P. Hodgell - Bound in Blood

“You made me think I was a monster, didn’t you?” she demanded of it, drawn forward another step, her own nails biting into her clenched palms while water seeped into her boots. Funereal threads twitched in dread across her shoulders, trying to hold her back, ignored. “Unfallen, yes, but what did that count against the taint of my very blood? No choice. No hope. Well, I’m free now and awake, growing armor to match my claws, and I will fight you.”

Aaaahhh . . . a slow, deep inhalation, as of a sleeping monster. And out . . . Haaahahaha . . . as if its secret dreams of her childhood amused it.

Jame shivered.

Under the eyes of the dead, two figures revolved around each other, the one in black only visible when it eclipsed the one clad in white.

Whip-thin fingers plucked at her sleeve, wound desperately about her neck.

. . . I only did . . . you must not do . . .

But Jame no longer listened.

She felt herself yearn toward the white dancer with an ache she scarcely recognized, and without thinking took another step into the water, almost to its far margin. Part of her noted that the stream ran faster and was rising, probably fed by rain from the mountains above at last reaching the valley floor. Then too, the garden had nearly disappeared behind her, giving way to Gothregor’s death banner hall, but she didn’t care. It had been so long ago, since childhood, really, despite rare glimpses over the years. Now, of course, the Dream-weaver was gone forever. Did it really matter that she had perished at the Escarpment’s edge in part to save the children whom she no longer dared to touch? A fine gesture, yes, perhaps even noble, but set against so many years of absence—how could one grieve for the loss of a love that one had barely known?

Still, Jame heard herself whisper, “Mother.”

Other shapes moved between the stream and the broken wall. Ghosts, or something more? A young man with pale blood streaming down a stricken face huddled at the wall’s foot. He looked up, at something behind her.

“F-father?”

That voice she knew, although she had never before heard it stutter.

“Greshan is my son,” came the harsh, panting reply. “I have no other.”

Jame tried to turn to see who spoke, but couldn’t against the terrified clutch of Tieri’s threads. Was that Gerraint? She had never met her grandfather. On the whole, she didn’t think she would have liked him, or vice versa.

“I have come this far, broken oaths and betrayed my house—all for its own sake, I swear! Do you swear your lord can do this thing?”

“Gerridon is your lord too, old man, whatever the Arrin-ken say. Ask, and see.”

That voice . . . ah, she wasn’t likely to forget it any time soon. The wonder was that she hadn’t recognized Rawneth’s strange servant earlier; but why in Perimal’s name had the Randir brought a darkling changer with her to Gothregor, much less the Master’s favorite pet, Keral . . . and where was Rawneth now, or rather then, in the scene playing out around her?

I’ve missed something important , she thought. Something that happened between the point where Rawneth locked eyes with me in the death banner hall and now, but what? She told me to forget that she was there, and for a while I did. What else have I forgotten?

Gerraint lurched past her to face that breach into eternal night.

“Master, Master!” he cried. “Will you grant me my heart’s desire? Will you restore my son to me?”

The void breathed in . . . and out, in . . . and out. Then it spoke, in the distorted rumble of a voice in an empty room, buried fathoms deep.

A phantom gasp from Tieri, and cords tightening in panic around Jame’s throat.

The dark figure had come almost to the threshold. He was cowled and muffled, but somehow gave the impression of a leanness bordering on famine. Him too she knew, and felt her claws unsheathe: Gerridon, the Master of Knorth, who had betrayed all for this meager, immortal life. So many death banners, rank on rank . . . he had devoured the souls of all his followers, one by one, to come to this. His hall, Perimal Darkling itself, surrounded him like the belly of a beast that has swallowed everything, even itself, and still hungers for more.

Oblivious, Ganth stared past him at the Dream-weaver like a man who has seen his fate, not caring that it is also his doom.

Jamethiel danced on, a slim, graceful figure with flowing black hair, untouched by shadow or age. Drawn to that luminous, sensual innocence, wraiths danced with her, tattered souls shivering in the threads of their death banners, torn loose from Gothregor’s keep and swept into this haunt of darkness. One by one, they surrendered to her kiss, and what remained tumbled in unstrung coils to the cold, dark floor.

“That is your price?” Gerraint sounded incredulous, answering a voice that had spoken only to him. “A contract for a pure-bred Knorth lady? But, Master, you already have a consort.”

He and Ganth both looked at the pale shimmer where Jamethiel danced, the opaque air a halo around her. She bent to gather up the tangled threads of the dead.

The darkness rumbled.

“Oh,” said Gerraint, blankly. “You want a child, a . . . daughter? But why?”

The cowled head turned as the Dream-weaver drifted toward him. Absently, smiling, she kissed him, and the ghost of souls glimmered from her lips to his within the hood’s shadow. He reached out as if to return her caress, but stopped himself. Her hair slid through his fingers like black silken water as she turned and drifted away. His hand clenched and fell.

“Such power comes at a cost,” said the changer, still out of sight behind Jame, cloaked in the mist. “She is already dangerous to touch. Soon it will be worse.”

“I d-don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Gerraint was frowning. “We are so few, and fewer still of our women are free to make new contracts.” He crossed his arms, hugging himself. “However, there is my daughter Tieri . . . ”

“Who is only a year old!” Ganth burst out.

Tieri’s grip on Jame’s throat tightened.

No, no, no . . .

Jame felt the ivory of her nails spread up her hands to become articulated gloves, then higher to form the armor of her soul-image. This child’s fate would have been her own, if Tirandys hadn’t taught her how to fight back. Besides, she was beginning to feel half-choked.

“Tieri, please . . . ”

The shadows spoke again.

“Her age doesn’t matter,” translated the changer. “Only her bloodlines. There are rooms in the Master’s House where time barely crawls. He will retreat into one of them and await his . . . pleasure. As for the Mistress, she will do his bidding, as she does now.”

Dancing, singing to herself, the Dream-weaver wove linen threads from the death banners into a new fabric picked out with flecks of ancient blood. The flecks were words; the whole, a document that she presented to her lord.

Ganth floundered to his feet, but Gerraint had already reached into the shadows to seal it with his emerald ring and the rathorn crest.

Noooooo . . . ! wailed Tieri, tightening her grip, making Jame gasp . . . . no no no no . . .

“How cold!” the Highlord murmured, withdrawing his hand. “My fingers are numb.”

They were worse than that. Blanched skin split open across his knuckles and the meager flesh beneath drew back on tendon and bone. Then the bones themselves began to crumble. Ganth caught the signet ring as it fell and threw an arm around his father to steady him.

“B-bastard!” he said to the changer. “You knew this would happen.”

“No. How the shadows enter each man’s soul is his own affair.”