Like Fire Through Bone (26 page)

He stood, turned, and headed for the door. Back upstairs in his little room, Vasilios stretched out on the bed and tried to sleep. For all his body was tired, his mind would not rest, and he stared unseeingly up at the ceiling, but sleep did not come.

P
ATROS
came for him a few hours later. “We need to leave,” he said, after rapping on the door and entering.

“All right.” Vasilios rose from the bed, where he had still been attempting to sleep.

“Here.” Patros held out a wide leather belt with a scabbard and sword attached to it. “General Markos says you are to wear this.”

Vasilios reached for it, remembering the weight of a real sword the second it touched his hand. “Thank you.” He buckled it around his waist and shifted the large belt until it sat comfortably on his hips and he was sure he could draw the sword swiftly and easily. That done, he pulled his tunic up a little and tucked it into the belt to keep it out of his way if he needed to move quickly.

“Well, you know how to wear it at least.” Patros eyed him. “How long has it been since you’ve carried a real sword?”

“A long time.” Vasilios looked Patros over and then shrugged. “Perhaps before you were born.”

Patros raised his eyebrow at that. “You must have been a boy yourself, then.”

“I was far too young to be a soldier.” Vasilios shook his head. “But that’s what happens when you fight a losing war. Even untrained boys hold swords by the end.”

“Come on.” Patros clapped him on the back, jarring Vasilios out of unpleasant memories. “Let’s go. The others are waiting for us downstairs.”

As they headed down the stairs, Patros asked, “You have been practicing since then, though? Please tell me you’ve held at least a practice sword since the days when you were an untried youth.”

“I have.” Vasilios couldn’t help but smile. “I practiced often with Panagiotis’s bodyguards.”

“Good.” Patros led the way down the hall and toward the front courtyard.

There were two lecticae set in the front courtyard while a group of men, dressed in plain dark clothes but clearly soldiers, all armed, milled about and talked among themselves. Brother Stavros and Aritê stood together, both looking serious, also dressed in dark shades. Markos walked over to stand beside Vasilios.

“You’ll ride with me,” Markos said quietly. “I don’t think your horsemanship is up to this particular journey.” Vasilios nodded.

Brother Stavros and Aritê each climbed into a lectica, and the curtains that surrounded each litter were pulled closed to completely hide the person inside. A soldier moved to grasp one of the four handles on each lectica and lifted them. The rest mounted horses, and Vasilios moved to do the same. Markos reached out and helped Vasilios climb up behind him.

When everyone was ready, the soldiers opened the gate and they started off. The night was not completely dark since there was a large, bright moon in the sky and several of their company also carried dimmed lanterns. Still, it was darker than Vasilios would have found comfortable for guiding a horse. He tightened his grip on Markos’s waist and was glad he wouldn’t have to.

“Does the Bishop know we are doing this?” he asked as they rode, keeping his voice low.

“No.” Markos’s voice was also soft. “We are attempting to move faster than his informants, so that by the time he moves against us, it will already be done. If not, Ilkay and Theofilos will stall him until the job is done.”

They wound their way through the city toward the south gate, and the soldiers at the gate opened it for them. Vasilios couldn’t tell as they rode by whether the soldiers stationed at the gate knew who they were or not. The night was dark enough, the lanterns so few and far between, that Vasilios couldn’t really make out the countryside as they passed. He had a vague impression of green hills on either side of the road, and then they passed what he thought was probably a fruit orchard of some sort before the road turned and dipped. The road became more rocky, less gentle and grassy, and Vasilios thought they were heading toward a quarry, perhaps, or would pass by one.

The prickling started again, crawling along the back of his neck and head, making him feel terribly vulnerable.

“Markos,” Vasilios said, his tone soft as he tightened his grip around Markos’s waist. “I think we are being watched.”

In front of him in the saddle, Markos stiffened ever so slightly, but did not turn, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them. “Are you sure?”

