One winged angel
The destroyed city’s broken walls astounded Deakon and fallen roofs that surrounded the grassy plaza that the sun poured its light into. A fountain spewed water from a woman's head, and there was a triangular symbol half broken off on her forehead. Her jaw was missing but the water still spilled over her perfect hands as if she tried to stop it or catch it. Her breasts and hands were stained green from the constant flood, but her marble head was a spoiled by moss, although there was a reddish stain around her mouth from the iron in the water. It seemed that violence, more than neglect, had smashed in the back of the head and ripped away her jaw. A window of coloured glass looked over the plaza, but here and there the panes had fallen from the putty. The walkways had shed their paving stones in favour of grass and wild herbs, so they stood upright here and there like gravestones.
There was an orchard; it was vastly overgrown. The branches tumbled into each other and clawed into each other's growth, so that one tree seemed to grow both lemons and pears. There was a fig tree half strangled with choke weeks, the fruit was unripe and unfit to eat. All over the grass, underneath it there was fruit, the windfall of many trees left to ruin and rot. The cherry tree stood alone, out of the reach of the other trees. Its roots had lifted the circle of paving stones that surrounded it, and its branches were smothered in its blowsy blossoms that were a bright dark pink.
"It's beautiful." Deakon said, amazed, as he watched the slight breeze ruffle the pink blossoms and they danced and swayed as if someone actually shook the tree. He was as alone as one is in dreams, wherever he was in this place there was no difference between what he said and what he thought. "All the ones in Shiro were either white or a very pale pink."
"Do you know how they make the blossoms dark?" A woman asked from behind him, she sounded more afraid than knowledgeable. "There's a body, a real human body under the roots, that makes the blossoms dark pink."
“Who are you?” Deakon asked.
“I am called Vivika.” She answered him. She was a woman come late to middle age and she had been a phenomenal beauty though that was giving way to time. He had heard the name before. She wore a rust coloured dress of an intricately pleated silk held tight by a golden girdle. Her feet were bare and she wore a golden crown. There was no way she had hiked this far into the Termigent. So Deakon had a natural response, a sense of cold terror that he couldn’t quite rationalise. “You fear me,” she said with a smile, and it was then he realised that she had no mud on her feet though it had been raining all day, and that she was wearing heavy cosmetics and her hair had been professionally dressed. There were no leaves in her hair. She was dressed like one of the women in Tobin’s illustrated version of the Akheniad. This was not right. He wondered with the part of his brain that was not contemplating the best way to bolt if she was the reason the Termigent was said to be haunted. “I am not to be feared by you, you have just woken me, that is all.” She smiled, “Follow.” She waved her hand and the close knit trees of the thicket parted and there was a fountain within and that the ground was paved, and when she walked forward he realised her feet didn’t touch the ground. “I mean you no harm,” She said with a wicked smile. “You have need of calm and so you found your way here, to this place, to me, that I might bring you peace.”
“What are you?” Deakon asked. She hadn’t answered his first question, she told him her name, but that was all.
“I am the Witch of the Forest.” She replied with an arch grin. She ran her hand over her grey brown hair, smoothing it down to show a scar on her temple that she had made no attempt to hide from him. Her hands were soft looking. She did not look like a witch at all. He imaged the witch of the forest to be an old crone in a black robe with skulls and bones as jewellery, that’s how they had been in the Senshi stories.
“Where am I?”
Her laughter was like a road of stars that shone in the not light of this place. “This is the Forest, where else would the Witch of the Forest be?” He couldn’t argue with her logic. She reached out to smooth his hair in a strange gesture of mother comfort. “Do you have hunger?”
“I,” Deakon began, “I don’t think I could eat again.”
