Dreams Die

Colin drew his cloak tight about his body as he stepped out of Warren's empty tent into the cold night air, eyes wandering in search of his commander and friend.  The warrior stood at the edge of the camp, facing the great walled city of Gustrone.  Though his back was turned, there was no mistaking his singular poise and armored frame.  Colin didn't understand why the man wore armor now, though he almost always did.  The weight of that iron plate must have been tiring, but Warren showed no sign of it.
Without turning, he acknowledged Colin's approach.  "Can't sleep, even after battle?  Is the joy of victory so invigorating?"
He shrugged.  "Maybe I've learned not to need sleep, like you."  Colin was sure Warren slept at some point, but he had never actually seen him doing it, and nor did hunger or thirst hamper him as much as other men.  "Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Oh?  You're not going to stay and celebrate our victory with me?  Now that we've defeated the dukes, the people will have no choice but to accept me as king."
"I'll be back.  I'm just going to take Rhona home.  You know the battlefield's no place for her."
Warren exhaled, a mist dancing from his lips.  "I don't understand you, Colin.  That little hellcat matches the best of us in killing every day, and now you say she can't fight?"
"I didn't mean that.  The battle's over anyway.  It's what's left over that Rhona doesn't need.  Her nose has the sensitivity of a bear's, and all this death and sickness does it no favors.  As close as everything"—by which he meant morgue, infirmary, latrine trenches, and similar malefactors—"is, my own nose is screaming at me.  You know Gustrone might not surrender for a while yet, and we'll be camped out here until then."
The suspicious look Warren gave Colin did not surprise him.  Though he was not small, Warren had to look up; Colin was taller and much heavier.  "And why, exactly, would she need you to escort her?"
"She is wounded.  And the clean mountain air will help that shoulder of hers heal up, too."  A few months back, his sister had nearly lost her arm to a nasty sword wound, and still had not recovered completely.
"Wounded my foot.  Come on, Colin—she killed at least thirty men yesterday.  You just want to go back to the mountains to visit that wife and son of yours, and Rhona's nothing but an excuse for you to leave me."
It wasn't surprising that Warren had seen right through him, either.  Colin nodded slightly, though the commander wasn't even looking at him.  "You got me.  Is it so wrong?  I miss them."
"I won't stop you from going.  You could've just told it to me straight, though."
"Rhona does want to leave."
"Damn Wild Axe.  Good for a fight, not so much for the aftermath."
Colin smiled.  "Would you want my sister at parlay?"
"No.  Take care."
Colin returned to his small hide tent and lay down next to the snoring form of his half-sister.  He fell asleep easily now, for his worry had been that Warren would take his decision to leave worse than he had.  He felt glad Warren wasn't mad; he was not always this understanding, unlike most of his friends.

