Sword and Sorceress XXVII Read online

  A launder woman pushed her way between the guards, using her basket of clothes to knock him out of her way. The scene should have roused a laugh from the inn’s patrons—one of the Church’s finest flummoxed by a poor launder woman, but no one was laughing, not with the Lord Bishop watching.

  Jenna allowed herself the briefest of smiles, before returning to her serving. Then she stopped cold. The inn didn’t employ a launder woman. Laundering was one of Jenna’s many duties. Turning again, she noted the basket was filled with clothes from the clothesline in the garden, and the shabby dress and apron the woman was wearing were Jenna’s own spares. The face turned toward Jenna—dark hair, aristocratic nose. One of the blue eyes winked. Brechia.

  Herrin had made a point about not trusting the damned; Brechia had been equally opinionated about a traitor of Jenna’s own blood. And the Lord Bishop—he might be greedy, but there was something else as well. Seeing them all in the same room like this made Jenna realize the only person she could trust was herself. Sad to say, but true.

  She watched Brechia circulate among the room’s customers, flirting here, haranguing there, but definitely circling the room with a purpose. Ah, breaking the salt lines, Jenna finally noticed. Did that mean that other revenants—

  “This way,” a rough voice muttered in her ear. “His Magnificence wants a word with you.” The Knight-Commander had her by the arm and was propelling her toward the corner table.

  As she crossed the room, she gathered herself inward as Gran had taught her to look at the problem with more than her physical eyes. She had time, but only a little. What was it that needed to happen? What wish would set all this aright?

  The dead needed to find final rest and haunt no more—that one was easy.

  The bishop and his knights needed to go without unleashing Holy Retribution—also easy.

  Then it became harder. She wanted Herrin safe from the Church, not only from foolish exorcisms and greedy bishops, but also from the mind-numbing training that was turning him into a stranger.

  And for herself, she wanted... what? A life of laundering and waiting tables? It seemed not, though she had believed so only a few days ago. Now that she knew she could bespeak the dead, it seemed foolish to ignore the talent.

  She dug deeper under the surface and sensed other intentions bubbling in the room. Brechia wanted rest, but also harbored anger against the greed that had condemned her to centuries of unrest. But when she concentrated on the Lord Bishop, a chill crept up her spine. He would never trade gold for gold, which left only one currency for treating with the dead—blood.

  She stared at the positioning again as the Knight-Commander resumed his post, standing sword drawn behind Herrin. Her stomach clenched. The plan all along had been to offer blood-price for the gold, literally sending a boy to the slaughter. And Herrin had not a glimmer of his danger. She seated herself warily across from the bishop. At close quarters, the darkness in the man was unmistakable. She distrusted immensely whatever plan he had in motion.

  The bishop focused on Jenna. “My seminarian tells me you can converse with the dead,” he began.

  Herrin had revealed that? Was this the betrayal Brechia had warned of? She glanced at her brother across the table and he stared back miserably. I’m sorry, he mouthed silently. No, this was misplaced trust, not betrayal. Herrin had no concept that a bishop’s robe could hide a black heart. And now she was expected to negotiate her own brother’s sacrifice. She had to do something, even something rash. “Milord Bishop,” she said. “You won’t be leaving here with any gold from the barrow.”

  The Lord Bishop flicked a cold eye her direction. “For a barmaid of no breeding,” he sneered, “you seem very sure of yourself, young woman.”

  A sudden movement startled her. Jenna turned her head to find Brechia pulling over a chair to join them. “Having a little chat, are we now?” Brechia drawled. “I’m in for that.”

  “I am sure of myself,” Jenna told the bishop, “because it would be ill if people found out that their favorite saint was a thief who stole a fortune and bought himself a sainthood... as some people hereabouts remember. And Milady Warrior of the Barrow”—there, it was out in the open—”there will be no blood-price paid here tonight because—”

  “This better be convincing,” Brachia commented archly.

  “—because you stand within striking distance of a chance at eternal rest.” It was pure bravado, just talking to forestall the worst

  Brachia’s expression turned unreadable.