“You have seen terrors well beyond your years.” The woman said sitting down on the rim of the fountain, it looked like the woman who spewed the water might have been her. “Come, little one,” she opened her arms to him, and though he didn’t know why he went to her, and laid his head upon her breast. She stroked his hair. “You have a terrible choice ahead of you, little one,” she put a kiss upon the top of his head, stroking his hair gently. He felt he had no choice to but to accede to her comfort. “And so much sorrow already troubles you. We sent you champions to ease your path, and in that we have failed. I am sorry, my little one.” He couldn’t help it, he was crying. “Such small shoulders to have the weight of the world resting upon them.” In her arms, in the ruined city in the Forest, he felt safe and comforted by the beautiful woman who loved him like a mother, who treated him like a beloved son. “Now remember the anchors that have crossed your path, the champions we have sent to protect you.” She laid a kiss on his forehead, “and sleep, my little one, sleep. When you awaken it will have eased, I cannot make it better, but I can ease the pain.” She kissed him again, stroking his hair and in her arms, stood by the fountain listening to the patter slap of water striking water, he slept.
Dathyl was a horseshoe shaped city wedged on a cliff and the bay beneath it. It was a city of walls and high gardens. At every intersection there was a fountain or a broad avenue of parks leading up to the impressive fortification that was the Halcyon palace. It stood on the cliff edge like a monolith with the sun setting behind it. “Is that the sea?” Tobin asked looking out of the window of the carriage as it rattled along the road beside the gorge into the city from the north. He seemed horrified and awed at the same time.
Well Street was the main artery of Dathyl, a single main road that rain all the way from Saint Agustin’s well in the south of the city, where the bridge crossed the gorge where it was only a drop of ten feet, and up the mountain to the precipice where Halcyon squatted. From it all the other roads led to the docks and all the suburbs of Dathyl. And at either end there was something closed. The well was long since covered by a stone slab when a child fell in and drowned, and the palace locked to all but the crown prince and his servants.
The palace of Halcyon was a vast imposing structure of high walls that perched almost uneasily over a cliff face, standing sentinel over the city in the bay beneath. To give the city its full name it was Dathyl of the Jetties, but the palace had always been Halcyon.
But Halcyon was, in many ways, as much of a city as Dathyl-of-the-jetties outside it. It was a vast palace of long and spiralling walkways, and throughout the west side of the palace was a skyway held high aloft three great arches that went from the city wall, which was a hundred feet high, to the sea wall. Along the side of the palace it shimmered like gold, but it was a view that could only be seen from outside the bay of pots. In the city Halcyon was a harsh place of high golden walls and locked gates.
It had been built a thousand years before as a palace for the first emperor’s wife, Setsuna, a lady of Meirin, murdered in her bed by a poisoned hair-comb. She had died so suddenly that she had never seen it completed, or even the mountain upon which it was built. Without her, Imperator, the first emperor, went mad with grief, and the pleasure palace he built for her became her tomb, and the base of his tyranny. So Halcyon had twin stars, it was beautiful and hauntingly lovely, blessed with all the money Imperator had at his disposal and all the love. It had been maintained well for the western emperor before Dathyl seceded. But it was haunted by the memory of lost love and down those long and lovely corridors failed dreams walked hand in hand with damnation. Like memory and oblivion, the twin muses of literature, Halcyon could save or damn all within its halls, and sometimes it did both. Whatever its name suggested, there was no peace behind the walls of Halcyon.
Devlin looked up at the palace and sighed. He hated Dathyl. He hated Halcyon. He hated leaving Deakon, but he had no choice. He was needed her. Taliasen was here all alone- and she needed her brother. Somewhere in that monolith of a castle his little sister needed him, and that was enough to bring him here. Tobin had accompanied him.
Danev of Melc met him at the gate. Although he was the same age as Devlin, give or take a few months, he looked older, as if he had lived twice as long. His brown hair was shot through with a dark blonde and his eyes were a weary cockroach brown. There was a smear of something on his face and he hadn’t shaved in several days. His clothes were rumpled. “I’m sorry for having to send for you so suddenly.” He apologised holding open the small gate. “She was asking for you.” He lowered his eyes. “I’ve done all I can, it’s up to her now.” He said.
“Tell me what happened.” Devlin asked, and to his surprise Danev told him. His voice was calm and mellow, but filled with a sense of failure. He knew that he had failed her, but he didn’t know what else to do. The words that lingered hardest in Devlin’s ears were that she had tried to get help though both of her legs had been broken. She had pulled herself along leaving a slug trail in her wake trying to find anyone to help her. She had nearly died.