#

The next morning, Colin was awakened by Rhona's hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of his slumber.  "So we're going, right?" she asked impatiently.  "Get up and get dressed."
"What time is it?"  Peeking outside, Colin saw that the sky was still gray, the sun's rays only beginning to push away the darkness.  "Do we have to go this early?  I do want to say goodbye to my friends."
"If you want to do that, just wake them up before we go.  Those silly city folk hardly need to sleep so late."
"Oh, fine," Colin said with a sigh.  He was no soft city dweller himself, having grown up in the hills herding sheep, but Rhona was something else entirely.  Born to Colin's mother by another man, she had run away from home as a child after being harshly beaten by his drunken father.  No one had been able to find her, and after awhile everyone assumed her dead.  But somehow she had survived alone in the wilderness, growing into the young woman people called the Wild Axe.
Some tales made her out to be less human than animal, and if Colin wasn't her kin he might have believed it.  She looked like a beast, with that tangled black mane and those thick furs she always wore, and in battle she was more dangerous than a rabid bear.  She ate meat raw, and could track as well as any hound.  And of course, she bore what passed for great hardship to civilized folk with contemptuous ease.  Neither wretched weather nor exhausting marches fazed her in the least.  Her only weakness seemed to be also one of her great strengths, that amazing nose which no smell could escape.
Rhona had turned away to retrieve her leathers, and Colin could not help glancing disdainfully at the hairy crack of her ample ass.  One other thing about her, was she had no qualms about exposing her nakedness to others.  In fact, it was only at Colin's insistence that she maintained a passable level of decency around the army.  If not for him, the abundant curves of her stocky body might have created great danger—not only for her, but any man tempted to try and take her by force as well.
She put on the leathers and bear pelt which served as her public garb, and the two of them walked outside.  The camp was so tightly packed, Colin almost felt the need to walk sideways between the tents.  Little Rhona, of course, showed no such concerns, skipping lightly through the camp.
They said goodbye to their mutual friends, then Colin quickened his pace to match Rhona while she headed towards Candace's tent.  "Now remember to be nice."
"Pah.  Candace!  Wake up, Prettyhands!"
Colin got an urge to reach out and strangle his sister.  Candace's old nickname could hardly be used in anything but a mocking context now.  The warrioress' hands were rough and callused and covered with scars, including the terrible burns of a flaming arrow burying itself in her palm.
One might have expected Rhona to feel some kind of camaraderie with another female warrior, but it hadn't worked out that way.  Despite her great courage and prowess in battle, Candace still possessed a bearing appropriate to her noble heritage, and this trait seemed to irk Rhona even more than it did in other aristocracy.  Colin thought his sister wanted Candace to be like her, and her hostility came of the fact that she was not.  For a while, the two women had seemed to become friends.  But then, Rhona's dislike for Candace had come crawling back.
"Hi, Rhona," Candace said as she stepped outside, polite in the face of adversity.  Though scarred, she was still beautiful, her lovely round face framed by soft brown curls.  Her figure was slender and lithe, yet deceptively strong.  Rhona turned away, disrespectfully avoiding her gaze.  "What's happening?"
"I'm taking her home," Colin said.  Despite her attempt to keep her face neutral, he thought he saw relief flash through Candace's eyes.
After a pause, she spoke.  "What about you?  Are you coming back?"
"Yes."
Candace held his gaze and put a still graceful hand on his shoulder.  "Maybe you shouldn't.  Your family must miss you."
"I know they do.  But I promised Warren I would see this through to the end."
"This is the end.  It's all but over.  You can go home."
Colin frowned.  Though he appreciated her concern, the knowledge her advice brought to mind sent pangs of pity rushing through his heart.  Of course she would encourage him to cherish any opportunity to spend time with his family; her own parents and sister had been slaughtered years ago by raiders who had destroyed her hometown.  She was technically a countess, but all she ruled was a kingdom of grief.
He spread his arms and stepped forward.  In the moment before he reached her, he saw her eyes glisten with tears; then he embraced her, gently patting her back.  "You're never alone, Candace.  Remember that."
After a while, she stepped back and smiled.  "So are you coming back?"
He shrugged.  "I don't know anymore.  Maybe I'll take your advice."
"I'll come visit you someday, meet your wife and son.  Until then, goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Candace turned, her gaze lingering sadly on Rhona's back for just a moment, and ducked into her tent.  "Let's go," Rhona said.
Colin did not move yet.  "She's such a nice woman," he said softly.  "How can you dislike her?"
"She's not a nice woman.  She's just a fraud, that's all.  How can she slaughter men just like we do, and then turn around and pretend to be this demure lady?  It's silly."
"I don't think she's pretending.  What, because she's a warrior she can't be gentle?  What, are we all evil, then?"
"Evil?  No.  But we're killers.  At least you and I don't try to hide it, and in front of other killers at that."
Shaking his head, Colin started south and west.  This conversation never went anywhere, and it would be a waste of time to continue arguing with Rhona.  But inwardly, he did hope he would do a good job "pretending" with his family.
They traveled in silence for a time, passing many a farm among the sweeping plains.  "Colin," Rhona said eventually, "you really didn't need to come with me.  I can more than take care of myself."  She sounded a bit annoyed, as if she thought he doubted her abilities.
He looked at her and couldn't help smiling.  There was a certain innocence in her failure to deduce the real reason for his departure.  "Of course you can, Rhona.  But I miss Phyllis and Jesse."
"What did you ever see in that city girl?  She doesn't even like your herder's life."
Colin laughed.  "Don't you get it, Rhona?  Why do you think she came to live with me, even though she doesn't like it in the hills?  She loves me.  That's what love is.  It doesn't matter if you have to suffer a bit, because there's nothing more important than your love.  Don't you know anything?"
Rhona was not silenced for nearly as long as Colin imagined she might be.  "You find someone you like, you rut with 'em.  If things work out, they stay with you.  That's what love means to me."
For all her deviance, Rhona was not a totally antisocial being.  Since reemerging from the wilds, she had shown up regularly at local festivals, and even made a few friends who she visited on occasion.  But she had found no man—or woman—who wanted her for more than a short fling.  Colin doubted if she would ever find love, and pitied her for it.
But mulling over his own words, Colin felt happily confident that Rhona did at least love him.  Warren's war had nothing to do with her, and for all her viciousness in combat she did not particularly relish bloodshed; her only reason to endure the battles—and prolonged contact with civilization in the form of the army—was her care for him.  Like his wife, she had chosen to sacrifice some of herself for him.
The days passed slowly, as Colin could hardly wait to return to his family.  His nights were full of happy dreams, which made him reluctant to wake.  But he forced himself to rise each morning as early as Rhona did, knowing the real thing would be better than any dream.
The plains gave way to familiar wooded hills, and Colin's spirits grew light with joyful anticipation.  "I smell mutton," said Rhona a short way from home.
"Are you sure?"  Colin didn't smell anything, but very rarely did he or Phyllis slaughter one of their sheep for food.  Maybe one had broken a leg, and needed to be put out of its misery.
"Yeah, I'm sure.  My nose doesn't lie."
When the house came into sight, Colin realized that he did indeed smell cooking sheep.  He looked towards the sheep pen, and to his alarm saw at least five animals had gone missing.  What was going on?  Then he saw the blood on the grass, and fear quickened his pulse.
Colin hurried to the door and knocked.  His eyes widened when not his wife, but his neighbor Bran opened the door.  More blood stained the floor, and a leg of mutton roasted slowly in the stone oven.
"Where's Phyllis?" Colin demanded.  His heart tightened at the grim look on Bran's rugged face.
"She's dead," the lanky farmer breathed.  "I was waiting here to tell you—sorry."
All the water seemed to evaporate from Colin's throat, and the strength fled from his knees.  "H-how?" he asked numbly.
"Brigands, it seems."
"What about Jesse?!" Colin asked in terror.
"I don't know.  He wasn't here when I arrived.  They might have taken him."
Colin tried to get his breathing under control, but it was no use.  Soon he fell to his knees, shaking and sobbing softly.  "How... how could they do this?  How could they do it to me?"
"I doubt those bastards took the time to figure out whose home it was before they attacked.  Then again, maybe they knew, and that was exactly why they came."
Colin barely heard, distraught as he was over Phyllis's death.  He wept and wept, his huge shoulders shuddering uncontrollably.  No longer could they grow old together, watch their children grow up together.  She was dead, and with her all his humble dreams.  He could not imagine his future without her, nor did he want to.
Rhona knelt beside him, and he felt her arms wrap comfortingly about his shoulders.  "Colin.  Colin, listen to me.  Your son could still be alive.  Steady yourself, we have to go find him."
He looked at her and sniffed loudly.  "How?  They could have gone anywhere."
"When did they attack?" she asked Bran.
"No more than two days ago.  If only you had arrived a little earlier..."
Damn it!  Now Colin knew he would hate himself forever for not taking a horse.  Still, he had to save his son.  Mastering his grief for now, he wiped his eyes and stood.  "Rhona?"
"I know Jesse's smell.  Let's armor up and go bandit hunting."
"I'll come too," Bran said.  "Phyllis was a good woman, and it hurts to see her murdered by such wicked men.  Besides, my family could be next."  Colin knew he was no stranger to fighting to preserve his life, having been a career soldier before the plague took his wife and forced him to return home to raise his children, and more than welcomed his aid.
Colin put his chainmail hauberk on over his tunic, and Bran donned his cured leather jerkin.  Rhona took the longest to prepare, strapping on mismatched pieces of dull black-enameled plate over her leathers.  Then they were off, the wild girl's nose leading them to the bandits' lair.  Colin's heart pounded like a drum in his chest.  What had they done to his son?  He feared to find out.  But he knew what he was going to do to them, images of their dismembered corpses vivid in his turbulent mind.
Sometime during the trip, Colin heard himself asking in a choked voice, "What do I do if he's gone?  What will I live for, if my son is dead?"
"Don't think about that," Bran said.  "We'll get him back.  They wouldn't have taken him just to kill him."
The trio eventually found themselves at the mouth of a hillside cave from which firelight glowed.  At first they thought to attack with caution, but Colin heard high-pitched cries coming from inside and lost all restraint.  A woman!  The image of his wife being raped filled his mind, driving him into an irrational rage.  With a scream, he charged into the cave.
"Colin, you idiot!" he heard Bran cry.
"Get off her!" Colin bellowed as he rushed, his eyes fixed on the man thrusting his pelvis up and down over the woman prone beneath him.  The bastard!  Now he was going to find out that there was still such a thing as justice in the world...
The woman saw him first, and with a shout pushed her lover off herself.  Colin grew confused when he realized the woman wore a sword and several daggers.  Why would the bandits allow a victim to remain armed?  The woman drew her sword and scrambled up to strike at Colin.  Damn, he'd been wrong.  She was one of the bandits!
With a great roar, Colin blocked her slash and retaliated, cleaving through her shoulder and chest.
Rhona and Bran were at his side then, and he looked around to see about twenty crudely dressed, hard-faced men in a ring around them, weapons in hand.  Behind them, packs and bedrolls lay on the stony ground.  Colin had charged right into the midst of the bandits' camp.
"Joshua," the dead woman's lover whined, "they killed my honey girl!  Who do they think they are to be so stupid brave?"
A tall, broad-shouldered man with long braids smiled as he replied, raising a heavy two-handed sword.  "Colin and Rhona, that's who.  Just as crazy off the battlefield as on it, apparently.  So that was your wife?"
Recognition hit Colin like a hammer.  "Joshua?  So this is what you've been doing, you shit-faced deserter!"  But in spite of his anger, a sliver of doubt pricked his heart.  Joshua, arrogant rogue he was, had been a remarkable swordsman.  Colin remembered losing to him in more than one exhibition match.
The bandits closed in, a few especially aggressive men rushing ahead of their fellows.  Colin's great axe clove the air in a wide arc, two brigands jumping back to avoid the whooshing head.  Another man ducked beneath the blow, his dagger glinting in the firelight, but Colin's fist smashed against his head with such force that his neck snapped.  Bran blocked a sword cut with the shaft of his spear, slammed the butt into the man's head.  Spinning the spear around, he stabbed it into the knee of another warrior, who fell howling in pain.
Rhona blocked a sword blow with her shield, ducked another, and splintered a hip with her axe.  Smaller than Colin's weapon, her short battleaxe was designed for use in one hand.  Before she could free the blade, a bandit lunged and plunged his spear into her upper chest.  With a shriek of rage, she hewed through the wooden shaft and opened its wielder's throat on the backswing.
Hearing her cry out, Colin turned and saw the broken spear jutting from her chest.  "Rhona!"
"I'm fine," she gasped.  "It didn't hit anything important."
Angered nonetheless by his sister's wounding, Colin lashed out fiercely with his axe, severing a man's arm near the shoulder.  A sword jabbed at his belly, but he leaned aside and it only grazed his side.  His axe drank the warrior's brains in reply.  He felt a sudden weakness in his right leg, and looked to see the hilt of a small knife protruding from his thigh.  Angrily, he plucked it out and looked around.  A lean bandit smiled at him, reaching for a second dagger.  Before he could draw it, Colin returned his first knife, and he caught it with his eye.
Bran felled another man, gutting him with a spearthrust below the navel.  Freshly dying, his screams rose above those of the other injured bandits.  Half the enemy were down, and with a yell of triumph Rhona rushed their now hesitant comrades.  "No!" Colin cried.
The Wild Axe's first blow ripped away a man's sword, and her second split his breastbone.  But Joshua stepped in, stabbing two-handed with his sword to drive it through Rhona's belly.  A foot and a half of sharp steel emerged from the girl's back, and she doubled over coughing red droplets.  With a merciless sneer, Joshua kicked her off the blade.
On her back and choking on her own blood, Rhona braced herself with a hand and tried to rise.  Joshua's sword hammered down hard, her shield arm barely mustering the strength to ward off the blow.  She moaned, blood pouring from her gut and back.  Grabbing his closest foe by the neck, Colin threw him at his allies and started towards his struggling sister.
Bran grasped his shoulder, holding him back.  "Forget her!  She's already dead."
Colin shrugged him off, scowling through a mask of tears.  "I'll fight for my sis as long as she draws breath."
An opportunistic bandit joined Joshua in his attack, and Rhona groaned while an axe dented the armor over her side.  Yet she managed to raise herself halfway up and fall towards her new opponent, her own axe coming up and smashing into his thigh.  Joshua stepped towards her even as the other bandit fell back, his sword chopping down at her head.  She rolled to her knees, bringing her axe up just in time to intercept the blow.  But Joshua pressed down, slowly bringing the edge of his blade closer and closer to the wounded girl.
Without warning, Rhona shifted her shield higher on her arm and reached forward and up, her hand snaking underneath Joshua's kilt.  The swordsman's eyes bulged, and a deafening scream of utter anguish tore from his throat.  He fell away, blood gushing between his legs.  Her face scrunching up in disgust, Rhona tossed aside the red, fleshy mass in her hand.
Then Colin was there, slashing over his sister at the next man who would have attacked her.  A headless corpse toppled at his feet as he said breathlessly, "You tore off his balls!"
Rhona's response carried none of her usual spirit.  "Colin, I'm hurt."
He swallowed hard even as his axe came down on the back of a man who rushed in low, sundering the spine.  "I know, sis.  Hang on!"
A broken spearshaft flew through the air, transfixing a bandit's face.  Bran appeared at Colin's side, a procured sword in hand and a flap of flesh hanging loose from a ghastly wound in his upper arm.  "Damn you, abandoning me for your dying sister!  Look at what you did to my spear!"
"I knew you could take care of yourself.  But Rhona..."  Colin could say no more.  Guilt stabbed his heart.  It was his recklessness in launching a direct attack which had brought them into such an uneven battle.  Now, his sister might die for it.
Only three bandits remained standing, and Bran and Colin advanced grimly upon them.  One man charged, shouting defiance.  Bran parried his overhand slash, and Colin hewed him nearly in two.  Another man tried to dive past the warriors, seeking escape.  Somehow, he managed to get by the men with only a shallow cut on the arm, but brave Rhonda gutted him from the ground.  The last bandit backed up against the wall of the cavern and raised his hands.  Slim and beardless, he looked little older than a boy.
"I surrender!  Please spare me, I didn't kill her!"
"Where's my son?" Colin growled.
"Aidan took him to sell, I don't know where!  We didn't need to know... please, don't kill me!  I didn't kill your wife."
"Did you rape her?"
The youth exhaled.  "No," he said, looking away.
"Don't lie."
Tears rushed from his eyes.  "Yes, I raped her!  But they made me do it!  What does it matter?  She was dead anyway!"
"Don't be a wimp," Rhona said.  "You came this far, now finish it."
Colin raised his axe and hesitated.  He was still angry, but he had already killed so many and the bandit seemed just a scared child.  Maybe he could let him go.  Maybe he could live to spread the word of what happened to those who wronged Colin.  Maybe...
Rhona stepped past him and swung her axe low, driving the spike on the back of its head into the bandit's lower belly.  The youth fell to his knees screaming, blood gushing between his  fingers.  Rhona looked meaningfully at Colin.  Helplessly, he raised his axe and lopped off the dying boy's head.  She had purposefully inflicted a wound which would kill slowly and terribly, in order to force his hand.
At the thought of the bandit's gut wound, Colin remembered Rhona's injury.  If anything, hers seemed worse.  He turned to see her fall to her knees, drooling blood.  "I-it hurts."
He knelt at her side, cradling her in his arms.  "No, Rhona, don't!  Please don't die.  You can't die!"
She regarded him with an exasperated scowl, though he was not sure why.  "Don't you... panic.  I-I'll be fine."
As much as Colin wanted to believe her, he could not push the certainty of her death from his mind.  The huge sword that had ripped through her belly must have torn her innards to shreds.  He held her hand and stared weeping at her face, wondering how much time together they had left.  Maybe it would have been better for him to grant her the mercy of a swift death, like he had the bandit.  But Rhona was his sister, and he could not imagine raising his axe against her.
Bran knelt beside him and touched his shoulder.  "Relax, Colin.  Put her down, and I'll patch her up."
"You can save her?" he asked, desperate for any sort of hope.
"Weren't you there when I stitched up your uncle's dog?"
Colin's heart sank.  "But that dog died..."
Rhona squeezed his hand.  "Just... do it," she whispered.  "I'm tougher... than a dog."
Colin set her carefully on the ground, pulled his wineskin from his belt and put it to her lips.  She took a few swallows, then nodded, and he finished what was left.  Bran undressed her and stitched the back side of her wound, so as to save her some blood.  He turned her to her back and drew his dagger.  Bare, her wounds were hideous to see.  Colin watched in horror while he sliced her open.  He had little confidence in Bran's abilities as a surgeon, and knew such an operation had little chance of success no matter who did it.  Rhona would undoubtedly lose a great deal of blood, and if she survived that, infection was still all but guaranteed.
For a few seconds, the girl managed to stay quiet.  Then she began to scream, and Colin cringed with each heartrending cry.  He refused at first to look at her face, not wanting to see the unbearable pain reflected there.  Instead, he watched Bran mend her tattered innards, holding back the vomit burning in the depths of his throat.  Sometime during the surgery, Rhona stopped screaming.  Finally unable to bear the sight of her opened abdomen, Colin looked at her face.  Her eyes were closed, and he could not tell if she was breathing.  Bran did not check if she had died, but just kept working.
Eventually, he finished putting Rhona's guts back together and closed up her wound.  Colin simply continued to stare at her still face.  She looked gray as death; he did not know if she lived, nor could he find the will to check.  There was so much blood everywhere—how could anyone survive this?
Eventually, Bran put his fingers to the side of Rhona's neck and nodded.  "She's alive."
Colin exhaled, but his heart was still racing.  "Will she be alright?"
"Your sister's very strong.  She has a chance."
Gingerly, Colin scooped Rhona up into his arms and started to stand.  A feminine moan of pain startled him, and he looked down at her face.  Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open and she met his gaze.
"C-Colin?" she croaked.  "See, I told you I'd be okay... I am going to make it, right?"
He swallowed hard.  "Of course you are.  Just rest."
"I'll do that.  What about you, now?"
Still shaken and scared for Rhona's life, Colin gave the only answer he could.  "What else?  I'm going after my son."  He looked up.  "Will you come with me, Bran?"
Bran shook his head.  "I can't—I've got my own daughters to feed.  But I'll take care of your sister."  If she lives, his eyes seemed to say.
"Thank you.  You make sure you don't lead his girls astray, eh sis?"
She smiled weakly.  "Yeah, sure."
Colin carried Rhona from the cave, Bran following behind.  Dreams die, he thought wearily.  But hope remains.

