Shadowdance (3 page)

The outburst drained him. He sagged back against the wall and slipped sideways off his stool to the floor. He beat his legs once more, but weakly, ashamed of his tears and his infirmity, painfully aware of the beautiful woman before him and of his own unworthiness.

The door opened. Vashni peered around its edge. "We should leave now, Lady." He spared a glance toward Drushen's bed. "We've stayed too long already. The soldiers...."

The Witch waved her hand, and Vashni fell silent. Leaning close, she took Innowen's face between her fingers and turned him toward her, forcing him to meet her eyes once more. He couldn't bear them, especially after his unmanly display. Yet she gripped his chin and compelled him to look.

"My poor Innocent," she whispered. "I saw your pain. I saw it in the water where the past and future sometimes reveal themselves to me. I see it now in your aura, which glimmers with misery." She released him, and her hand settled on his chest, just over his heart. "I saw your fate in that bowl of water, my Innocent." Her face came next to his, and the warmth of her hand spread all through him. "You'll walk, yes, and you'll dance. You'll dance the world away."

An arcane glittering like the flashes of tiny lightning bolts filled the dark wells of her eyes. Innowen's tears surged forth once more, humiliating him, the droplets completely beyond his control. He became a child again, a weeping baby in need of succor, muddy and filth-splattered. He slid further down, his back against the wall, until he almost lay on the floor. The Witch watched him; that only made him cry more.

"I—I love you," he confessed through his sobs. With a boldness born of shame, he reached up to touch her face, longing to brush his fingers over the milky paleness of her cheek. She was just beyond his reach, though, and he trembled as he drew his arm back. His tears continued, blurring his vision. "I don't understand, I don't know how, but I love you." He turned his face to the floor and covered it with one hand. "Help me," he muttered.

"I'll help you," the Witch answered, pulling his hand from his face. "I'll help you to walk, and you'll dance as no man has ever danced." She rose and went to the door. Vashni was no longer there. She called his name, and he appeared instantly.

"Carry our Innocent out into the rain," Innowen heard her whisper. "Strip away his rags and let the downpour cleanse him. Make him fit to look upon our god."

Vashni's eyes snapped wide, then he furrowed his brow. "Lady, Minarik's troops know our direction."

Again, the Witch stopped him with a curt gesture. "This is too important," she snapped. "The storm will slow them, and if anyone finds us before I finish, you'll have to deal with them. Now do as I tell you. Then wait by the horses and keep a sharp watch. Go!"

Vashni shook his head, frowning, but he picked up Innowen with his usual disdain. "Stop that blubbering," he grumbled, giving him a shake as he carried him through the door.

The shock of the rain and wind did what Vashni's threat could not. Innowen had become used to the cottage's warmth. The cold stung him. He hugged himself and barely protested when Vashni dropped him on the ground, seized the back of his tunic and ripped it free in one swift motion. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came.

The huge warrior loomed over him, and Innowen realized the giant was as soaked and miserable as he was. Raindrops pearled down his face, streamed from his lashes and chin, causing him to blink and wipe his face endlessly. "You want to shed that breech cloth, or do you need more help?" Vashni snapped.

Tremulously, Innowen unwound the breech cloth from his loins. He folded it self-consciously, watching as the dark warrior went to the Witch's horse, reached into another bag that was somehow hound to her riding pad, and lifted out a bundle of black velvet. Vashni's face seemed frozen in a perpetual grimace as he bore the burden back toward Innowen, slowly unwrapping it.

Innowen caught his breath. The velvet came free, exposing a strange wooden idol. Thick copper nails had been driven into it, perhaps a hundred, at all different angles. Innowen could discern no detailed features for the spikes that pierced its face and head. The gods of Ispor were many, but Innowen, who knew little of gods, had never seen its like. Its countenance sent a shiver up his spine.

