James Clemens - Shadowfall

“Truly? Then what made him plain to the eye just now?”

Dart pointed to the glowing ichor on the floor, still dripping from the torn root. “Blood… blood rich in Grace,” she answered, then added quietly, “… or my own blood.”

“We must show him to Lord Chrism,” Laurelle said, renewing her resolve to continue. “Perhaps Pupp has something to do with Yaellin’s interest in you.”

“I don’t see how. No one but me has ever seen Pupp.”

“Lord Chrism will sort it all out.” Laurelle nodded forward. “I think the others have stopped. The light has stopped moving away.”

They continued together. Dart sidestepped the bleeding root and waved Pupp away from the pool below it. He seemed happy to oblige, though he did sniff at it. Could he smell the Grace?

As Dart continued, she eyed the knots of roots with raw suspicion. Blood roots. If these were indeed the roots of the myrrwood tree, why did they bleed? She recalled the history lesson given by Jasper Cheek, the magister of the grounds and towers. His words repeated in her head. She could still hear the pride in his voice. Lord Chrism was the first god to marry himself to the land and share his Grace with all. His own hand laid the first seed, watered with his own blessed blood.

Dart shivered. Was that why the roots bled even now?

She kept well away from the tangled root briers. The tiny hairs continued their ominous waving, seeking purchase.

“Do you smell that?” Laurelle asked.

Dart noted a sweetness to the air, a blend of honey and loam. She drew in a deeper breath.

“That’s myrr,” Laurelle said. “I have some sweetwater scented with it, a gift from my mother.”

Dart felt a slightly warmer breeze wafting to them, the exhalation of spring, warming away the damp, winter chill of the passage. They were drawn toward it. Their pace increased. The lamplight grew brighter, plainly having stopped not far ahead.

They hiked the last few bends in the passage.

A short stair appeared, leading up, lit well.

They cautiously approached. There were only ten steps.

At the top, the lamp appeared in view, hanging on a peg and shining upon another stone door. This was carved like the first: twining rose vines amid a smattering of Littick letters. Warded, too, Dart noted. And like the other, it was ajar.

A murmur of voices could be heard now. More than two. A gathering.

Laurelle glanced to Dart, then back to the door. Together they both cautiously mounted the stairs and crept to the door. There was enough room for both to peek out. Pupp simply walked through the door and out into the open glade beyond.

From the doorway, Dart spotted the limbs and trunks of the ancient myrrwood, lit from below by small fires dotting the edges of a glade. Trunks were so thick that it would take a dozen men linking arms to measure around them. Heavy limbs climbed so high even moonlight failed to shine through. The glade appeared more like a giant raftered court than a forest glen.

Voices could be heard, talking in low tones, but clearly urgent.

The speakers were not in plain view.

Laurelle urged Dart out with a nudge. They slipped out the open door and hurried to a patch of bushes at the edge of the glade. They ducked down. The bushes were unknown to Dart but appeared more thorny than leafy. They could peer through them with ease.

Beyond, lit by the fires, a strange group of people gathered in the center near a raised mound surmounted by a pair of twin stone pillars. The stone columns were plainly ancient, hoary with lichen, half-wrapped in brown vines.

Lord Chrism climbed the mound, arms raised. He was bare-chested now. Both wrists had been cut and bled down the length of his arms.

The others gathered at the foot of the mound, a score of men and women. She recognized not only Mistress Naff, but also Jasper Cheek, and several guardsmen who served the High Wing.

Chrism faced the others, standing between the two pillars. When he spoke, it was in his softly assured, sad tones. “Here is where I first settled the land.” He pointed to the mound at his feet, blood dripping to the soil. “I allowed myself to be tied here, strung between these two pillars. I had my body cut at the throat, at the wrist, and the groin. That is how a god settles a land, tying place to blood and flesh.”

A murmur passed through the crowd.

“No longer.” Chrism stepped back and spat at his feet. “I have broken free of my place, severing my connection, freeing the land and returning it to my people.”

Dart tensed at these words. Laurelle and Dart shared a frightened glance. Was what Lord Chrism claiming true? Had he unsettled himself from the very land he had blessed? Dart remembered Jacinta’s last words before falling upon the cursed blade, expressing a similar sentiment: Myrillia will be free.

Chrism continued. “As I was the first to bring peace to Myrillia, so now I will bring it true freedom. You are my chosen. Together we are the Cabal. Others across Myrillia already join our ranks. Let us once again, as we do with each new moon, swear our allegiance. Raise your cups. Be blessed and draw strength from my Grace.”

All around the mound, the gathered men and women lifted their cups and drank. Dart noted the glow about the cups, the same as seeped from Chrism’s wrists.

Blood… they were drinking his blood.

“No,” Laurelle moaned under her breath.

Blood drinking was an abomination, used in black rites. A god’s Grace was too strong. It took only a touch to the skin, a single drop, to pass on a blessing. To consume blood risked the loss of both will and body. It enslaved and deformed.

Chrism raised his arms out to his minions. A glow spread over the god’s form, starting at the wrist and spreading outward. He was calling down a blessing.

“Be free.”

The men and women gasped and let out small screams. They fell to the soil, on their sides, backs, facedown. They writhed and racked. Dart could hear bones breaking. Cries turned to howls. Across the glade, men became beasts, rising up on misshapen legs. Women crouched and hissed, faces stretched into bestial visages. All eyes, now aglow with wicked Grace, stared toward Chrism.

“As your flesh has changed, so will the world.”

There was only one figure untouched by the transformation.

Mistress Naff climbed the hill to join Chrism. She slipped an arm around his naked waist and pulled him down into a kiss. It was a savage, bloody kiss, less passion than violence. As they parted, a dark smoky tendril connected their lips, a black umbilicus. It pulsed and roiled, seeming to almost take form, but not quite.

From that mass of darkness, fiery eyes opened and stared toward their hiding place. A keening wail filled the glade, sounding like the scream of slaughtered rabbits.

Laurelle pushed back into the wood. A misstep snapped a branch.

The noise was as loud as a clap.

Eyes… all eyes swung in their direction: beast, god, daemon.

Dart stood up, knowing they were found. She turned and fled with Laurelle. But in three steps, shadows swept down from the branches above, falling about them like water. She was blind, choked, panicked.

From the heart of the darkness, words reached Dart. “If you wish to live, move swiftly.”

Dart knew the speaker.

Yaellin de Mar.

Tylar kept his back to the fire, but he felt none of its heat. He stared at Kathryn. Her auburn hair had been plaited into a single braid. Her form was clothed in black. A shadowcloak lay swept behind one shoulder and draped to her ankles. He stared, unblinking. She hadn’t changed. How could that be? Even now her blue eyes carried the same mix of doubt and confusion as when last he had seen her, seated before Tashijan’s court.