This Fresh-Fallen Snow

The women doing their washing in the stream paused when the little family came up the road. They grinned and waved. The older children, a boy and a girl, waved back. The mother’s arms were occupied with holding the baby, but she stopped to talk.
“We wondered where you were, Yuki.” The oldest of the women called. “But since you’re coming from the graveyard, I see you were visiting your mother-in-law.”
“Her seven-year ceremony is in a few days, so we’ve been taking offerings all week.” Yuki shifted the baby, her long black hair swinging like a curtain.
“I laid flowers on Grandmother’s grave!” announced the little boy.
“Me too!” The girl squeaked. Her pale face turned red and she hid behind her brother as the women laughed.
Yuki smiled at the children. “I’ll be back to do laundry when the ceremony is over.”
The group moved off toward the village. As soon as they disappeared around the bend, the women began to talk.
“What a devoted daughter. Old Emiko was lucky to have her.”
“I celebrated my mother-in-law’s seven-year ceremony, but only because I had to. I was glad to see the end of that demon.”
“That little girl will be lucky if she grows up to be as lovely as her mother.”

“She’s been here…eight years? And she doesn’t look a day older than when Noboru brought her home. Yet we just keep getting more wrinkled.”

The women laughed, but threaded into their mirth was a strand of bitterness. For a while there was no sound but the slap of wet clothing on rocks. Suddenly one of the women said, “You remember, Noboru broke off his engagement to that girl from Shurikawa, because of her. The girl’s family won’t have anything to do with folk from this village, now.” “She probably killed herself. What else could the poor thing do after being rejected like that?”
The village midwife, wringing out a sash, raised her head to speak. The other women grew quiet. “I attended the births of all three of her children. When the little girl was born, Yuki cried as if her heart were broken.”
The women were silent, absorbing this news. Many of them had cried when their daughters were born; they were less help than boys on the farms, and cost the family dearly when it came time to marry them off. But none of the women would admit this, so someone quickly began to talk of an upcoming festival. Yuki was soon forgotten.

#

In the dream it was cold, the sort of cold that crept into his marrow so that he shivered for hours after he woke. The scene was Shikoku Forest, eight years before. He’d been nineteen then, and old Masuo past fifty, the same age Noboru’s father would have been if he’d lived. Masuo had burned the last of his firewood, not expecting the weather to turn as it had. It was Noboru’s duty to his father’s friend to venture into the snow to cut more.
The snow reached Noboru’s knees, soaking his trousers and falling into the tops of his boots. He’d tied a cloth around his nose and mouth, but the wind blew flakes into his eyes until they watered. The tree branches were shrouded in ice and broke off easily, but they’d have to dry for days before they would burn.
Halfway back to the village Masuo suddenly gripped Noboru’s arm. He shouted to be heard over the wind.
“There’s a charcoal burner’s hut nearby! We should stop there and ask for shelter for a few hours!”
Noboru thought he could make it back to the village, but he looked at Masuo’s bent back and nodded assent.
They found the hut, sagging under a burden of snow. Masuo knocked. When no one answered he cleared the drifted snow from the door and pushed it open.
The charcoal burner was gone. The fire-pit was full of ash; his few possessions hung on the wall. Masuo dropped his sticks to the dirt floor. “Poor fool must have gone out for more wood. What sort of charcoal burner runs out of wood?”
The hut was cold, but at least they were out of the wind. They sat on the floor, shaking snow from their boots. It was so cold the ice on the wood refused to melt. After a while Masuo lay down. Noboru leaned against the wall to wait. The single window was tightly shuttered, and the hut was very dark. He dozed.

#

When he opened his eyes the hut was filled with a chill blue light. The wind had ceased roaring. Noboru blinked. The storm was over; the sun had come out. He tried to rise, but something was wrong. He couldn’t move, yet nothing bound him.
He didn’t notice the woman until she moved. She stepped out of a corner of the hut where she must have been standing all along. She ignored Noboru and went to Masuo. Noboru tried to speak, but his tongue was frozen in his mouth; ice crystals choked his throat.
She was pale as a crane’s breast, her eyes black, her lips thin and pink. Her long smooth hair fell to her waist. Her robe was tinged icy blue. She wore no boots, and her bare feet made no sound on the floor. She bent toward Masuo. He didn’t wake, even when she took his chin in her hand and turned his face toward hers. For a moment Noboru thought she was going to kiss him. A hot rush of jealousy melted the ice clogging his throat, but all he managed was a formless croak.
The woman paused, her face inches from Masuo’s, and parted her lips. Masuo’s mouth fell open. Red mist spilled from Masuo’s lips and rose toward the woman’s as if drawn by a draft. Noboru thought of a cat, sucking out a baby’s breath. When she’d drunk the last wisps of the mist, she let go of Masuo. He slumped motionless to the ground.
She straightened up and turned to Noboru. Terror had replaced his envy, terror colder even than drifting snow. But even more frigid was the woman’s touch on his cheek as she regarded him with her black eyes. Noboru tried to sink into the hut’s wall, but he remained paralyzed. Fear scrabbled frantically inside his chest. Tears for poor Masuo rose in his eyes. Suddenly, the woman’s lips parted in a smile.
“You’re not like the others.” Her voice was soft and cool. “You’re young and handsome. I think I’ll let you live. But if you ever tell anyone what happened here, I will kill you and all you love.”
She stepped out into the storm. The door swung shut behind her, and the blue light vanished, leaving Noboru in darkness. He found he could move again. He leaped up and ran to the door, but the woman had disappeared into the ice-laden forest. The wind began to howl again. Noboru retreated into the hut. He went to Masuo, but the old man was stiff. No warmth remained in his limbs.

#

In the morning the searchers found him crouched by Masuo’s body, tears frozen glittering to his cheeks. The charcoal burner they found a little way off, and a great pile of wood behind the hut, hidden under the snow.
He always woke trembling from this dream. Beside him Yuki stirred and lay her hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, a nightmare.” He replied. In the dark her eyes were black as those of the snow-witch.
Noboru and the boys had their bath first, then Yuki and the girl climbed into the cooling water for their turn. Yuki leaned against the edge of the wooden tub, wringing out her hair as her daughter splashed and sang to herself. A particularly vicious tangle at the back of her neck drew her attention away for a moment. She nearly had it worked out when her daughter exclaimed, “Mama, look!”
The little girl thrust her chubby finger into the water. Crystals formed on her skin. They crept down her finger and spread over the water in a fine latticework of ice. Yuki stared. Abruptly she surged out of the water, slopping it over the sides of the tub. The lacy ice shattered and was submerged. She fetched the girl a slap that drove red into her cheek. The girl lurched and yelped, swallowing a mouthful of cloudy water. Yuki moaned and gathered the sputtering, coughing child into her arms.
“Don’t do that!” Yuki rocked her crying daughter back and forth. “Not in front of anyone. You understand? Don’t do it. Never, never, never.”

