Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (42 page)

Elisha knew Death now, as he had not when first they met through this talisman. For so long, he had struggled against it, without ever understanding what he fought. Now, he recognized its terrible laughter, the sharp bite of its wind when it flung away another man. Now he knew the evil edge of cold
that cut a wounded man and the ripping sensation as it tried to tear him from the world. And he knew the grip of its talons at his own throat, squeezing out his breath, and its howl of rage when he was snatched away by other hands.

Fighting down his fear, Elisha invited Death to join him.

He raised his hands and summoned it, calling out the madness and the pain. Death stole in through his flesh. It wrapped fell mists around him. It creaked along his spine and shivered his lungs so that he could not breathe. Death insinuated itself in every taut muscle and drop of blood. It crept through his bowels, and set its stealthy hands upon his heart. It sang within him, a humming so intense he vibrated to its rhythm, his body shaking as he took it in.

Elisha invited Death, and it accepted, curling up inside him like the serpent in the apple tree, lurking, waiting for its chance to strike. It sang to him with subtle voices, a song of strength and power, of an end to time and tyranny.

No longer weak, Elisha rose.

No longer giddy with spell-struck lunacy, Elisha laughed.

He held the talisman close to his heart, the metal sliding easily in his cold, cold grasp.

B
earing his pot of Death,
Elisha turned to the door. He heard nothing now, though a wounded man stumbled inside and fell at his feet. The mouth gaped with words, but they could not penetrate the soothing hum of Death inside him.

Stepping over him, Elisha walked to the churchyard. He surveyed the fight, seeing the little knot of horsemen, hemmed all about by the king’s knights and soldiers. They looked so weak and fragile, their bones struggling against their flesh. He imagined it putrid, falling from the crumpling bones in strips, these men who thought themselves bold dissolving into rot and dust and foulness. He searched for someone, but did not see him.

A figure loomed up before him, calling out, the face contorted with anger.

Elisha gazed around the soldier, cool mist enveloping him.

Raising his axe, the man charged, his teeth showing in an open roar that issued no sound.

Lifting his hand, Elisha caught the axe haft.

Brittle, dry and ancient, it splintered in his grasp, the axehead dropping to bury itself.

Waving his arms before him, the man stumbled back, then turned and fled.

As well he should run, for Death stalked this field.

Ignoring the fighting knot of men, Elisha walked into the courtyard, still seeking. He sniffed the air and found that Death had gone before him. In his
steps, the grass browned and withered. Flower petals fell from the dandelions. Their naked stalks rotted where they stood. A small darting bird swooped through his shadow, and its wings trembled, then it fell from the sky.

Elisha strolled forward. He remembered hurrying, as if there were some race on, and he must win it. It didn’t matter now. Whatever he had been after, he would find it in time, or it would come to him.

Another man sprang up to challenge him, waving a sword.

With a casual sweep of his hand, Elisha knocked the man aside. At his touch, the flesh shivered and grew cold, darkening to leather. Something trembled through his fingers, a disturbing something that wanted to distract him, to make him falter. Withdrawing his hand, Elisha frowned, but the sensation was gone, and he relaxed.

Two broken bodies lay at the base of the tower, soldiers still bound needlessly. Again that distraction arose, but he pushed it away.

Across the yard, beyond the stone cistern, he saw the man he had been looking for, the man with the crown on his helmet. Framed in the empty arch near the bridge, he stood in a ring of his own men. Holding a long sword before him, the man circled with a shorter, stocky figure. The crowned man laughed and sneered, twisting his bearded face.

The stocky man stood between Elisha and his goal, the sword in his grip shaking a little as he stood.

Beyond the wall, someone died. A rush of power flowed through the earth, up through Elisha’s feet and legs, taking root in his breast. The heady scent of it filled him, tingling through his senses. Elisha grinned, then laughed.

Heads turned among those who watched the duel. Three ran forward, more fell back, tripping over their own feet.

Elisha’s walk took on a suggestion of purpose. He stepped in a narrow channel, frost racing out from his ankle as he crossed over. The water froze and cracked and thawed again under the distant glitter of the sun.

Another familiar figure slunk along the wall, using the distraction of Elisha to make for the tower. Elisha laughed again. In time, all in time.

Another death rippled through the earth to him. He reached out and caught it, taking it over his hand like a ferret in a lady’s sleeve, sleek and
sharp. He played it over his fingers in a dark coil. More like a snake than a ferret—nothing so soft, something slick and darting, tasting the air, hungry for more.

As the crowned one attacked, the stocky man fell aside and his sword flew from his grasp. Elisha stepped over him. Intent on his quarry, Elisha felt only the hint of the cold wound as he passed by.

Drawing back, the crowned man shouted.

Elisha stepped on, shriveling a clump of weeds.

The ring of guards, shattered by Elisha’s approach, tried to rally to their king. Elisha glared upon them and watched them sink to their knees, tears tracking their faces, hands begging for the gift he could not offer.

The king retreated, his sword thrust out before him, his lips gibbering with useless sound.

Inevitable and unmovable, Elisha walked toward him.

With a cry, the king slipped. He slithered down the bank on his belly, his feet splashing into the water.

Elisha did not fall. He knelt down at the riverbank and held out his hand. Performing this final baptism, he placed his palm on the king’s crown.

Blue eyes widened. The head shook, the lips turned pleading.