His brave little sister.
She lay in a bed of ruined finery. The carpets were worn and the curtains threadbare. The sheets were clean and fresh. She looked as pale as a ghost. Her long gold hair was cut close to her head. She had been so proud of it. Her nose had been broken. There was a ring of bruises around her throat where someone had tried to strangle her. It was like a crimson butterfly. One arm lay on the coverlet. It was bound to a splint. The other was strapped to her chest. She was sleeping. Both of her eyes were bruised. Her bottom lip was split in three separate places.
A bowl of water stood on a small table beside her bed. It had been used to clean her. She wore a white smock that made her seem smaller than she was. She was the same age as Deakon.
“Who did this?” Tobin asked. His hand was on his sword hilt. In all his life Devlin had never seen Tobin so angry. In his own horror he had forgotten than Tobin had even accompanied him.
“We don’t know.” Devlin answered, “only she does and she won’t speak.”
Tobin calmed himself with visible effort. Devlin was numb in the wake of it. “Halcyon is meant to be safe.” He murmured to himself. He touched her forehead, softly, gently, sweeping her short hair away from her brow. He didn’t wake her. “I will find who did this to you, little one,” he said quietly, and Devlin knew it was true, “and I will bring you their heads. There were three.” He said. “There were three of them.” He repeated to himself. Devlin had heard all his life that Tobin had magic. That Tobin avenged things the law couldn’t touch. Tobin touched her hair again. “I’ll be back by dawn.” And he was gone.
Deakon looked at the manor house of Muchine and the sea that sprawled behind it. It was a small building in comparison to Muchine or Shiro, and small square block houses surrounded it. It was a desert town. The windows were small arches covered with fretwork and cantilevers to soften the harsh sun. Deakon sat on the wall that looked out to the sea and watched the women under their veils with jugs on their heads. It was a scene he would remember. He missed Devlin, far to the north on a family errand, and Tobin with him. Josian seemed pensive and the Cadacus burned in the sun and so avoided the heat as much as possible inside the palace. Saaraphine of Melc was a Senshi in every way. She reminded Deakon of no one more than Velasca, Ekeade’s bodyguard. She wore a short obebe that ended at the top of her thighs bound with a wide obi with a tanto thrust through it. She also wore her hair as short as Deakon’s fastened back with a single gold clip. She wore sandals against the heat instead of the normal Darin zori. Unlike Velasca, however, she didn’t scare him.
Everyone here worshipped her. Even, to an extent, Deakon. He could be happy here, away from everything, normal.
There were boats on the water, bobbing with their white sails in the light sea breeze, the air smelt of salt and sand. Muchine was an exile, but he could be happy here, with Saara, and Josian and Devlin and Tobin, when they returned. No one here knew that he was something other than what he appeared to be, he looked like a thirteen year old boy, and that was how they treated him. It was nice. No one called him a freak, or a monster- they called him Deakon.
It was nice.
There were children in the courtyard, they were learning the mysteries of faith, he could hear them chanting. Since the Seraphim Deakon’s senses had become incredibly acute, “where I am too weak to walk,” the children said, “my god carries me,” some of those children were older than Deakon. “Where I am not strong enough to be beloved,” Deakon was excluded because he was Darin, or he would have been there chanting with the other children, “my god loves me,” Sometimes he really wanted to belong, “where I fail to believe,” but he never could. “My god believes in me.”
Deakon envied them, their simplicity. In their world only god had magic “Where I am too weak to walk,” the dead stayed dead. “My god carries me,” there was no magic in Meirin, “where I am not strong enough to be beloved,” Danev was lost to time, “My god loves me,” The Termigent was only a Forest, “Where I fail to believe.” Draimae were a myth. “My god believes in me, “and the Paraiko had been destroyed by the Seraphim.
“Where I am too weak to walk.” In their world the Seraphim followed the law. “My god carries me.” They punished the crimes outside the law. “Where I am too weak to be beloved,” they killed the child murderers, “my god loves me,” and the rapists, “where I fail to believe,” they didn’t hunt witches, “my god believes in me,” and they didn’t explode when you looked at them.
