Eric Flint: This Rough Magic

The dead wood had started to sprout. Sprout? That was too mild a word for what was happening. It was growing before his very eyes. Roots were creeping down toward the earth. Shoots were edging out of the twisting wood toward where the sun would be if it stopped raining.

"If they were touching the shore, this is what happened. Even if they weren't touching the shore, this is happening in the holds, where the ballast is. With the fireboat attack and then this…"

The admiral shrugged. "I don't have a fleet any more. The galliots have almost all been pulled up and won't be sailing again. Unless you want to start building from scratch, that is. The timber is turning back into woodland. It's plainly magical."

Emeric snarled in frustration. "It is magic. Very powerful magic." He sighed. "Very well. We need to start ferrying my troops across to our camp over on the Illyrian shore." He already knew what would be happening to the wooden wheels of the gun-carriages. Emeric saw defeat looming. It was time to snatch what he could and run.

Maria was learning how the shadows of this place intersected and related. They shifted and moved in something like a great, complex dance, but she had as yet to find exactly how the steps went or hear the music they moved to. She found she could see into places distant and remote, if not quite as Aidoneus did-at will-at least with increasing clarity.

Some of them led into this place, too. It was vast beyond all imagining. Here she could walk into the shadows, walk among the dead-even talk to them.

The intensity which they'd had in life was gone, and now they gave her great deference as the lady of the living and bride of the king. She discovered she could find people just by desiring to do so. They were considerably less frightening than she'd thought they would be. And somehow, no matter where she was, the almond tree remained in sight.

She'd expected to find Umberto, or Erik's Svanhild, but-

"Not here," the Lord of the Dead, said, divining her thought before she could speak it. "Not now; they came here, and passed on, to their own place. Your Christians all merely pass on, and the followers of Allah, and of other gods. Only those who believe that death will bring them here, to me, remain with me. Every man goes to his own afterlife, according to his beliefs. And every man sees me as his beliefs dictate."

He looked over his kingdom, musing, a little smile on his lips. "You would be surprised to hear what your Christians see me as."

That made her blink. "Saint Peter?" she hazarded.

"Sometimes. Sometimes." And he would say nothing more than that.

Time down here seemed to have little meaning, but Maria found there was one person she had not been able to find. She supposed Aidoneus might be keeping Benito aside. She was at first embarrassed to ask. He was dead, and she'd made her choices. But she wished she could just tell him…

She asked instead for help in choosing the right shadow to see Alessia. Aidoneus would be a patient lover, she thought-if he was going to be a lover at all, in that sense. He seemed to have infinite time to attend to her, to talk to her, to listen. He was, she decided, much like Umberto in some ways-except that he allowed her space, too. But now Aidoneus took her hand again, and directed her eyes into a pattern of shadows.

She could see Alessia as if she was leaning over her crib. But the place was unfamiliar. It was very grand. It must be Renate's apartments. She tried to move her view outwards to see the priestess, wishing she could thank her for her care.

Something resisted that change in focus.

Maria tried again.

The resistance held firm, but she recognized the person behind it now: Aidoneus.

She let go his hand, still staring into the shadow. It blurred, becoming one with a myriad of other shadows. She squinted at it, wrinkling her forehead in effort. It was like staring into the brightness of reflected sunlight on the water. But she saw now. Saw through it. Saw Benito pick his daughter up and hold her.

She turned away, after staring for a long, long time. She turned to Aidoneus. "You knew."

He nodded. "I number the living and the dead. I know each by their inner flames. Each and every one is different. I know the when of their passing if not the other details that the fates weave. Sometimes there is doubt. A place where the thread is thin. That one's thread is like a cable."

From a high vantage point, Iskander Beg watched. The Lord of the Mountains was waiting. Very few of the invaders would return to Hungary.

Jagiellon had known before he arrived in Count Mindaug's chambers that the treacherous advisor had fled. Still, there were ways of extracting information even from walls if one were as powerful as the Grand Duke was.

Mindaug had plainly planned it well. Every volume of his precious library was gone, too. Jagiellon set about the magics that would let him know where Mindaug had gone. Eventually a face appeared in the blood-filled bowl. A very beautiful woman's face.

Elizabeth Bartholdy.

So. Much was now clear to the demon who lurked within Jagiellon. The Grand Duke of Lithuania had a new enemy, it seemed. Not "new," exactly, for he'd always known that the Hungarian sorceress was hostile. But he hadn't realized, till now, that she was such an active opponent; a player herself in the great contest, it seemed-and a major one.

Her motive was clear also, and it was not the normal drive for conquest. Elizabeth Bartholdy was, in her own way, more interested in the spirit than the flesh. She thought to tap the power of the one whom not even Chernobog would name, without paying the inescapable price. And might even have grown powerful enough to have done so, had she succeeded in trapping him. Bathing in the blood of virgins prolonged her life. Bathing in the blood of Chernobog… would have prolonged it for a very long time, if not perhaps eternally.

Grand Duke Jagiellon ordered servants to sterilize Mindaug's quarters, clean away every trace of the traitor. Then, when they were done, ordered his soldiery to sterilize the rooms still further, smearing the walls with the blood and brains and entrails of the servants. Then, when that was done, he ordered that wing of the palace burnt to the ground.

The bonfire produced a memorable stench. The flames, despite the feverish efforts of the soldiers, singed some other portions of the palace also. But Jagiellon was indifferent. A few charred timbers here and there were a small price to pay for power. He need no longer fear that Mindaug might have left some magical links behind.

Jagiellon's fury had ebbed by then, in any event. There was always this to look forward to: The skin of the beautiful Hungarian sorceress would make a memorable meal, someday in the future, with Mindaug's as the appetizer.

The triumphal fleet sailed into the anchorage off the Citadel of Corfu, led by three light galleys and a number of fishing vessels. It was a small gesture, but a significant one.

Amid the cheering, Marco was one of the first ashore, looking for Benito among the emaciated defenders. He found him, with a baby on his knee.

"Ah. Godfather," said Benito with a tired smile. "The man I need. Here. Have her."

"Er."

"Stella here will help you with practical details like feeding and cleaning," said Benito, putting a hand on her shoulder. "As for entertainment, Brother, you're on your own. She sleeps a lot, luckily for you. And she likes to dance. Even my dancing. Although she probably won't by the time I get back."

"But… where are you going? What happened to Maria, Benito?"

"I'm going to try and bring her back from the Kingdom of the Dead."

Marco grabbed Benito as he began to turn. "Maria was my friend too, 'Nito. Now tell me exactly what you're planning to do and what has happened."