“No.” Vasilios pressed a little bit more against Markos’s back. “It is only a feeling, but I had it before, when we were entering the city on our way back from the monastery.”

“And you only speak of it now?” Markos’s voice was still low, but Vasilios felt guilt stab deep, and he bowed his head slightly.

“I’m sorry. I was tired and I wasn’t sure. I told Lucius, but I should have told you.”

“Lucius should have told me,” Markos said, voice slightly harder than usual. “But what is done is done.” He drew their horse up slightly and waited for the next man in line to catch up to them before bending slightly to speak with him. “Tell the rear guard to be on the lookout for anything unusual,” Markos told the soldier. “There is a possibility we are being followed.”

“Yes, sir.”

In the dark, Vasilios could dimly make out the man’s salute before he turned and rode off toward the back of the line.

“We are almost there.” There was a tension in Markos’s voice Vasilios wasn’t used to hearing.

The road ahead of them looped and turned again, and then their little group came to a stop. Vasilios squinted, trying to make out shapes in the pale moonlight and the little light their guttering lanterns gave off. They were indeed in a quarry, he thought, although an old one. The land around them was devoid of the lush greenness they’d ridden through. Instead, the land was churned up and rocky, with a little scrub. At some point it had been dug into a half basin. In front of them, a crescent-shaped high cliff had been cut by human hands. At the front of the cliff was a dark pool, a pond really, the surface stagnant and still where flood and rainwater had collected and never drained. Vasilios squinted up at the dark rock face and slowly began to make out crevices and holes that had been roughly carved into the rock.

“What are they?” he asked Markos. “The holes.”

“Tombs,” Markos said, after a minute “of people who the Church forbids from being buried in consecrated ground.”

Vasilios looked back up at the pitted cliffs and frowned. “Where are the bodies of those the Emperor executed?” he asked.

“In the hole.” Markos turned his horse, and their little group headed off to one side. “Where the water is now.”

Vasilios turned to look again at the dark, still water. He shivered a little and pressed close against Markos’s back.

T
HEY
circled the horses and lecticae, and everyone dismounted. Brother Stavros hauled his massive body out of the lectica to join Aritê. They both turned to look back at the large pool of dark water and the high cliff face behind it.

“Are you ready for this, Amma?” Vasilios heard Brother Stavros ask as Vasilios dismounted from Markos’s horse.

Even in the pale moonlight, he could see Aritê smile. “No.” She turned toward Brother Stavros. “I will never be ready to come face-to-face with evil, but it doesn’t matter. I know that I can and I will do it, anyway.”

“All right.” Markos tried to keep his tone soft, even as he gestured for everyone to circle. “All of you”—he pointed to the small group of soldiers—“are to stay back as Amma Aritê and Brother Stavros do this, and if they tell you to do something, you do it without question, understood?” He turned to Aritê and Brother Stavros. “What will you need?”

Brother Stavros glanced back over to the cliff. “We’re going to do a purification that should drive the demon out, if it is here,” he said, his fingers moving along his prayer beads in a slow, rhythmic pattern as he spoke. “If it is here.” His mouth set in a straight line, and he shook his head. “Then I will open a door between this world and the other world, or try to.”

“And I will thrust the demon through it,” Aritê said, tone calm as usual, even as every trace of a smile had fled. “It will be an extremely dangerous process, so you all must stay well back.”

“I think I will focus on the pool when or if I open the door.” Brother Stavros glanced back over his shoulder at it.

“You risk throwing everyone buried under the pool into Hell.” The sharpness of Markos’s tone made Vasilios’s head snap around to stare at him. Markos seemed angry, more so than he’d ever seen him.

An unhappy murmur went through the circle of soldiers at that.

“It is only their bodies. Their souls are long gone,” Brother Stavros said, tone gentle. “And by using the pool, I lessen the risk of dragging anyone beside the demon in by mistake.”