They didn’t have nightmares, “where I am too weak to walk,” they didn’t wake screaming as dead soldiers pushed their dead horses through the soil to charge, “my god carries me,” they could walk across battlefields without seeing the slaughter, “where I am not strong enough to be beloved,” they could marry, love have children, “my god loves me,” they could be soldiers, and tailors and merchants, “where I fail to believe,” they could be all those things, “my god believes in me.” Deakon couldn’t. He was the lord of Meirin and that was all.
He took a deep breath. He wanted to belong, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t natural.
Tobin hated Dathyl. He sat at a dinner of state in the king’s palace. All around him simpering nobles fawned upon him and the king and it made him nauseous. He wanted to walk the battlements of Dathyl and remember. Once a long time before he had loved Dathyl, but this wasn’t the Dathyl of his memory, time had stolen that up just as it had stolen everything else. It had been a very long time, and in that time the bay was cleaned, and the royal palace had grown like a cancer in its heart and Halcyon left to rot and ruin. This was not the Dathyl he once loved and then hated so much. This was somewhere else in its ruins bearing its name. He didn’t think a city could become an impostor, a pretender to its own name, but Dathyl-of-the-Jetties had. Here a boorish king presided over a land that had no name, and a bookish prince lived in Halcyon, apart from everything and loved his land, failing to attend the state banquets that had made his father fat and his mother a whore that sat beside her brother with her face painted like a clowns and her dress cut low about her flabby breasts.
Tobin had loved Halcyon, mostly for the people who lived there, now he just remembered.
The solarium of Halcyon was a beautiful room of spare furniture, a large fireplace with a marble mantle stood empty at the wall, and a single carpet covered the granite floor but to the west was a wall of solid glass that hung over the Cliffs of Serenity to look directly out to sea, over the silver ripples where the moon reflected over the wind swept water. It was beautiful, like her. She sat on a cushioned divan, and hinted that he pull a fur from a chest and when he carried it to her she tucked it tight about her legs before he lit the fire bringing it up so the reflection on his face made the streaks of his tears more apparent. She hadn’t known that he had cried. “Tobin, what ails you?”
“I do not wish to be here, not here in this room with you, but here in Dathyl, amongst these people,” he said, Aatorian was a new language to him, He answered her sitting on the floor beside her, and she rested her gloved hand on his head bringing it against her thigh and then resting her fingertips against the curve of his neck, but he knew this woman had no sexual interest in him, why ever she brought him here, to the Solarium, it had nothing to do with sex.
“I understand completely,” she said, “if I could have I would have left Halcyon many years ago.” She ruffled his curls gently, with a motherly gesture, and he realised that this woman was old enough to be his mother.
“Would you like some kir?” He said standing, there was a frame over the fireplace and cups on the sideboard, he wanted to occupy his hands, to do something rather than be part of this awkward complicity, they had come here to talk but both had been so quiet for so very long that they didn’t know how to begin.
“Thank you.” She said with a gracious nod, this lady in her black silk gown, “court is overwhelming isn’t it,” she said lowering her head, “it is like a creature all on its own, and nothing can prepare your for it, and nothing can stop it, I understand the horrors you must have faced to come so far.”
He stood at the fireplace hanging the kettle over the fire, and his whole body tensed, “No, Elzbieta.” He said quietly. “I survived my own horror that no one knows of, to stand here now.” His voice was slow and peaceful, he spoke with an elegiac quality as if of the dead, as if he was dead. “I offer you all I can, an ear to listen, a friend who will understand more than you can know.” He poured the herbs into the bowls so when the water boiled he could make her kir.
“No, Tobin, you don’t understand.” She protested watching him, at how distant he seemed to her, though he only stood across the room, barely ten foot away, he was worlds away.