  “Ah, a revenant in mundane disguise,” the bishop said, his eyes narrowing to slits. If he was disturbed by a dead presence at his table, he hid it well. “We have business to discuss. Blood for gold, that’s the bargain I offer.” He gestured and the Knight-Commander raised his sword to Herrin’s neck.

  No! Jenna pulled the kitchen knife form her apron and plunged it into the man’s sword arm. With a howl, he dropped the sword, blood spurting across the tabletop.

  The temperature in the room plummeted. And from the shadowy corners of the common room, figures emerged—warriors in antiquated armor. They swept across the room and were upon the Knight-Commander in two blinks. It happened so fast, he couldn’t even scream as his life-force was drained by the revenants. He dropped to the floor, a withered husk.

  No one moved, but the terror in the room was a palpable thing. “So you want to bargain, Milord Bishop,” Brechia announced to the stone-quiet room.

  “Take them all, take them all,” the man wheezed, his smug façade finally shattered.

  “Oh, we shall,” Brechia smiled. “Starting with you.”

  As the dead pounced again, all Jenna could think was trust not the dead, trust not the dead over and over. How could she have been so stupid to start down this path?

  A moment later, the bishop was a dry husk dressed in silken in robes, the suddenly shrunken flesh drawing his face into an obscene rictus smile. But on his hand, the golden Ring of Office gleamed brighter than ever. If she squinted just a little, Jenna could see threads of light stretching from the ring to the revenants, binding them all together. This was indeed part of the stolen gold.

  A chance at eternal rest—that’s what she had spouted in desperation a moment ago, but it might be truer than she thought. She reached across the table and slipped the ring from the withered finger just as Brechia was reaching for it. “By finder’s right, I claim this ring as my own,” Jenna said quickly.

  Brechia gave her an ominous stare. “Enjoy it for the few minutes you have left to you.”

  Jenna swallowed hard. It was as if she could hear Gran whispering old warnings once again. Beware the casual assumption, Jenna. Magic works on the exactness of words, and there are traps and opportunities within a single word. “But this ring is your path to eternal rest. Your dead wizard-lord never said ‘all the gold’ must be returned, just ‘the gold.’”

  Brechia’s eyes widened as she digested that. Then her gaze turned cold again. “And now you will use this”—she nodded at the ring—”to bargain gold for gold?”

  For the briefest of moments, it was tempting. Jenna didn’t want to be a serving wench all her life. Then her grandmother’s whisper—They will betray all bargains. “No, not a bargain,” Jenna blurted out quickly. “A gift freely given to send you to eternal rest.”

  Brechia’s shuttered expression shifted to surprise. “Truly?”

  Jenna nodded and placed the ring in Brechia’s hand.

  A long sigh emanated from every revenant in the room.

  It was working, Jenna realized. From a sloppily worded curse, she had pulled a spark of hope. And once the revenants believed, anything was possible. That was also the way of magic. Already the armored warriors were drifting away, eager for their final rest. Brechia also moved toward the door, but then she turned and beckoned. “A word, if you please, Jenna.”

  Jenna wasn’t exactly pleased but couldn’t exactly refuse. She stepped away from the table with its two corpses and followed Brechia
out the door.

  “You’re clever, I’ll give you that,” the revenant said when they were alone in the stable yard. “You avoided every pitfall and produced an outcome no one could imagine. And because you did it with a gift, I am obligated to repay that gift before I go to my rest.”

  Jenna tensed. Would she get the barrow gold after all? A gift for a gift.

  “A word of advice from the grave, so to speak,” Brechia continued. “You have the knack for dealing with the dead and that’s a rare talent. You seem to understand that being trapped among the living after death is a curse. With all the unquiet dead scattered about this land, you could take that talent on the road and bring peace to both the living and the dead.”

  “I doubt the Church would want a village witchblood meddling about when it has its own exorcists.”

  “You misunderstand. You could become a Church exorcist.”

  “I hardly think—”

  Brechia gave an impatient snort. “You’ve just saved a room full of people from the vengeful dead, Jenna. In the business of exorcism, that’s all the credentials you need. And it doesn’t hurt to have the backing of the Knights of the Holy Retribution, and I daresay you’ll have the very full backing of those three you just saved. You can even take your dim-witted brother along as an assistant to keep him out of trouble.”