Markos looked at him for a long minute, jaw clenched, then nodded and turned away. “All right.” To the gathered group of soldiers, he said, “Spread out around the periphery of the quarry, but keep your eyes on the tombs as well as Amma Aritê and Brother Stavros. Patros, take the east side, Vasilios with me. Dismissed.” He turned away then, motioning for Vasilios to follow him, and headed along the western edge of the quarry.

Markos led the way around the edge of the quarry to a low outcropping of rocks. He then dropped to kneel behind them and pulled Vasilios down beside him. “Stay here,” Markos said, mouth so close to Vasilios’s ear that he could feel Markos’s warm breath. “And stay down.”

Vasilios suppressed a sigh at that. He hadn’t exactly been planning on yelling at the top of his lungs or running the length of the quarry, after all. From where they knelt, they could peer around the rocks and see almost the entirety of the wide expanse of the quarry. The people visible were Aritê and Brother Stavros, although Vasilios knew there must be soldiers stationed all along the edge. They all looked small and childlike, darker figures against the different shades of gray of the stones and water.

Brother Stavros and Aritê paced side by side to the center of the quarry, a little way from the edge of the dark pool. They were not shadowed by the cliff face there, but instead lit by the silver light of the moon. Aritê shook her head once, and pulled the scarf she had worn over her hair free, dark braid swinging against her back. Then she began to sing.

It was like when they had been in the desert behind her little house. Vasilios remembered the sound of her voice singing the Psalms as beautiful, powerful, and eerie, like something from another world. Her voice was clear and strong, bouncing off the sides of the quarry, reverberating and magnifying it back. After minutes, Brother Stavros’s deep voice joined in, both of their voices harmonizing and rising up through the wide space.

A shriek cut them off, echoing around the quarry, and Vasilios sucked in a sharp breath as something dark seemed to ooze out of one of the tombs in the cliff face and crawl down the rocks. Brother Stavros’s voice faltered slightly, but Aritê’s stayed strong and sure as the chant continued. Their words were in a language Vasilios didn’t recognize.

Falling to the ground on hands and knees, the thing—demon—Gyllou scuttled along the edge of the pool toward Brother Stavros and Aritê. Its arms and legs stretched out, long and pale in the moonlight, at an unnatural angle from its body, like some great insect or spider.

Markos sucked in a sharp breath, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. Vasilios reached for the hilt of his own without thinking.

“Children of Mikalos.” Gyllou’s voice came out as a hissing rattle, although loud enough for them all to hear. It straightened up to a standing position. For all the times Vasilios had seen it in his dreams, he hadn’t realized how large the creature was, now towering over even Brother Stavros. Gyllou coughed, a sick, wet sound that cut through Aritê and Brother Stavros’s chanting. The chant slowly came to an end, Brother Stavros’s voice dying away first, followed by Aritê’s.

“How foolish you are.” Gyllou’s voice was no longer the inhuman hiss it had been before, but now rich and dark and so totally at odds with its grotesque form. “To come to me at night in this place where I am at my strongest.” The moonlight caught and glinted off long, blackened nails as Gyllou’s arm swung high into the air with sudden speed and came down toward Brother Stavros. Markos hissed, body jerking, hand clenching on the hilt of his sword.

Brother Stavros reared back and up, his powerful snake body uncoiling. “In Christ’s name.” His voice rang out clear and strong. Gyllou hissed, high and full of rage, and reared back as well.

“Gyllou.” Aritê’s voice also rose, full of command. “You have no power here.”

“Don’t I?” Gyllou raised its arms again, but this time not to strike, and began to chant.

It was the same language, the same language Brother Stavros and Aritê had used, but this time it felt wrong. Vasilios’s stomach lurched, nausea rising, and breathing was difficult, as if a weight pressed hard against his chest. Each of the marks on his back began to pulse with pain. Vasilios raised his free hand to press against his chest, and he concentrated on breathing.