“What it’s like to stare at the floor,” he said quietly, looking ahead now, into the embers of the fire, as if into another world. He stood so still, clutching the tin in his hand, that he might have been a statue, as he stared so intently into the embers of the fire, not even noticing that the kettle was boiling now. “That I know.” He said softly. “What its like to be marked because someone thinks they own you because they adore you, that I know.” He took a deep breath moving and wrapping his sleeve around his hand as he lifted the kettle from the rack and poured the water. “What it’s like to be left behind, that I know,” He stopped, he hadn’t meant to tell her that, to reveal so much of himself to this stranger, on his forehead his scar burned like fire, like it was fresh. He put the kettle down and lifted the two bowls, one in each hand as he walked across to her, kneeling before her and offering her the cup which she took gently, letting her fingers linger against his but there was comfort in the gesture not lust. He rested his head against the fur over her legs and sighed softly. “I’ve always been alone, apart from my brothers, and all I know of love is what its like to be loved like that, to be possessed in that way because someone loves you.” She put her free hand on his shoulder, to give him the comfort he offered her. “Maybe all you need sometimes is an ear. Kuso, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I want to tell someone, anyone,” he raised his head too look at her with his brilliant narrow green eyes, which were dry now though his cheeks were stained where he had been crying, “and I feel like I could tell you anything.”
She said nothing, yet her hand still stayed on his shoulder, because she wanted to touch him, to make sure she was not dreaming this, he took her hand in his and held it to his cheek, he was warm which surprised her, he looked as if he would be cold to the touch. “I had a son who would be your age, but they took him away from me,” she said revealing to him the hurt she had kept buried, he didn’t know why she was telling him these things except maybe that she shared a secret for a secret, “and they never told me if he lived or died.”
“Why,” he asked, leaning into her hand.
“Dathyl is such a dangerous place, more dangerous than anyone realises,” she said, playing absently with his hair, holding the cup of kir with one hand, though she didn’t pull the veil away from her face, with the other she played with his hair, “and at the time the war was so out of control, so to protect him, they took him away before I even got to name him, and sent him away, and asked the Nine, who are dead now, to shield him, to keep him safe, but they never told me anything.”
“That’s terrible,” Tobin said, leaning into her hand even as he sipped at his kir, it was hot and bitter, and he did not like the taste of this new expensive kir, but he didn’t complain.
“They sent away so many boys,” she continued as if he had not even spoken, “I suppose that mine was one of them should be a consolation, that they considered him important enough to save.”
“I don’t remember the war,” he said quietly, she smiled and snorted at the same time, fondly, he could hear it though he didn’t look at her, he looked out to sea, into the vast expanse which looked so different here, from the cliff to what it did from the bay.
“Of course not,” she said, “you’re too young, what are you seventeen, eighteen?”
“Sixteen, I’ll be seventeen in a month.” He answered, lowering his head at the gentle pressure of her inquisitive fingers, laying his head against her thigh.
“A child,” she murmured, “only weeks older than my son would be,” she had no secrets from him, Elzbieta was telling him everything, Tobin knew that, but she continued, “and yet you have lived, tell me, Tobin,” it sounded strange, he thought, for her to say his name, “of your mother.”
“I don’t remember her,” he said, “she died when I was born, the first parent I remember was my sister who smelled of biscuits,” she was listening intently, this woman wanted nothing of him, nothing at all and that relieved him, women always wanted something, that’s why you couldn’t trust them, women betrayed you because they wanted something, but Elzbieta was happy with him just being there. “She died when I was very small, I have to try hard to remember her, and then I remember that she smelled of biscuits and that she loved me very much.” He took a deep breath before he continued, licking his lips and he touched his scar to draw strength from it, “then I lived in E’berta with Nathan” he stopped and swallowed, he had never told anyone this before but he wanted to tell her, to explain, “I stayed there until I was old enough for an apprenticeship, then I went to Dramathen after Medoc’Ne. I have recently returned from E’berta.” She was listening to him intently, the way a mother would, he supposed, but women betrayed, the all wanted something, the question was what did they want.
She had been a queen that inspired her people, lost in grief and pain, a queen that had almost destroyed her kingdom. This new queen, he looked at her across the table, was old and ugly, dressed in a whore’s mantle. Tobin remembered, and Dathyl was lacking now, where it had been great. Dathyl was associated with pain and hate, but still, it had been great and now it was a cancerous old fat man awkwardly squatting between the bay and the gorge. Tobin remembered.