  Jenna mulled it over. The idea actually had merit. “And with the barrow at peace, there’s no reason to stay.” She gave a snort. “It might be smart to leave before word gets out and all the gold hunters arrive.”

  “Gold hunters?” Brechia drawled in mock surprise. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  Jenna frowned. “The gold. With no more dead guardians, the barrow will become a free-for-all.”

  “Ah, but there’s hasn’t been gold up there in centuries. Kyre stole it all.”

  “But—” All the gold hunters over all those years... it was all a ruse for the dead to feed off the greedy? Jenna swallowed hard, remembering how she had almost walked into that same trap a few minutes ago.

  Brechia glanced up the hill toward her rest, then turned with a cryptic smile. “Last word of advice—don’t ever trust the dead.”

  Forever Is A Long Time

  by Melissa Mead

  Here we have another fairy-tale creature: a selkie. Melissa is good at taking traditional fairy-tale elements and transforming them, and this story is no exception.

  Melissa Mead lives in Upstate NY. Her stories have been in SWORD & SORCERESS 23, 24 and 26, IGMS, Daily Science Fiction, and other places. She’s a member of SFWA, Codex, and the Carpe Libris Writers Group (http://carpelibris.wordpress.com).

  ****

  The old woman everyone called Grandma Seeley stopped beheading perch and glanced out the front window. A rowboat bobbed near the opposite shore, beyond the scrap of island that hid her home from casual view.

  “That’s Kim’s.” Grandma Seeley swept the fish heads and tasty innards into a bowl for later, saving out the filets. “Whatever possessed the girl to try coming over here just when the wind’s picking up?”

  Grandma Seeley called to the Waters. This lake, nestled in pine-forested mountains so unlike her low, flat homeland, didn’t respond to her as briskly as the sea would have, but it roused enough to carry the rowboat on a smooth path to her door.

  Kim looked like she’d needed the boost. Her face was pale, and she hunched over, ankle-deep in cold lake water, as she made her boat fast to a handy stump.

  “You’ll ruin your shoes, child,” Grandma Seeley said.

  “Grandma Seeley, I really need to talk to you.”

  “Come in and talk, then. I’ve just put some fine perch on the fire.” Grandma Seeley led the way to the house, and Kim followed.

  Inside, the perch were just about ready. Kim looked toward the fireplace grill, then at her, wide-eyed and alarmed.

  “That’s an awful lot of fish. You weren’t expecting me, were you? I didn’t tell anybody. And Zack promised he wouldn’t either.”

  Saying her boyfriend’s name shattered Kim’s carefully-held calm. Tears slid down her face. Grandma Seeley sat on the shabby plaid couch and patted the seat beside her. Kim dropped onto it, shaking.

  “I’m in such trouble. I didn’t mean to. Zack didn’t mean to. He said he loved me. He was wearing that sweater- you know, the one I gave him last Christmas. And then… then he wasn’t wearing it, and we…” Kim choked and gulped air like she was drowning. Grandma Seeley held her while she sobbed. “Dad would never forgive me. He doesn’t even like us kissing. When he finds out, he’ll hate me forever.”

  “Oh sweetheart, “forever” is a long time, even for an old lady like me. Your father loves you. Forever is too long to be without the people you love.”

  “But I can’t go home! You have to let me stay here.” When Grandma Seeley didn’t respond she added “Or else I’ll just take the boat and head upriver.”

  Grandma Seeley sighed. “Well, put on these slippers and have warm feet and a full stomach for now at least. No point in letting the fish get cold.”

  Kim was normally as enthusiastic about fresh perch as a seal would be, but now she shoved bits of fish about on her plate.

  “Among the Selkie, wasting food like that would get you bitten,” said Grandma Seeley with a gentle smile.

  Kim didn’t smile back. “This is no time for those old stories. This is serious.”

  Grandma Seeley changed tactics. “Kim, is your father really such an ogre? He never seemed so to me, back when he’d bring you here because you were too little to handle the boat by yourself.”