#

Noboru told no one what had happened in the charcoal-burner’s hut. But the villagers could guess; they suspected he was spirit-touched and treated him with a cringing courtesy. Even worse was the reception he received from his betrothed’s family in Shurikawa. They jumped every time he spoke, even the quiet girl who’d been destined to marry him since she could walk. It was on the road to Shurikawa for a dreaded visit that he met the woman.
Spring had painted the world with gaiety, erasing all traces of the deadly winter. The road was bordered by greenery. It was between two yam fields that he came upon her.
She wore a pink robe and a wide straw hat hung with a veil that reached her knees. Noboru was worrying over his visit, and so barely noticed her until she said, “Good day, young master.”
Her voice was warm as the spring air. Startled into shame at his rudeness, Noboru stopped and bowed. “Good day, mistress.”
“Tell me, young master, is this the road to Genmaden?”
“Yes mistress, I just came from there.”
“I see. Thank you.” A small white hand reached out from under the veil, lifting the skirt of her tightly-wound robe just enough to allow her to walk. Her feet and ankles were white and bare.
“Wait!” Noboru raised his arm. His fingers were nearly on her shoulder before he remembered himself and drew back his hand. “I’ll see you safely to Genmaden.”
“But did you not come from there?”
Noboru glanced at the road ahead and shrugged cheerfully. “I suppose I did, but I can’t recall why now. It mustn’t be important.”
“No.” The woman’s voice brimmed with amusement. “I suppose it can’t have been.”

#

“Yuki, that’s lovely.” Noboru fingered the soft flowered cloth. “Is it for Mother’s ceremony?”
“Stop, you’ll break the stitches.” Yuki lifted his hand, kissed the knuckles, and pushed it away. “I finished your robe and the children’s. Only mine remains, and it’s almost done.”
Noboru yawned and collapsed backward onto the mat of woven reeds. “You know, Mother really loved you. It’s a shame she died so soon after we married. I’m happy she died in the spring, though. She got to see the trees bud, at least. So many people die in the winter, ever since…” His eyebrows drooped low. His mouth sank into a troubled frown.
“People are weakened in the winter.” Yuki said briskly, tugging hard at her needle. “They get lost in the snow, or they fall ill, that’s all. Oh, look- I broke my thread. Husband, will you fetch me another roll from my basket?”

#

All the rest of that winter she perched in the bare trees, stood ankle-deep in the ice-crusted streams, sat on the hills beneath which foxes and badgers slumbered. She directed her storms with dancing hands. But this year the sparkle of ice crystals and the spiral whirls of snow failed to bring her the delight they had in other times. In the lowering gray clouds she saw the frightened face of the young man in the charcoal-burner’s hut. He was handsome, yes, but she had seen handsome men before. What had stayed her hand was the grief she read in his eyes, grief for the dead man.  Those who witnessed her feeding before had worn only terror on their faces. But even in his fear, that man had mourned his friend.
She thought of him always. When others ventured into the woods she didn’t attack, but waited, watching, curious. She had never paid them much attention before, except as prey, but now they fascinated her. They were such small creatures, and yet…sometimes they laughed, even in the frozen, sleeping forest. She waited and watched, but the young man did not return. She neglected to feed, and grew weak. Despite the fierce winter, spring came early.
By the time the foxes and badgers emerged from their dens, she’d made up her mind. The others were so small, it was easy to assume their form. She walked the roads around the village, hoping to meet the man. Hope was strange to her. She discovered she liked it.
On the seventh day of her wanderings, she found the man she sought.

#

“Hana!” Noboru called to his daughter. “What are you doing?”
The little girl, crouched over something in the yard, didn’t answer. She huddled near the corner of the wooden well frame. Noboru saw the well’s cover was pushed back, and an upended bucket spilled water into the dirt.  “Hana!”
No answer. Angry now, he strode across the yard. “Get away from the well! You know it’s dangerous!”
He was almost upon her before the girl jumped up, thrusting her hands behind her back. Her gaze clung guiltily to the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, Father.”
He ruffled her silky hair. “Go inside and help your mother. And don’t play by the well anymore!”
“Yes, Father.”
When she had gone, he straightened the bucket and hauled the well cover back into place. Just before he turned away, something caught his eye: a glitter in the dust. What had Hana been playing with? He crouched down to look. Immediately a chill hand closed around his heart.
It was a snowflake, writ large in ice. The delicate tracery of its structure sparkled in the sun. It bled water into the dirt as the spring heat melted it away.

#

“Mother.” Noboru bowed to the bent form that lay propped against the pillows by the fire. “This is Yuki. I met her on the road to Shurikawa. She's going to stay to Fuhara to visit some relatives, and she thought there was an inn here where she could stay the night.”
The old woman chuckled. “Genmaden is much too small for an inn, but you're welcome to rest here. Take off your veil...my, but aren't you pretty! Who are your relatives? I know some people in Fuhara.”
Yuki bowed deeply and dropped to her knees across from Noboru's mother. “You are very kind. But are you quite comfortable, Mistress? Perhaps I could adjust your cushions for you...”
“Thank you. That's nice.” As Yuki leaned over her, her graceful hands plumping the pillows, the old woman transferred her gaze to her son. His eyes were fixed on Yuki, his lips parted. Well, she thought, after all he'd endured that winter, this might be a good thing. It was too bad for the Shurikawa girl. But she'd always been a bit whiny for Noboru's mother's taste anyway.

#

For two days he fought with himself. Hana was Yuki’s daughter as well; she should know what had happened the winter before they met. She should know their children were spirit-cursed.
Every moment he watched them, the boys too. The baby did little but sleep and coo, and the older boy seemed unaware of Noboru’s scrutiny. But he noticed Hana sneaking him stealthy glances.
It had been many years since his encounter with the snow witch. Perhaps she had forgotten him. Perhaps she had gone far away. Even if she was still near, he would fight her. Even if she came to kill him, he and Yuki would face her together.
The night before his mother’s seven-year ceremony, they put the children to bed and sat down by the fire. Yuki bent over her needle, finishing a detail on her robe. Noboru held a sandal in his hands, pretending to mend the strap, but his palms sweated so badly he couldn’t keep a grip on the tightly woven grass.
“Yuki,” He said finally. “We lived a long time before we knew each other.”
Her hands did not pause. “You’ve never asked me about my past, husband.”
“And I don’t ask now. I must tell you something about my past, something that happened before I met you.”
“What can it matter, Noboru?”
Her calm, sure tone made him pause. But the memory of Hana’s crystal snowflake drove him forward. “It is important. Because…because…it’s about our children.”
“Noboru-“
“When I was young, the winter before I found you-“
“I don’t want to know!” The open plea in her face plucked at his heart, but he forged on. She had a right to know, no matter if she feared the past, or him.
“I went into the forest with my father’s friend…“
Yuki lay down her sewing and bent her head. Her long hair fell forward, hiding her face.
An iron hand squeezed his heart. But in a trembling voice he told her everything: Masuo, the snow witch, the charcoal-burner. When he was finished he closed his eyes and bowed his head, mingled fear and relief flowing through his veins, making his limbs light. But what would she think of him now?
Something cold and feathery touched the back of his hand. Startled, he opened his eyes.
The fire had gone out, but the room was suffused with a blue glow. It was cold, so cold his lips went numb. Snow was falling from the ceiling, melting into the ridges of his skin, covering the floorboards with fine white powder.
Yuki’s skin had gone white. Her lips were very red in the pale light. Noboru recognized the face of the snow witch, and an ugly sickness filled his stomach.
“I warned you!” But the witch’s voice brimmed with sorrow, not rage. A faint, unearthly echo doubled her anguish. “You were to tell no one. And yet…”
“Yuki?” He choked.
“I swore to kill all you loved. But your children are my children. How can I kill them?” She tore at her sleek hair. Noboru longed to go to her, but an old, familiar terror rooted him to the floor. With a sudden shriek she turned and rushed from the room. Noboru cried out wordlessly and staggered to his feet. The children!
She was inside their room when he reached her. It was snowing in here too, but the children slept as if a spell had been laid on them. White flakes landed on their round cheeks and vanished. The witch crossed the room and swept Hana into her arms. Nobotu clutched the door frame. It took all his strength merely to stand.
The witch turned on him, her eyes narrowed. “You broke your promise. Now I’ll break mine. I’ll leave you the boys, but I must take the girl. She’s like me. Someday she’ll cause you grief.”
She moved past him. Noboru reached out, but the chill flowing off her robes singed his fingers. He recoiled. “Yuki…stay!”
“Stay? I am a demon! I killed countless humans! I killed your friend…I have continued to kill since I came here, every winter! Yet you’d have me stay?”
When he didn’t answer, she turned away. He let her go.
Dimly he heard the front door of the house slide open. The noise cracked his horror. With an effort he heaved his body off the wall and stumbled after them. Noboru yanked open the door and plunged into the moonlit yard.  His wife and daughter had disappeared.
“Yuki?” Noboru’s voice wavered uncertainly in the night. “Hana?”
There was no answer.
The villagers arrived at Noboru’s house early the next morning, for the procession to the cemetery. They were shocked to find the boys still asleep, and the floor and furniture stained with water. Noboru sat between his sons’ sleeping mats, clutching a damp robe with some stitches only half-complete. When they asked about Yuki and his daughter, he muttered only one word, “Gone.”

The Red Knight

I, Sir Kay, son of Sir Ector and foster-brother to King Arthur, am a dying man. I stopped an arrow during yesterday’s battle and the surgeons made a mess of cutting it out of my shoulder. Gangrene has set in, filling my tent with an awful sweet stench, and I can feel the chill of death creeping through my body.

I have a few hours left, long enough for me to dictate the truth about the fall of Camelot, and my failure to understand what was happening until it was too late.