Three men sat opposite him, smiling at the strange imperial prince in heir midst, without knowing his intention for them. He had told Devlin he would be back by dawn, and he would. The three Garvem sat opposite him, would join him, they would have no choice in the matter.
Devlin helped Danev as he reined in the two boys for dinner. The crown prince of Dathyl, Jored, was thirteen years old with bright blonde hair that shimmered like polished gold and eyes the colour of honey, eyes only a shade darker than Deakon’s. He looked annoyed at something; his handsome mouth was twisted in a frown. Beside him was Bunny D’Karioni, he was generally furious at something. His black hair stood at multiple angles from his head and his black eyes flashed with rage. “How is lady Taliasen?” Jored asked, his voice was crisp and economical.
“She sleeps.” Danev answered.
“I understand I owe you my thanks.” Devlin told Bunny quietly, “for finding her.”
“I,” Bunny began, and then he started to cry. “I’m sorry.” He said, “I wasn’t quick enough.”
Danev wrapped the boy in a hug. “You saved her,” he whispered, Danev who was barely older than Devlin was the only parent these boys had known. He was twenty three years old and he had two teenage sons to care for. He did care for them. “You found her, and you waited with her. She’ll remember that.” Jored pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and offered it to Bunny.
“When they write the story,” Jored said with a faint smile, “they will make you a soldier and a doctor and you will have scared them off with your sword and not your shouting. You saved her.”
“She,” Bunny began, scrubbing at his face with the handkerchief, “she, I,”
“Shush,” Danev said, “she’s going to be fine, you saved her.”
“Thank you.” Devlin said, “House D’Aino thanks you, and I, as her brother, thank you. There is nothing we can do to repay this debt. You saved her.”
“I.” Bunny protested.
“You were there.” Jored answered, “No one else was, when it comes down to it that will be what counts. Not the rest of it.” He reached out and took Bunny’s hand. “It’s fine. You saved her, all the rest is past, what does it say over the door to the Okiya?” His smile was fond and patient. “Remember the living, and burn the dead. And believe me when we find them they will be dead, if I have to gentle them myself.”
“Once,” Tobin said from the window of the Garvem barracks, “the Garvem were true, I could count the number of lies a Garvem told on one hand.” The three men turned to look at him. He was in the window four stories up. There was a look of madness to him. A long chain snaked out of his hand and there was a broadsword on his back. His poison coloured eyes burned like frozen green fire. “Time changes everything I suppose.”
“Who the hell are you?” The Garvem asked.
Tobin’s smile was like an axe blow splitting his face in half. “I am Tenshiko.” He said, “I am the husband of Avili.” He stepped down with surprising grace. “I am the Divine Wind.” He spread his hands. “I am Onestra. I am the eyes of Honeybourne.” One of the Garvem took his sword from the shelf and threw it at Tobin; the point went straight through his stomach. He didn’t even flinch. “Haven’t you been listening?” Tobin asked, pulling the blade free. “And it really isn’t a good thing to throw your swords” He stretched his chain between his hands. “I’m the girl you never should have smiled at.”
“You’re mad.” One of them shouted, backing away. “You’re unholy.”
“I am Vivikan.” Tobin replied. “I am the Forest’s sword.” He pulled the long silver blade from it’s sheathe on his back. “I avenge.” He smiled, “Call the Seraphim, they will just help me.” He laughed. “I am Death. Shi desu.” His laugh was as cold as ice. “Etra pe.” He bore the points of his teeth. “I am vengeance.”
“You are talkative.” One of the Garvem said, finding his voice.
“You are the walking dead.” Tobin said. “When I was alive the punishment for rape was gentling.” He ran the point of the blade over his forearm, baring a single bead of blood. “What do you think?”
That’s when they started screaming.
Tobin walked up to the gates of Halcyon. They swung open to his approach. His black cloak was thick with blood and a single line of it ran down his face like a tear. The scar on his face was livid, as if someone had cut it through again. In his hand he carried a basket. Danev met him at the steps to the palace. “Good god, what happened to you?”
