them good? Has my own conceit murdered the innocent?”

She gripped his arms tightly. “No, it is not just magic that earns them death. It is evil magic. In all the years I have been with you, I have never seen you persecute someone that had not committed some terrible evil.”

“I wish I could be certain of that.”

“In Cortton, someone has conjured up a plague that has killed half the village. The dead walk the street, preying on the living. That is evil, Jonathan, and only one man can stop it. The mage-finder. You will hunt down this rogue magic-user and see that he is stopped.” She stood just an inch or two taller than he, her face earnest, eyes searching his.

“Will Gersalius come with us to persecute one of his own?”

“If Gersalius will not aid us against a necromancer, he is the wrong wizard to be tutoring Elaine.” She seemed to think of something that made her smile. “If the wizard agrees to come,
surely that is proof that even a mage does not approve of murder and raising the dead.”

He knew she meant it to be comforting. If Gersalius agreed that it was evil, he was probably not evil, and if a mage approved of the mage-finder, Jonathan was not wrong to hunt them. But what if Gersalius only went along to spy for the other wizard? What if he used his power over Elaine to corrupt them all? And what was he, Jonathan, thinking to give the mage power over Blaine, too? But if Blaine had magic, wasn’t he in danger of its emerging at odd moments? Wasn’t Blaine in as much danger as Elaine?