The monk who sits at the end of my bed scribbling down my words will stay until I am done. If he does not, if he attempts to tear the rings from my nerveless fingers and steal away into the night, then I have instructed my squire to cut his useless balls off. My squire is a good lad and eager to do his duty.

Did that get your attention, worm? Good. Keep writing.

#

My vision blurs, and I drift in and out of awareness. The pain of my dying is eased by opium, but the medicine induces waking dreams and hallucinations. Among the meaningless jumble of dragons and leaping fires and leering demonic faces, I glimpse the Red Knight and the Iron Tower.

The Red Knight is just as I remember; a giant figure in crimson armour perched upon a monstrous black steed. He turns his face towards me, but it is hidden behind a featureless steel mask. His helm is shaped like a cone and has no visor or eye-slits. Behind him looms his Iron Tower, a massive column of corroded red iron thrusting into the dark northern sky.

News of this ghoul first reached Camelot a year ago on Christmas Eve. I was half-dead from my labours to make the holiday a cheerful one, for Camelot had become a castle of shadows and ghosts, haunted by the memory of those knights who had died on the futile quest for the Holy Grail.

As Arthur’s steward, it was my task to hide the rot and restore some light and joy to the place. In practice this meant weeks of chivvying and screaming at servants, stocking the cellars with enough victuals to feed an army and decking the halls and corridors with acres of fresh tapestries and hangings.

The effort had left me even more pinched and irritable than usual. On the evening of the feast I sat in my usual place on Arthur’s right, scowling at every drop of wine spilled by the servants and every fudged note by the musicians playing in the galley above. My mood wasn’t helped by my worry for the king.

Arthur was dangerously ill. Besides himself, only I and his doctor knew it. The doctor, a clever Arab called Nasir, kept him going with regular doses of bark and mercury and God knows what else, but it was becoming difficult to hide his symptoms. At the feast, he sat braced in his chair, talking seldom and picking at his food.

The chair to his left was empty, though it had once contained Queen Guinevere. The empty chair was a constant reminder to Arthur of the humiliation she had inflicted on him by eloping with his supposed best friend, Sir Lancelot.

Lancelot and Guinevere. Treacherous scum. One of my regrets is that I never got to wring their selfish necks.

Guinevere’s was not the only empty seat. Of the one hundred and fifty places at the Round Table, a third were vacant and too many of the others filled by new recruits. Noisy, vain, empty-headed young knights who stuffed and laughed and drank themselves sick, all the time sneering and making jests about us older men.

My fragile mood was in no way improved when the double doors at the far end of the hall suddenly swung open. I rose indignantly from my chair, spluttering curses and bits of half-chewed pheasant.

“What in God’s name is this?” I shrieked, “I gave no permission for those doors to be opened!”

What came through the doors plunged me, and everyone else, into silence. The laughter and chatter died away, as did the music in the gallery. Camelot had witnessed many strange things, but none stranger or more horrible than this.

A man limped into the hall. He was tall and thin and dressed like a Fool in a suit of black and red motley, and his thin ash-blonde hair floated like mist about his oversized head. A length of fine silver thread was wrapped around his wrist. The other end was attached to the collar of a donkey.

Strapped to the donkey’s saddle was the naked remnant of a man. His arms and legs had been lopped off and their stumps roughly cauterised. Mercifully, he was dead.

A knight, I believe it was Sir Griflet, broke the silence. “Oh my God,” he croaked. “That’s Sir Meliot.”

Cries of bewilderment and anger broke out as more knights recognised the awful mutilated dead thing as their Round Table comrade. Sir Meliot had been Arthur’s Warden in the North, appointed to guard the border and enforce the king’s writ in that often wild and lawless country.

The Fool smiled crookedly, but said nothing. Enraged by his smug expression and the fate of poor Meliot, I hammered my staff of office on the flagstones and bellowed for silence. I was ignored and the uproar only died down when Arthur rose from his chair.

The force of the king’s presence rolled across the hall, and all eyes turned to look at him. He was still an impressive figure, tall and commanding in his royal robes with the red dragon emblazoned across his tunic, and he radiated calm dignity. Only I was close enough to him to see that his body trembled with the mere effort of standing upright.

“The Fool will explain,” he said, and it was a statement rather than a command.

The Fool smiled and gave an absurd bow, bending from the waist until his hair touched the floor, and then straightened up.

“Greetings, lord king,” he said in a high sing-song voice, “greetings from my master, who sends you this dead knight as a gift, a warning and a challenge.”

His words were too much for the warmer spirits in the hall, and there was a hiss of steel as swords were drawn.

“Enough of that,” I shouted, banging my staff again, “nobody sheds blood in Arthur’s hall, except me. “

“You spoke of a challenge,” said Arthur. His eyes were bright and his face pale but for two spots of colour in his cheeks, sure signs that the Pendragon’s temper was close to snapping.

“Indeed,” replied the Fool, “for my master has set up his own court in opposition to yours. Where you prize chivalry, he insists on decadence. In place of your noble ladies, he has stocked his court with common drabs. His knights are brute savages, criminals and broken men, and my master encourages them in every form of rapine and depravity. Thus he proves his superiority to you, King Arthur, for his subjects have the courage to do what they want, instead of what they are told.”

The atmosphere in the hall was now seething with tension and anger. Arthur himself was struggling to maintain his composure, and his hand was clenched around Excalibur’s jewelled hilt.

“Who is your master?” he demanded.

“He has no name, but is known as the Red Knight of the Iron Tower. I am commanded to say that he spits defiance at you. Like so.”

The Fool loudly worked up some phlegm in his throat and hawked a great gobbet onto the floor.

That did it. Sir Mordred, a fearsomely proud little runt and Arthur’s nephew, shoved back his chair and rushed at the Fool with his sword. Ignoring the king’s shouts, he hacked wildly at the defenceless man’s neck and managed to chop through an artery. A great spray of blood arced from the wound, like a crimson rainbow, and the Fool flopped to his knees.

More knights left their seats and ran to join in the kill. Their faces were twisted in feral hatred as they chopped and bludgeoned the Fool into pulp, howling like animals as they drove their swords into his flesh.

#

My throat is parched. Give me some more wine. No, you unfeasible clod, don’t write that down, just hand me the jug.

That’s better. The wine is laced with opium, and the creeping chill in my limbs has receded for a while. On with my tale.

#

The younger knights at court had never witnessed Arthur in his royal rage, for the long years of peace had mellowed him, but after the murder of the Fool they witnessed a demonstration that shook the walls of Camelot.

I had not seen the king in such a passion for many a year, and for a while I feared for his reason as well as his health. The death of Sir Meliot, the insult of the mysterious Red Knight’s challenge, the savage and dishonourable murder committed before his very eyes, all combined to make Arthur forget himself and briefly play the tyrant.

Those knights who had murdered the Fool, six in all, were arrested and thrown into the dungeons beneath the castle. At first the king promised to hang the lot of them and set their heads on spikes above the gate, but after a couple of days his better nature re-asserted itself and he commuted the death sentence to exile.

“But first, you will be stripped of your knighthoods,” Arthur raged, “and you will not leave Camelot as free men, but as penitents.”

He was as good as his word, and the culprits had to endure the ritual humiliation of having their spurs cut off and thrown into a pot of boiling soup before their fellow knights in the great hall.

I watched them leave, six disconsolate young men with their heads bowed as they trudged over the drawbridge. They were barefoot and dressed in white shifts, as befitted penitents, and each wore a crucifix about their necks. They were oath-bound to take the shortest and most direct route to the coast, and there spare no efforts to find a ship to take them out of the kingdom forever.

The morning after they left Camelot, Arthur summoned me for a private audience in his chamber. I found him wrapped up in furs against the winter cold and gloomily contemplating a map of the North laid out on his writing table. Nasir hovered nearby with a cup of some vile-smelling liquid in his hands.

“We are too soft, Kay,” he said without looking up as I entered. “Peace has made us complacent, and our young knights have grown up knowing nothing of the hardships of war and quest. That explains their lack of honour and restraint. They fight mock battles in the lists and prance about competing for ladies’ favours, and think they are men. They are not.”

“Maybe, but that is hardly their fault,” I replied, taking the cup from Nasir and passing it to Arthur. “There have been no wars since we won the last one over twenty years ago, and questing is out of fashion.”

Arthur tossed back his medicine and grimaced at the bitter taste. “There is a war now,” he said, wiping his mouth, “this upstart Red Knight must be dealt with. I will take our young knights north, to pull his Iron Tower down about his head.”

I looked at him in alarm. “Brother, let me be honest with you. You are not well enough to fight a campaign, or to even sit a horse. Let some veteran knight lead them.”

“No. I must do it. The younger men love me not, nor respect me. I must show them that I can still ride and fight, or risk losing my authority.”

“And when you fall in a dead faint from your saddle,” I said severely, “that will prove your authority, will it? Don’t be a fool.”

He smiled at my bluntness. “If I look like falling, I will rely on you to catch me. You are coming as well, and so is Sir Bedivere. I need a couple of experienced captains with me, of sufficiently vile temperament to keep the striplings in line. As two of the most horrible old bastards under my command, you and Bedivere are ideal.”

I was about to protest again, but he waved me into silence.

“I have another task for you first,” he said, “you will go into the forest, and speak to Merlyn. Ask him about the Red Knight.”

He waited patiently until I had finished cursing. “Merlyn is still valuable”, he reminded me. “He can work magic and see into the future.”

“He is a blind lunatic who breakfasts on his own dung!”

“Hold your nose, if he offends you so much. But you will go and consult him. I command it.”

#

The King had spoken, and I had no choice but to obey. I set out from Camelot that same day and rode west, towards a place that very few people knew about.

Nobody knew how old Merlyn was. His hair was white when Arthur first came to the throne, and over three decades later he was still with us. He was a central part of the myths and legends that shrouded Camelot, most of which he had invented himself, but in recent years he had gone utterly insane.