“Me,” Tobin said with a slight laugh, “Nothing, I bring a gift for the Lady Taliasen.” He said and proffered the basket. “As I told Devlin, I am back before dawn. I will return three days hence.” His smile revealed a set of long curved teeth and his nails had been replaced with claws. “When I am more sociable.”
“What are you?” Danev asked.
“I am the Forest.” Tobin answered. Then he was gone. There was no explosion, or puff of smoke, but Danev noticed, between one blink and the next he was just gone. He pulled back the burlap covering the wicker basket. Inside were three heads. Their ears had been stitched close to their heads. Their eyes had been replaced with glass marbles. Their lips had been stitched shut. Their noses had been cut off and the word Etra had been carved into their foreheads. Danev was a doctor, he had seen horrors before, but his stomach lurched in his chest and he threw the basket away and was sick on the cobbles of the courtyard.
Deakon opened the door with a wrench and a heavy creak that suggested it hadn’t been used in a hundred or more years. He heard the silence like he never had before. It was more frightening than any noise could be. Adam had left him along to check these dark and simple corridors under the palace where the horses were stabled because he doubted that the Garvem had even found them and if they had Deakon could manage on his own. Here in this place even the birds didn’t sing. The only birds he had seen were carrion crows that blotted out the sun when startled.
The air tasted of blood.
He turned a corner and saw a servant child. She had been cut down with a knife left in her throat and brightly coloured doll in her fat fingers. Her face had been hacked clear away with heavy handed slashes. At her feet lay a small dog. Its head had been bisected with a single down-handed motion. Without knowing why Deakon picked the child up in his arms, pressing her to the black jacket Adam had given him and went deeper into the corridor, careful of how he held her so she didn’t drop her doll.
There was a servant from the stable on the wall. It was just a common stableman. The golden birdcage he had been forced into held him aloft. His arms and legs had been cut away with his head. Though they were absent. He was a man, that he had been left, but he was also only a torso in a cage. The same person had killed them.
He opened door after door to find corpse after corpse. All caught in terrible complicity as if they knew something they should not. All eyeless. All noseless. All lipless. Teeth smashed in. Faces unmade by knives. Knives lay blunted all over the floor like confetti. He began to cry. He could feel the hot tears along his face like fire falling unto the little girl in his arms. She was a girl who died with her favourite doll in her hands.
In one room someone had played skittles with several vases and a human head.
A table had been laid complete with candles and on the central plate, although now covered with maggots that seethed and writhed was a cat, complete with fur that had been slashed through.
An obscene rhyme had been written on the wall in blood, the brush and bucket still beneath it. It was crawling with flies now.
Deakon, thinking he might be sick, leaned back against the door behind him. It swung open under his weight and he stumbled, turning to catch himself before he fell. What he saw caused him to drop the little girl in his arms and lurched to the corner where he emptied his stomach with empty belching noises. A man, like the stableman in the cage, hung from the wall. A spike suspended him through his solar plexus. His face, like all the others had been removed, but he still had his eyes. His crotch was missing, He had insect bites all over his chest and it was seething under the skin with maggots. It was not that which made Deakon vomit.
Lying across the table in this room were two of the princesses of J’Dan. He knew that because they still wore their oak leaf crowns. It was their only dignity. They were naked. They still had their faces, though their jaws had been smashed. It was the rest of them unmade by the knife. Their breasts had been torn away and their ribs were showing in places. More disturbing, even though they were staring at Deakon, was the way their bodies had been arranged. Their eyes lay in gobbets on the floor.
He had dropped the child into the oily slick of blood and waste on the floor and the air was thick with flies. Before he knew what he was doing he was sprinting. He slipped. He fell and fell and fell.
Deakon awoke with a start and a scream, thrashing and yelling. The golden ball within him exploded out through his pores with light and wind. The sand of Muchine’s beach rose up in a tide. The sea swirled and rose in a column. The glass in the windows exploded outward and upward, sucked away by the wind that whipped him. He was screaming. The power thrust out and out as he panted and balled up on the wall where he had fallen asleep. The entire manor rocked with his power as the horrors of his dream washed over him again and again and the ball thrust out again and again. Even Maerian was screaming that he stop, but he couldn’t. He could still taste the blood.
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