Elisha’s icy grip shattered the metal, tumbling the helmet in pieces into the water. His fingers combed the tousled hair.

The king’s mouth broke into a horrible wail as death poured over him. His eyes sank and shriveled, his tongue twitched and lashed as he spoke ice crystals into the sunlight of April.

His hands flew up from the freezing water, grappling with Elisha’s arm. For a moment they stuck, his skin frosting over. He tugged and twisted and could not break free until he tore his skin. The fingertips ripped away like dried-up mushrooms, his flesh powdering the surface of the ice. His cheeks withered. His powerful shoulders arched and wrenched, then sagged into his chest. His heart gave a final desperate pound and froze like a lump of stone within him.

Death raced up Elisha’s fingers, kneading itself into his arm, crowing the victory.

He lifted his hand, and the king fell, his desiccated corpse breaking on the already-melting ice.

A familiar word echoed suddenly through the mist, and Elisha rose, frowning. Again, it came, like a breath of history, long dead. Elisha smiled and turned. The word meant nothing now, just another fleeting thing to fall and be consumed. All the words of the world meant nothing.

People ran at him, people without weapons, save one. They stumbled to a halt beside the crumpled form of the stocky man.

Elisha tilted his head, seeing them through a sort of prism, their faces magnified in horror. A tall one caught up a smaller one in his arms and backed away. A short, hairy one held up his hands before him, gesturing wildly. The one with the sword grabbed the red-haired one.

You are all mine, Elisha thought. You all belong to me, however much you struggle to avoid me. He laughed, and even his own sounds were unable to reach him.

The one with the sword advanced, pushing aside the red-haired one. Its mouth flapped, its hand waved in a gentle rhythm.

Recognition dawned in Elisha’s cold mind. Oh, he remembered this one. He remembered those keen, blue eyes, and the moment of hesitation when he might have been Elisha’s savior. This one had held the power to set him free, and had not done it. This one possessed something he longed for. What was it? What could he ever have wanted that he could not now take of his own will?

Gathering the mist around him, Elisha strode out to meet it. He rolled death into his fingers, squeezing it like a child’s toy, a plaything only he could enjoy.

Before he could get there, the man fell under a sudden deluge, tumbling away to one side, floundering. The red-haired one let the water she had summoned fall back.

Elisha felt a twinge, and he shook it away.

Running, the red-haired one stood suddenly before him.

He raised an arm, but her hand snuck past him, her fingers brushing his face.

Shocked, Elisha froze. A fistful of death held close and ready, but she did not darken or fall, and the touch of her hand crashed through him like a wave of sudden sound. Around him, people screamed and prayed. The tall man—Ruari—called down his god of vengeance on a witch. Beside him, Lisbet
cowered beneath his arm. Madoc intoned the words of an antique language, one they spoke here long ago, the rhythm of his hands trying to ward off evil. The prince dragged himself free of whatever entangled him and broke into a run.

The woman before him held out her hand. Her fingers indeed had darkened.

His cheek twitched with warmth, and Elisha shook his head to clear it, to maintain his focus. But the touch went too deep. It twined inside him, hot and growing hotter by the second, flaming through the veils of mist. Her touch dashed away the darkness in his eyes. It spread through his skin and radiated into every finger.

Elisha trembled and gasped. He struggled to keep his contact.

Then her eyes gleamed into his, and she spoke again that single, familiar word. “Elisha,” she said on a breath of fire.

The heat seared a pathway into his heart, casting off the icy grip that lodged there, and he screamed.

The pot tumbled from his spasming fingers.

Something snapped inside him. Elisha collapsed, and darkness took hold.

E
lisha’s eyes flew open.
A woman shrieked and something clattered. He jerked upright, flung off the bedcovers, and leapt to his feet, looking around wildly. He remembered cold. A cold so deep it coursed through his veins and shot from his fingers.

On the tiled floor, a strange woman scrambled to her feet, her hair in disarray, a basket of stitchery overturned around her. “Don’t hurt me!” she wailed. Getting her feet beneath her, she crossed herself.

Elisha swallowed hard. His mouth felt dry as sand. His throat convulsed with pain, and he brought his hands up, feeling a bandage wrapped over a remembered injury. He did remember that, didn’t he? But it, too, had been cold.

As his hands fell, he stared. Something was wrong there. Elisha wriggled his fingers, turning his palms up and down. No, not his hand. Mordecai—the name sprang to his memory, and a rush of others followed: Ruari and Lisbet, falling in love in his absence; Madoc and Collum and all of his men; Benedict sinking cold from his arms. The prince, whose name he should remember, and Brigit, whom they both loved. Brigit who had melted the ice from his heart.

Elisha clapped his hand over his mouth, reeling with memory. Taking a few paces, he dropped to his knees before the terrified woman. “Did I kill the duke? Tell me! Did I kill him?”

Shrinking away, the woman swayed.

As she fainted, Elisha caught her and lay her on the ground. He leaned back on his heels.

“Elisha.”

He jerked as if someone had struck him, pulling himself half up as he turned.

Even as he did so, the air in the room grew warmer, somehow comforting, as if he drew a breath of lavender. The fallen maid stirred and sprang up to make her escape.

With a twisted smile, Mordecai bent down to him, holding out his hand. “Shouldn’t’ve left you. Sorry.”