Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

Delphine grew afraid again and panted, but she managed to nod, not thinking about the darkness.

She was seen.

“Clever thing,” Sister Broom said.

The hand was on her chest again, but she twisted away.

The hand was withdrawn.

“But what is in that case?”

“I want to go outside.”

Silence.

Delphine started to get to her feet.

The woman’s voice spoke before she stood.

“I’ll be angry if you stand up.”

She stayed sitting on her heels, sweating and trying not to pass out from fear, wishing she could see well enough to run somewhere. Wasn’t there a window in this place? Yes, past the altar. She should at least be able to make out a window by the stars, unless clouds had come. Was the other in front of it?

“I don’t want to make you angry.”

“And I don’t want to be angry. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“As you say.”

A hand moved again in the sack. Now a cold, round object went into Delphine’s hand, the hand that placed it there brushing hers, dry and cool.

“What is that, do you think?”

She struggled to control her breathing.

“A coin.”

“Good! A piece of silver. One of thirty Judas received for the betrayal of the Nazarene. This convent kept it in a box of cedar, but the Mother Superior broke it and took it out, took it for herself. How selfish she was! Can you imagine what they’d pay for it in Avignon? Would you like to keep it? I’ll give it to you for what’s around your neck.”

“No…” she managed to mew. “The coin belongs to you now.”

The cold, dry hand took the coin back, and a sound like very dry hissing or rattling came from the other in the room.

“May I please go outside now?”

“Not unless you wish to end our friendship. Is that what you want?”

“No.”

“I agree. Let us be loving with each other. There’s so little love anywhere.”

Now another object was removed from the sack.

She heard the sound of sawing near her.

She smelled the dust of very old wood.

Now the saw was placed in her hand.

“I know you know what that is, but can you guess its significance?”

“Something…something to do with the Mother Superior?”

“Of course! She used this to build something very special before she left this place. Her lord told her to. Her new lord.”

“Where is she? Now? Are you…”

“No, child, you flatter me! I am not the Mother Superior! She went to Avignon. Or, that’s where she thought she was going. But as she packed her sack, what she made came to life. It had orders of its own to follow. She is still here now, part of her at least, and that part is past vanity and greed.”

Delphine shivered now and could not stop.

This thing was going to kill her.

She reached for the case and began to open its tiny latches.

“If you open that case, I’ll bite your fucking thumbs off.”

She withdrew her hands.

“Now give it to me.”

Something occurred to Delphine.

Her breathing calmed.

“Why don’t you take it?” she said, her voice trembling.

Silence.

“You wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Well, I don’t like being threatened very much, either. I repeat my question. If you’re capable of hurting me, why do you ask me for what you want? Why not just take it?”

“Because that wouldn’t be friendly.”

Delphine took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was steady.

“Friends don’t terrorize one another. If you’re really my friend, leave me in peace.”

The rattling hiss came.

The thing in the room dropped the pretense of human voice.

Give me that fucking case.

“I refuse.”

Something bit in front of her face, the smell of mold and dust and stale death washing over her.

Delphine stood up now. Hands groped and clutched at her, more than two hands , but she pushed them off and stood up anyway. Now she opened the case and took the spearhead out. The thing scuttled back with a dry, scratching sound.

“I believe you are only able to do to me what I permit. I forbid you to touch me again.”

The room now exploded in a fury of flung objects as something moved around the room, banging on the altar, punching what glass was left out of the windows, and a dry scream bounced off the walls, hurting Delphine’s ears.

She felt her way to the door and stepped out into the wind; the stars were out, and she could see well enough to walk toward a tree. She climbed it, the spear in her teeth, and found a branch she could sleep on.

It followed her outside and to the base of the tree, but it had drawn around itself her blanket, which she had forgotten inside, and she could not see what it was; she thought she saw a blackened face and a wisp of hair.

You stupid Norman cunt you’ll die in your sleep tonight and fall from that tree like rotten fruit

“I will not fall. And you will not be here in the morning. There are wicked things strong enough to harm me, but you are not one of them. You’re a scarecrow. You are made of lies, and you are not made well. I feared you, but now I pity your suffering. Good night.”

The only sound that answered Delphine was the wind in the leaves around her.

By and by she slept.

In the morning, she saw her blanket at the bottom of the tree. A profanity of sorts lay atop it, but a very sad one, made from a broom, three cross-sticks, and the missing arms from the nuns in the garden. A skull crowned with reddish-gray hair sat atop the broom. She dragged the blanket over to the garden, then took the thing apart, using the saw she found in the chapel to cut the twine that bound it together. She put the human remains in the garden and said an Ave Maria over them. She used the broom to sweep the chapel out and then leaned it against the chapel door.

Delphine shook out her blanket and put it around her shoulders, walking down the road that led to Orange and then to the city of the pope.

The girl was gone.

The knight looked around their camp for signs that she had been taken, but found nothing.

He was sure she had left.

She had barely spoken since the priest’s death, and he believed she blamed him for it.

“We’ll pay for that,” she had said when he cut the raftsman’s throat, and he was sure she had decided the priest’s death was ordained from the moment Thomas broke her commandment not to kill.

He wasn’t sure she was wrong.

Yet he could not bring himself to regret finishing that wretched, murderous walleye.

“Goddamn it,” he said, feeling truly lost for the first time since this had all begun. Who was he now, without his pack of brigands, without that girl and her visions, without a coat of arms on his chest or a horse or the first whoring idea what he might do if he never saw her again?

“Goddamn it.”

Thomas called for her a dozen times or more, but then his voice went hoarse fighting the dry wind, and he set off down the road heading south.

If he took big steps, he just might pass her.

When the big, dirty soldier saw anyone at all, he asked, “Have you seen a girl?” The first response he got, other than a shrug, or a quick flight up a hill or into the shadows of a thicket, was from a Provençal with a deeply lined face. The man nodded, slowly got up from the shadow of his house, and went inside, fetching out a homely teenager who pouted her lips at Thomas despite the fact that she was nursing a large infant.