  Kim slapped herself on the forehead. “I’m so stupid! As soon as he realizes the boat’s missing, this is the first place he’ll come.” The girl ran for the door, slippers flapping. Grandma Seeley hobbled after her, and heard a scream from the beach.

  “The boat’s gone! What did you do with it? This isn’t funny!”

  Kim ran back and forth on the empty beach, looking in vain for her rowboat. Even the rope that had tied it had vanished. Grandma Seeley looked more closely, and shivered. Hands had loosed that boat, and their owner had left no footprints.

  “Kim, come inside.”

  “How’d you do it? You don’t have a phone. You couldn’t have called somebody. Where’d you put the boat?”

  Grandma Seeley dipped her fingers in the lake water, grabbed hold of Kim, and traced a cross on the girl’s forehead.

  “Let go! What are you doing?”

  “Come away from the water, child. Please. This isn’t their place, they don’t belong here, and I don’t know why they’ve turned up now, but it can’t mean well for us.” She tried to tug Kim back to the house.

  “Why, I’m here because yon fair maid cried seven tears into the sea, of course,” said a male voice.

  Grandma Seeley turned around slowly, with Kim clinging, white-faced, to her side. Elused bobbed chest-deep in the water, his sealskin peeled back to his waist, his human face as boyishly charming as ever.

  “This is a lake, not the sea,” Grandma Seeley said, marveling at the steadiness of her voice. “It’s many a long mile from home, and there are no seals here, let alone selkie-folk. So if Laird Morcant sent you all this way to claim this girl, I’m afraid you’ve come for nothing.”

  Elused shook his sleek head. “I came alone, and I came for you, Feidlimid.”

  Grandma Seeley startled at the name. She shook her head. “Armel called me Felicienne, and he’s so long dead that even that name has faded to a ghost.” Heat rose to Grandma Seeley’s face. “Devil take you, Elused, can’t you see I’m old?”

  The selkie’s dark eyes filled with sorrow. “I know you had no choice but to go with that trapper, that taker of skins. But why did your daughter here never return your own skin to you, as daughters always have?”

  “I’m not her daughter, buster,” said Kim. Her voice was harsh, but her face was bright with wonder. “Is it really all true? About the seal-people, and having to marry guys who take your s
kin, and being immortal and able to change shape and all that?”

  “It is,” said Elused. “Feidlimid has been gone so long that the others thought her dead, perhaps killed by that trapper who stole her skin…”

  “I gave Armel my skin, Elused,” said Grandma Seeley, holding the sealman’s hurt gaze. “I know selkie men can never be faithful, just as we selkie women must always be. It’s in our blood. Armel promised to stay with me all his days, and he did. He never took any sealskin but mine, and we had no children to return it to me.”

  “I searched for you all his days,” said Elused, with a solemnity she’d never heard in his voice, or any seal-man’s. “Though the others shunned me, though I knew you must be trapped without your skin, I searched. I would have come sooner, had there been tears to call me.”

  Kim wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ll miss you, Grandma Seeley.”

  “Who said I was going anywhere? Even if I had that wretched old hide, this mortal body’s too far gone for me to wear it as it’s meant for wearing. And you heard him: the selkie believe I wedded a butcher. Your mortal tales don’t mention that selkies have sharp teeth, and bite when they’re crossed. I’m dead to the tribe, and if Elused won’t go back, so is he.”

  “You’re a hypocrite,” said Kim.

  “What?”

  “You want me to go back home, but you won’t!”

  “Kim, sweetheart, I wedded a trapper. A seller of hides. The others will kill me for that. Your father’s a good man. He loves you. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “This guy says he loves you. What have you got to be afraid of?”

  “Listen to the child, Feidlimid,” said Elused.

  Grandma Seeley turned her back on both of them and stormed into the house. Let Kim’s father get the loan of another boat and come fetch his daughter. Kim would go home, Elused would wheedle his way back into the tribe with that eternal charm of his, and all would be as it was.

  She sat rocking by the fire, listening for the chug of a motor or the splash of oars. Nothing came. She looked out the front window, and gasped. Kim stood bent-backed on the wee scrap of island, with Elused watching her intently. Grandma Seeley hurried down to the beach just as Kim straightened and shouted “Got it!” She held up a tattered brown bundle.