Vashni set the idol on the ground and shot a glance toward the cottage. The door stood open, but all he could see was the Witch's shadow bent over that of the small table. It seemed to be writing something. He looked again at the weird god-figure and the copper spikes that impaled it, and dragged himself back a pace. The stern eyes of Vashni stopped him, and he sat up, trembling. The rain chilled his bare flesh; he hugged himself as much against his fear as for warmth.

The Witch appeared in the doorway, the glow from the fireplace lending her a soft aura as she hesitated on the threshold. Silhouetted in such light, it proved impossible to see her face, but Innowen felt her gaze fix on him.

She slammed her hand angrily on the door jamb. "Vashni," she shouted. "You fool! Not in the mud!" She disappeared inside again, only to return with the stool on which Innowen had sat. "Use this."

Vashni retrieved the idol from the mud with a muttered apology as the Witch placed the stool near Innowen's feet. Snatching up the scrap of Innowen's tunic, he wiped the idol clean of any filth before he positioned it carefully on the stool. That done, he went back to the bag on his mistress' horse to extract from it a mallet and a new copper nail. Under the Witch's watchful eye, he set these down on the stool with the same care and backed away.

The Witch opened her arms wide as if to embrace the storm. No longer did she hold the rain at bay with her magic. It drenched her, and her hair hung in thick ropes, and water rilled down her face and breasts and into her gown. She had not even donned her cloak. Her sodden garments clung to every rich curve of her body.

As she approached the idol, her lips moved in a soundless prayer or incantation. Giving no thought to her fine gown, she knelt in the mud. One hand reached out to grasp the mallet, and her voice rose a bit until Innowen could hear her words. They made no sense to him. She lifted her other hand in the air, and he saw that she clutched something.

A sudden flash of lightning revealed the piece of white cloth she gripped, perhaps a strip torn from Drushen's bedding. He remembered her shadow writing over his table. What had she scrawled on that scrap?

A powerful bolt ripped a jagged blue tear in the sky. Thunder boomed and echoed. A terrible shriek followed, chilling Innowen to the marrow of his bones, and he gave a little cry, too, out of startled fright. The Witch had made that sound. She threw back her head and howled again. The sky answered with more lightning and more thunder.

Suddenly, setting the mallet down and turning away from the idol, she glared at Innowen. Her eyes were two small heavens filled with their own wild tempests. They reflected the lightning flash as she came toward him.

Innowen stared, fascinated and terrified, and he began to shake with an uncontrollable trembling.

"You will walk," she said fiercely. "And you'll dance." The wind set her soaked garments to snapping, and the wet, tangled ropes of her hair blew back from her head and writhed like snakes in the gale. "How you'll dance!" she cried.

Terrified, Innowen looked from her to the idol, to the lightning crackling overhead, and back to the Witch. For an instant she was a monster, a horrible creature crouched over him, ready to devour. She was evil—a witch. All the villagers, all the people in the countryside, knew and feared her. She summoned storms.

Lightning exploded again, shattering the night. For a brief moment, a thousand shadows of the Witch stretched across the world, shadows that danced ephemerally before the returning waves of darkness washed them away.

Even so, he loved her. He did, with all his young heart. She had saved his guardian, and now she was saying that he would walk. She could make him walk! Witch or not, evil or not, he had to love her!

He swallowed his fear and met her potent gaze. "I want to!" he shouted over the thunder. "Make me walk! Do you have that much power?"

Her eyes burned. She leaned forward on all fours, her hands sinking into the mud on either side of him. "My god does," she answered darkly. She pointed back to the idol with a long, ivory finger that dripped with muck and slime. "He has all power."

The heavens fractured. Fiery lightning raced in all directions, turning the night into a cobalt lacework. Thunder rolled until the earth itself shook, and the trees bowed to the ground under a fearsome wind.

The Witch brought her face close to his, and in the flashes of lightning, Innowen saw nothing human. He screamed inwardly, but he refused to admit his fear. He loved her! Still, he recoiled from her until he lay flat on his back in the mud.

"He demands nothing of you," she said. Her warm breath caressed his lips, and the strange wild smell of her filled his senses as she stretched practically on top of him. "Only of me does he ask anything. The price is mine to pay." Her lips brushed ever so subtly against his. "At least for this moment."