When it became clear that the old man’s madness could no longer be tolerated, for Arthur could not be seen to have a drooling, shitting, ranting geriatric for his chief advisor, he was quietly removed. Arthur told everyone that Merlin had fallen in love with a wicked enchantress, who tricked him and locked him in a magic cave. Incredibly, people believed the story. Arthur always could spin a lie.

The task of removing Merlyn had fallen to me, as did most of the dirty jobs, and myself and a few trusted servants bundled him away one night to a secluded monastery deep in the wild forest.

The monastery was well off the king’s highway, an ancient fortress-like place built into the rock of a narrow valley. I had cleared out the monks and replaced them with soldiers, for Merlyn needed to be guarded. Impossibly old, blind, raving and incontinent he might be, but he still possessed strange powers of prophecy and intuition that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

The door to the monastery’s squat tower opened at my knock, and I was admitted by the grave-faced captain of the guard.

“How is he?” I asked, dismounting and handing him my reins.

“Much the same, sir,” the captain sighed. “We still have to keep him chained up most of the time. He bites.”

I nodded and followed him into the cool darkness of the tower. We passed through a corridor and out into a wide courtyard. Here were the stables, living quarters and and a couple of soldiers nervously watching the man they were paid to guard.

Merlyn was tied to an iron stake via a length of steel chain attached to his ankle. His long lugubrious face was all pits and craters, with a thin loose-lipped mouth and two blind milk-white eyes either side of a hooked Roman nose. An ocean of straggling white hair and beard covered most of him, and he was making great play of squatting in the dirt and twisting his whiskers in knots.

Steeling myself against his dreadful stench, I carefully approached him. “Merlyn...” I began to speak, but the old man lifted his head and stared right at me with his blind eyes.

“Wait,” he whined, sniffing the air and making vague movements with his yellow claw-like hands. “I know you, I know you...ha, yes! You are Kay!”

“Sir Kay, son of Sir Ector,” he went on, scratching at a louse in his horrid beard, “I brought the infant Arthur, fresh from his mother’s teat, to your father’s castle. You were but a child yourself, Kay, but I made you swear an oath to be Arthur’s guardian and protector. Have you broken your oath?”

“Certainly not,” I replied indignantly, “I have stood by his side all my life.”

“Ah! But Arthur is sick. I have seen it in my dreams. He is eaten away from the inside by a vile disease. His life ebbs away, and you do nothing.”

“There is nothing I can do! I am no doctor, nor a magician. Do you expect me to reach inside him and drag the sickness out?”

Merlyn gave no answer but threw his head back and cackled. He slapped his hands together and rocked back and forth, singing “Oath-breaker!”

The old idiot was mocking me, something I could never abide, but I drew a deep breath and willed myself to be calm. “Merlyn,” I tried again, “Arthur has sent me here for a reason. He wants to me to ask you about the Red Knight.”

He stopped singing and clapping, and gaped vacantly in my direction. It seemed as though I had caught his attention, so I pressed on.

“A man recently came to Camelot, claiming that his master had taken over the North. His master has no name, apparently, but is known as the Red Knight of the Iron Tower. What do you know about him?”

Merlyn remained silent. For a moment I thought his wits had deserted him entirely, but then he buried his face in his hands and shuffled on his knees towards the stake. He threw his scrawny arms around it and began sobbing like a child.

“No, no, it cannot be,” I heard him whimper. “Mea patrie, mea patrie...loose in the world, now? Ah, God, he comes against us now, and we have no strength left to face him!”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “Who comes against us?”

But that was as much sense as I could get out of him. He cried and whined and pawed at the ground, throwing dirt over his hair and beard, and I turned away in disgust.

“Keep the old wretch alive, if you can,” I muttered to the captain of the guard as I stalked back to the gateway, “apparently he is valuable.”

#

Sir Bedivere was an old comrade of long standing, and one of the first knights to join the Round Table.  A slender beauty in his youth, he was now in his fifties and not so much a man as a foul-mouthed lump of scar tissue.

“Before you ask, the campaign is shaping up bloody badly,” he growled when I met him upon my return to Camelot. “Arthur’s refusing to take any veterans except you and me. So it will be the three of us and forty untested boys whose balls have just dropped, riding north to face this Red bastard and his hordes.”

I tried to reassure him. “You never know, he may not have a horde. He’s probably just some nasty local baron with ideas above his station.”

“How do you explain what happened to Meliot, then? He was one of the toughest knights I knew. Mark my words. We are heading into a sea of shit.”

I left him glooming and chewing his fingernails and went to find Arthur. The king looked worse than when I left him, paler and thinner, and my report of Merlyn’s words did nothing to lift his grim mood.

“Merlyn used to speak in riddles,” he said irritably, “now he just speaks nonsense. My apologies, brother, it was a waste of time sending you. We ride out tomorrow.”

And so we did, though Arthur had to be secretly strapped into his saddle. I acted as his squire and rode close behind him, anxiously watching for any signs of tiredness.

I shared Bedivere’s pessimism about the young knights, but they made a brave show at least, their armour polished bright and their lances decked with colourful pennants and ribbons. They were eager to prove themselves and thought that war was just like a tournament, only on a bigger scale and with richer rewards.

They quickly learned different. Within a few days of leaving Camelot we began to encounter signs that the Red Knight had been at work. At first we met straggling bands of refugees on the highway, broken and empty-eyed peasants, many of them bearing dreadful injuries. They called out in pathetic voices as we rode past, imploring us to help them, but we had no money or provisions to spare.

“Just like the old days,” remarked Bedivere when we stopped to rest our horses. He pointed north, where the sky was streaked with drifting columns of smoke. A few of the young knights stopped what they were doing and shaded their eyes to gaze at the smoke, their boyish faces full of consternation.

“At the first sign of trouble, these bloody children will either bolt or go berserk,” Bedivere snarled. “I tell you, we should have brought some proper soldiers.”

I snapped at him to stop croaking, for his endless pessimism did nothing to lift morale. Deep down I knew he was right, but Arthur was determined to continue and so we rode on, deeper into the lands that the Red Knight now claimed to rule.

The smoke, inevitably, came from burning towns and villages. We passed through several such ruined settlements, timber stockades smashed all to pieces and the people gruesomely massacred. I had seen it all before, when the Saxons had ravaged our coasts, but many of the ‘bloody children,’ as Bedivere called them, must have been horror-struck.

On the outskirts of one of the destroyed villages we found a survivor.  He had been dismembered, like Sir Meliot, though his tormentors had left him one arm. He was tied to a stake and his remaining hand pointed rigidly north.

“Follow,” he murmured, lifting his head to gaze blankly at us. “Follow.”

During roll-call the next morning I discovered that three of our knights had deserted, taking their horses and squires and stealing away during the night. Bedivere flew into a rage at the news and, between curses, did his bit for morale by threatening to snap the neck of the next man who even looked like running away.

The trail of burning villages led roughly north-west into a land ravaged and cursed, full of butchered people and charred dwellings. We witnessed endless atrocities: hanged knights on trees, spurs clinking as they waved gently in the wind, raped and slaughtered nuns, little children with their eyes plucked out and turned loose to wander on the roads.

At last, a week after leaving Camelot, we came within sight of the Iron Tower.

It was visible from several miles distance, a dark column jutting into the sky amid a gloomy landscape of low-lying fen and salt marsh. Why anyone would build a tower in such an inhospitable place was a mystery.  As we rode closer, it became clear that the thing was massive, at least twice as high as any keep I had ever seen.

My wonder increased, for the tower was a crudely-constructed heap of rusting iron, windowless and surely uninhabitable. A ramp on its southern side led up to a pair of closed iron doors, and beside the ramp was one final horror: a headless knight, dangling from a spindly tree by his heels with a round shield hanging beside him.

This was a clear enough challenge, so I cantered up to the shield and banged my armoured fist against it. The boom of metal on metal raised a great echo, and there was a scraping noise as the doors to the tower opened.

The Red Knight emerged, a demonic figure in crimson armour and mounted on a truly enormous black steed with eyes like flaming coals. His helm, an awful blank mask of red steel with no slits to breathe or see through, seemed to gaze down at us.

“Which of thee is King?” The voice was that of a man, high-pitched and clear, though it should have been muffled by the helm.

Arthur spurred forward. “I am,” he said, placing his hand on Excalibur. The Red Knight laughed, a harsh metallic sound, and urged his horse slowly down the ramp.

“Thou!” he shrieked, “thou chicken-hearted king, who makes eunuchs of men by binding them with laws! Hast thou come to take revenge on me?”

Arthur’s face was white, and my heart skipped a beat as I saw him sway in his saddle. “I have,” he said through gritted teeth, “for what you did to Sir Meliot, for attempting to take half my realm, for the slaughter and plunder you have inflicted on my subjects. For those crimes, I will bring you to justice.”

The Red Knight laughed again. “Then defend thyself!” he squealed, and drew his longsword, its hilt crusted with crimson stones, from the scabbard hanging at his hip.

Bedivere started forward, but I was ahead of him and put myself between Arthur and the Red Knight. “The King does not engage in single combat!” I cried. “A lesser man must stand in for him. I, Sir Kay, offer myself as his champion.”

This was so much nonsense, of course, but I knew that Arthur was in no condition to fight a duel. He knew it too, so despite his pride and anger he drew Excalibur and held it out to me, hilt-first.

I took the famous sword, which I had never presumed to touch before, and nodded gratefully at Arthur. Excalibur was heavy, but I felt no tingle of magic or singing of ethereal voices as I hefted the blade. It was a superb piece of workmanship with excellent balance, but nothing more than that.

“I give Sir Kay a true king’s sword to kill a false traitor,” declared Arthur. This little touch of drama impressed the watching knights, who might otherwise have thought him a coward for refusing the duel.

“Beware!” shouted Bedivere, and I wheeled my horse just in time to meet the charge of the Red Knight. His sword whistled over my head as I ducked and drove in my spurs, urging my horse to butt into the flank of his. His beast staggered, almost losing its footing in the wet mud, and I rose and slashed Excalibur at the Red Knight’s helm.