Innowen could retreat no further. His breath came in short gasps. His senses roiled in confusion. For all his fear—and he could no longer deny he feared her—he desired her deeply! Her body pressed down upon him, hot and wonderful and frightening. He bit his lip and clenched his fingers in the soft mud.

"You will walk," she repeated, the words hissing between her perfect teeth, "and you will dance, and in time you, too, will pay a price." She pulled one hand from the mud and smeared it over his chest like a fine ointment. Her cold fingers drew small, teasing circles around his nipples and moved upward toward his throat. "But what is the value of a whole body, my Innocent?" she asked. "What would it be worth to be a complete man?" She hesitated as if expecting a response, but before he could speak she set a finger to his lips. "Shhhhh, no need, when we both know the answer."

Whatever she was, whatever the villagers thought her, she knew his dearest dream. "Make me walk!" he uttered breathlessly, doubting her even as he wished fervently to believe. "I want to dance!"

"I will," she promised. She held up the strip of cloth in her hand. It was wet and muddy, but as she unrolled it, he could see strange writing. "This is my prayer," she said. "You will be healed and made whole." Her hand clamped on his right leg. Innowen could not feel her strength, but when she let go, his flesh showed livid white marks. "Have faith in my god, Innocent! Believe in Him!"

"I will!" Innowen shouted fervently.

She scrambled on her knees to her idol and picked up the mallet. Crumpling her prayer in one hand, she pressed it to the wooden body of her god. Next, she picked up the sharp copper spike, set it in place against the cloth, and drew back to drive it home.

The mallet struck, and the sky erupted. Thunder drowned out the sound of the impact as the nail ripped through the cloth and deep into the idol. Again, the Witch struck, and again the heavens cried with thunder. A third time she struck, and Innowen covered his ears.

Vashni appeared beside her suddenly with a small bit of burning wood from the fireplace. He cupped one hand around the flame to protect it from the storm as he knelt and passed it to his mistress. She looked over her shoulder at Innowen, then touched the brand to the edge of the cloth. Though it was soaked, it began to burn. The smoke rose even through the thick rain. Then it flared with blinding intensity, and all the nails in the idol's body began to gleam in the red heat.

The cloth quickly seared away. Not even an ash remained to fall on the stool. Still, the nails shone with heat-glow, and the air smelled of burning.

The Witch cast her small brand aside, and the flame died before it hit the ground. She rose, drawing her dagger from her belt. Standing over her idol, the image of her holy god, she set the razor edge to her wrist. The blade rippled with wild color as lightning lit the darkness. The thunder that followed covered any sound she made as she drew it through the flesh.

Blood splashed on the idol's head and streamed down among the nails, mingling with the ceaseless rain, staining the wood. Innowen cried out for his Lady, not knowing how deeply she had cut. The free flow of her life-fluid made him cry out again. She said nothing, though, just stared at the heavens and held her arm rigid while the blood pumped.

Suddenly, Innowen felt the power of her god upon him. The idol's eyeless face regarded him with a cold passion. He stared back, looking for a gaze he could meet, then clapped a hand to his mouth in disbelieving horror. Its chest began to heave as if it drew breath; wooden limbs stirred ever so slightly and seemed to pulse with tension.

He was only imagining it, he tried to tell himself. The lightning and the thunder, the fire, and the Witch's blood-letting all contrived to play this trick on his mind.

But no, he knew the truth. The thing exuded a fearsome, unimaginable life, and he was the object of its unnatural attention. He sat up slowly, supporting himself on his hands, unable to look away from the idol.

With a screeching wail, a new wind ripped through the forest. From deep in the woods came the crashing of huge old trunks as their branches snapped and shattered and they struck the earth. Over it all, Innowen heard a groaning and a wrenching that made him look up. A corner of the cottage roof reared against the night, bucked and writhed like a tortured animal, then blew away with the gale. A section of the west wall sprang outward, and another piece of the roof collapsed.