He parried my blow, somewhat awkwardly, and sparks flew as the blades scraped together. I struck again, beating a dent in his shoulder plate, and encouraging shouts and cheers broke out from the watching knights.

“That’s the way, Kay!” bawled Bedivere, “that’s your sort! Take the bastard apart, piece by piece!”

Emboldened, I hit him again, and excitement surged through me as I realised that the Red Knight was a dreadful swordsman. I was no great fighter myself, and distinctly average compared to the likes of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram, but I was at least competent. By contrast, my opponent handled his sword like a village watchman with a cudgel.

The Red Knight lurched drunkenly as I beat down his feeble guard and hammered at his head and shoulders, Excalibur ringing against his armour like a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil. He made no sound as I pummelled him, no grunts or cries of pain, but at last I struck him a terrific backhand blow that knocked him clean out of the saddle.

He landed face down in the mud and lay there weakly thrashing his limbs, like a trapped tortoise.

“I want him alive!” I heard Arthur shout above the triumphant shouts, and I turned my horse to see many of our knights eagerly dismounting and splashing towards the fallen man.

For a moment I thought they were going to help him up, but one look at their flushed faces told me otherwise. They wore the same expressions of unreasoning bloodlust and hatred I had seen on the faces of those who had murdered the Fool.

They descended on the defenceless knight like madmen, beating and hacking and stabbing at him with their swords and maces. One knelt in the mire and leaned on his helm, screaming “Drown! Drown, you bastard!” while others chopped and dragged his limbs from their sockets.

At that moment a horn sounded from inside the tower, a weird echoing drone, and the Red Knight’s followers boiled forth like a cloud of bees from a hive.

Savages, criminals and broken men the Fool had described them as, and so they appeared. Bearded, dirty, clad in rusting bits of armour and wielding makeshift weaponry, they charged wildly down the ramp with no semblance of discipline or order. Having done with the Red Knight, our knights joyfully sprang up to meet them.

I don’t know how our young men might have fared against a more formidable enemy, but against this ill-armed rabble they were in their element. They cut them to bits, fighting like animals in the grip of a berserk fury. I tried to reach Arthur, who was watching the butchery with absolute disbelief on his wan face, but then screams broke out behind me.

They were the screams of women. Arthur spoke urgently to Bedivere, who galloped through the press and grasped hold of my reins.

“Some of our boys have got inside the tower!” he roared, “Arthur wants us to stop the swine before they rape and murder everything in sight!”

I nodded and dragged my horse about. We forced a path through the killing, battering aside or riding down anyone who got in our way, friend or foe, and urged our horses up the ramp and into the tower.

Inside was a large round chamber with a high domed ceiling and several doors leading off to spiral staircases. Shouts and screams filtered through the doorways, suggesting that all Hell was being unleashed on the upper floors.

Bedivere lumbered off towards the nearest doorway to his right, spear in hand, so I chose one at random on the left. My joints creaked as I struggled up the steps, and I reflected that I was getting a little old to be playing the heroic rescuer. Not that I had ever been much of one, really: that sort of thing was Lancelot’s speciality. Mine was kitchens.

The stairs wound past another dome-ceilinged chamber, smaller than the one below. It was furnished with benches and stools, all overturned or kicked aside, and the floor was strewn with smashed crockery and spilled wines. Two dead men also lay on the floor, their skulls smashed like eggshells. In the middle of the room one of Arthur’s knights was raping a woman.

I killed the rapist, driving Excalibur into his back, but could do nothing to halt the atrocities being committed elsewhere. All was blood and screams and men, belted knights sworn to honour and mercy, behaving like brute beasts.

After the slaughter and rapine was over and the young knights had come to their senses, Arthur ordered them all to gather before the tower. There he harangued them, in a final display of royal contempt and anger. His words were bitter.

"You are not mine! I deny you! Honour, pride, mercy, obedience, humility, all the virtues of knighthood, you understand them not! I shall turn you loose, to practise your abominations elsewhere. Your ties of loyalty to me are severed. Get you gone!"

Some of the boys wept and pleaded with Arthur for forgiveness, going down on their knees in the mire and holding out their hands to him, like babes reaching for their mother. Others, their swords still bloody, stood unrepentant and looked at the king with hard eyes. Arthur turned his back on those who begged for his mercy, so they could not see the tears plodding down his sallow cheeks.

In the end, they all rode away and scattered to the four winds, leaving only Bedivere,  Nasir and myself with the king.

I slept ill that night. In my dreams I saw the Iron Tower grow in size until it dominated the lands and oceans of the earth and cast a monstrous shadow across the stars. My mind's eye seemed to rove through the chambers inside and I saw the slaughtered men and violated women rise as one, their bodies whole and their faces alight with joy.

Then the tower was consumed by a sudden fire, but instead of fleeing the people danced and sang among the flames, laughing with uncontrolled glee as they were consumed. The tower melted and sank into a pile of ashes until nothing remained but the figure of the Red Knight. He, like his followers, was whole again, and he pointed his sword at me and laughed.

I woke with a start and staggered, barefoot and still in my nightshirt, out of my tent. It was early morning and the feeble winter sun had yet to disperse all of the freezing mists that rolled across the marshes, but there was enough light to see by.

Shading my eyes, I looked north to where the Iron Tower should have stood. It was gone.

#

The Red Knight had fooled us, though how was beyond our understanding. Baffled and robbed of any sense of victory, our little group started the long journey south.

“When we return to Camelot, I shall root out the taint of corruption,” vowed Arthur, “vainglory, selfishness and evil shall be purged, even if it means I have to stock the place with virginal monks.”

Deep down, I think the king knew that he would never see Camelot again. We had only ridden a few miles before he doubled over in the saddle and began coughing up blood. Bedivere and I helped him off his horse – I was amazed by how light and frail he was - and hurriedly set up his tent.

Nasir attended to the king while we attempted to set up a fire on the sodden ground. After a while I left Bedivere grumbling and cursing at the damp tinderbox and went to see my brother.

Arthur lay asleep on the ground, still in his armour and with his head resting on his saddle. His face was yellow with dark smudges under the eyes and his breathing was shallow. Nasir was bent over him, dabbing at his lips with a tissue, and at sight of me he stood up and bowed.

“Lord,” he said in his deep voice. He was always correct and formal, this Arab, a lean handsome man in late middle age. Unable to bear the cold weather of our island, so unlike the warmer climes of his homeland, he wore a fur-lined cloak over loose robes. Other than noting he was steady and reliable and more skilled than most of our native doctors, I rarely took much notice of him.

“How is he?” I whispered, nodding at the king.

“As well as can be expected, lord,” he replied, and I read the hidden meaning in his intelligent brown eyes. I held their gaze, and he shook his head slightly.

His case of instruments and medicines was laid out on the ground beside him. I knew little of the doctor’s art, but was aware that the potions he mixed could kill as well as heal.

“His Majesty will not recover, lord,” Nasir’s quiet voice broke in on my thoughts. “He suffers from a malady known as The Crab in my own land. It devours a man from the inside. There is no cure.”

No cure. Merlyn’s words came back to me. I made you swear to be Arthur’s guardian and protector. Have you broken your oath?

I could at least protect him from any further agony. “There must be no pain,” I hissed, and Nasir bowed as I hurried out.

For the next hour or so I snarled and bickered at Bedivere as we struggled to light a fire, and then Nasir emerged to inform us that Arthur was dead.

At first Bedivere refused to believe it and went raging into the tent, but when he touched the king’s cold face his rage dissolved into tears and he collapsed, weeping like a babe.

I sat quietly and watched the sun rise, while Nasir stood respectfully behind me. Through the blur of my own tears I saw a horseman in the distance, a knight in crimson armour mounted on a black steed. He raised his sword in triumph, and from afar I heard the sound of his gloating laughter.

#

We buried Arthur there in the marshes, having first sworn an oath not to tell of his death. “What became of him should always remain a mystery,” I said, “so people might hope that, one day, he will return.”

Bedivere agreed, and after we had buried Arthur he took Excalibur and threw it into a deep pool. The sword flashed as it fell, like a falling star, and vanished with a splash into the murky waters.

After that we cut Nasir’s throat and dumped his body in the marsh. The man was just a servant, and since he was not bound by the laws of knighthood we could not trust him to keep Arthur’s death secret.

We two knights returned south to find Camelot deserted and blackened by fire. In the ruins of the stables we found a dying page-boy, who told us that Mordred and the rest of the exiles had returned to Britain with an army of foreign mercenaries.

They had stormed Camelot, though not without suffering huge casualties, and then fallen to fighting among themselves. The halls and corridors of Arthur’s splendid castle had run with blood. Before he breathed his last, the page said that the survivors had departed to raise new armies.

Arthur's realm was now torn apart as lesser men fought each other for the vacant throne. The Saxons returned to raid our undefended coasts, as did other heathen pirates, and it was as though the long peace had never existed.
Bedivere, his fierce spirit crushed by Arthur’s death, retired to live as a hermit in a lonely chapel by the sea. Lacking the decency to do anything half so virtuous, I chose to remain a Knight of the Round Table. There are very few of us now, foolish old men in rusting armour who refuse to forget the heady days of Camelot.

I joined the faction of Duke Constantine of Cornwall, since he had been Arthur's friend and seemed the most able of the squabbling pretenders. But really he is a grasping and small-minded man, full of petty cruelties, and I tarnished my honour by serving him.

My mind darkens, and I lose track of the wars that rage up and down the land. I did have the satisfaction of seeing Mordred die, his brains trampled out by his own horse during a skirmish. Two days later, the remnant of his army ambushed Constantine's troops at a river crossing, and there I took the fatal arrow in my shoulder.

#

The monk is impatient. I see him fidgeting in his seat, cracking his knuckles as he waits for me to die. He is desperately wondering how much longer I can last.

Not long. My body is cold as a stone, and the fingers of death creep about my throat. There is no pain. 

To finish. I now know what Merlyn meant. "Mie Patrie, mie patrie", he whined in terror when I told him of the Red Knight. My father, my father. I thought he merely raved, but I had forgotten who his father was. The Devil.

The Red Knight was Lucifer himself, and the people of his Iron Tower were fiends from Hell. He came to mock Camelot, to bring it down as punishment for Arthur’s dream of creating a perfect kingdom on earth. And he succeeded.

I hear his laughter. He shall not have my soul. He shall no.

The Shadow Opal

Voices echoed in the hallway. Rory ducked behind an old cherry wardrobe and crouched in the darkness, slipping his hand into his robber’s pouch to quiet the bright clink of silver. The glow of candlelight grew, and through the chink in the door, he could see two maids, their heads together. The light and their low-pitched voices faded as they passed the door and disappeared around a corner. Rory straightened and allowed himself to breathe deeper. The family hadn’t returned yet.

He crept to the door, his padded shoes making soft chuff sounds on the wood floor. They had been Bridgette’s idea--shoes that wouldn’t echo but had enough sole to protect his feet. Stealth was a thief’s greatest asset, and Rory had cause to silently praise her cleverness several times a night.

Rory pulled the door open and edged into the hall. Faintly, he could hear the maids in the master suite. They had closed the door, but he knew what they were up to. Same as he was, in a way--lowly folk messing in the gentry’s things. In the maids’ case, they played in the mistress’s wardrobe as soon as the housekeeper was asleep. The difference was that they would put the things away good as new in an hour. Rory would not.

The maids would get a fright in a few minutes when they rummaged in the lady’s jewelry cabinet and discovered that not everything was there. Rory wondered what they would do: start an uproar now, or hightail it back to bed and hope no one looked at them when the lady started shrieking in the morning? Probably the latter. Not even the trauma of a robbery would distract the housekeeper from punishing them in the first case.

Rory started down the hall toward the attic stairs he’d gotten in from. Tonight’s round was nearly finished--in fact, he decided this would be his last house. He liked to clear off a couple hours before the rich folk started filtering home, while the city guards were still in stupor from the midnight lull.

The attic door creaked as he pulled it open. He slipped through it and made for the window without bothering to pull it closed behind him. The night breeze greeted him as he pushed the window open and clambered out onto the roof. The rain had stopped, but the tiles shone slick in the lamplight filtering up from the street below.

The Guard was on patrol. Rory picked them out as if it were pure daylight. One stood on the corner, hovering just out of the light. Rory could see him by the nervous shuffling movement and maroon tinge in the darkness there. Another crouched in a doorway across the street, obviously not realizing the nearby street lantern reflected off the brass ornaments on his cap.

Maroon and gold. Rory supposed they’d picked the uniform colors to create an imposing presence, but the knock-on effect was that any member of the city’s underbelly could spot the buggers easily. Rory was quite proud of the nickname he’d thought up for them: Roonies. It had caught on among his friends, and now everyone on the south side of town used the name.

The top of the city spread before Rory, blanketed in mist, a network of chimneys and roof ridges, gargoyles and puffs of smoke. Most of the rooftops in this part of the city were connected, or only a step away from each other--a convenient road for thieves. All Rory had to do was keep out of sight on a roof until he reached an alley that the patrols didn’t pay much attention to.

Up here, the houses all looked the same. No matter how ornate their fronts, to Rory they were all tiled slopes and chimneys in the darkness. Not even the loot was different: a collection of gold and silver, jewels and ivory.

Rory crouched at the edge of a roof and peered into the alley below. A pair of reflective eyes glinted from a gutter, and a rat scampered behind the woodpile that leaned against the wall beneath Rory. A cat yowled from the street side of the alley, but otherwise the darkness was still.

Rory swung over the eaves and onto the woodpile. It shifted underneath his feet as he clambered down, the logs clinking woodenly. One rolled off the top as he jumped to the ground. He caught it and set it down at the base of the pile before setting off down the alley.

Now that he was on the ground, he became aware of the gnawing feeling in his stomach. Bridgette would be cooking up a meal of whatever she’d managed to buy cheaply in the market. He hoped it wasn’t cabbage again.

Turning down Tayrun alley, he quickened his pace to a trot. The alley served as a major conduit between the high class, middle class, and low class districts. It was a wonder the Roonies hadn’t pegged it for watching yet, but then they were never quite attuned to the true workings of the city’s ne’er-do-wells.

The way ahead grew darker as it progressed into the dodgier side of town. There were no streetlamps nearby to bleed into the alley, and the smoke from hearth fires was fouler, and hung thick in the mist. Rory didn’t slow his pace--he knew the alley as well as he knew his own home.

His foot encountered something large and soft, and he tripped. He threw his hands out to break his fall, and then gasped as pain lanced into his right palm. Warm, sticky blood flowed freely down his hand. He got to his knees and felt around on the ground for the object. Holding it up, he squinted at it. It glinted in the darkness--a knife.

He turned and bent over the thing he’d tripped on, and a choked gurgle rose in his throat. A girl lay sprawled across the alley, her dress ripped and splotched with blood that looked inky in the low light. The knife fell out of Rory’s nerveless grasp. He sprang to his feet and ran, clutching his throbbing hand to his chest.

His stomach churned, and bile rose into the back of his mouth as he hurtled down the narrow alley. He’d just seen somebody dead. He was only a thief; he’d never seen murder before.

The alley opened into a wide street in the low-class ale district. Rory burst out of it, straight into a patrol of three Roonies. They took one look at the state of him, blood from his hand blooming scarlet on his shirt, and grabbed him.

“I found . . . back there . . . dead,” Rory said. The fear clamping his chest made it impossible to catch his breath.

“What in the name of--“ one of the guards breathed. He beckoned to one of his companions. “Connor, go have a look.”

The guard named Connor ran into the alley. He returned a few minutes later, his face a pasty green, holding the knife gingerly between thumb and forefinger. “Take him in,” he said.

Rory threw up.

#

Huddled in the back corner of his cold stone cell, Rory contemplated his fate. The guards had paid him no attention since hauling him to the gaol and throwing him inside. They’d performed a cursory search on him and taken his loot, except for the few pieces he’d managed to hide in the hems and seams of his clothing. There was a night’s work gone to waste, and he still wasn’t sure what they were going to do with him. He couldn’t shake the chills that racked him. They thought he’d killed her.

Rory looked up as his cell door swung open. The three guards he’d run into swaggered into the cell.

“You weren’t content to be a filthy thief.”

“I didn’t kill--”

“Shut up, you,” the guard said. “Connor, Michael--hold him.”

The two guards grabbed Rory and pinned his arms behind his back. The first guard sank his fist in Rory’s stomach. Rory doubled over, retching and gasping for breath, a fiery ache replacing his dull nausea.

“I . . . didn’t,” he wheezed. A blow hit him on the back, and the guards let him fall forward. He lay curled on the floor. The newly crusted scab on his hand tore free, and blood seeped over Rory’s palm and onto the flagstones.

One of the guards wiggled his boot in front of Rory’s eyes and then pulled his foot back. Rory closed his eyes and turned his face into the stone floor, waiting for the pain to blossom in his head.

“Stop,” said a voice from the cell door.

Rory turned his head enough to catch a glimpse of the guard putting his foot down.

“Out.”

One of the guards stopped to spit on Rory before disappearing through the door. Rory rolled over gingerly and found a new guard standing over him. The guard hauled him to his feet and dumped him on the wooden bench in the corner.

“I swear, I didn’t--” Rory started.

“I know you didn’t kill that girl,” the guard said. “There’s been another one since you’ve been in here. Same type of knife, same wounds, same symbols carved into the corpse’s skin--”

Symbols? Rory’s stomach churned again. “Where did it happen?”

“At the palace gala.”

A thrill of fear rippled through Rory. What sort of person would strike such a prominent event? Even thieves knew to stay away from anything high profile.

“What happens to me now?” Rory asked.

“I’m letting you go,” the guard said. “On one condition.”

Rory narrowed his eyes. Charity was not something he expected from a Roonie. “What’s that?”

“You become my informant on anything that might be connected to these murders. I’ve been tracking this killer from city to city, and I think I’ve almost got him.”

Rory closed his eyes and looked away. Informants were considered lower than dirt. The life of a thief was nothing easy, but at least he and Bridgette could walk freely among the South Siders. Becoming an informant could ruin that.

“We’ll forget the thievery charges,” the Roonie added. “You can walk away and never come back, as long as you tell me anything you find out.”

Rory considered the proposal. Agreeing could mean the difference between going home and spending years in this gaol. He supposed he wouldn’t have to rat out his friends. He wasn’t above thievery as a way of life, but murder was one thing he’d be willing to see end in a hanging.

“Right then,” Rory said. “I accept.”

“Good.” The Roonie held out his hand for Rory to shake. “My name is Darren. You can find me here any time, or at least talk to someone who’ll know where I am.”

Darren helped Rory up and led him out of the cell. Rory followed him down the long hall, past dozens of narrow cells, some with a lone figure huddled in a corner, some with as many as four men crowded inside. Rory caught a glimpse of an old woman in one before Darren ushered him to the front door.

“Now get going,” Darren growled.

Rory didn’t need to be told twice. He ducked out the door and headed for home.

#

Pinks colored the eastern sky by the time Rory finally opened the door of the rickety building he lived in. The stairs creaked and groaned their protest as he climbed to the landing, jumping over the missing step at the top. His and Bridgette’s room was at the end of the hall.

The door flew open before he reached for the latch. Bridgette stood in the doorway, her arms on her hips. Her brown hair, usually neat, was flyaway and falling out of its bun.

“You’re hurt!” She snatched for his right wrist and turned his palm upward. “Get inside,” she said, pulling him into the room. She steered him into a chair at their small, worn table, and clattered around until she found the kettle.

“What happened?” she asked. She set water heating on the tiny potbelly stove.

Rory recounted the night’s events as she tended his wound. She frowned when he reached the part where he agreed to help Darren.

“An informant? That’s dangerous.”

“I hardly had a choice,” Rory said. He winced as Bridgette wiped the grime and crusted blood from his wound.

“I know that. But haven’t you heard how people are talking about this already? Everyone from Mad Engle to the buyers is edgy.”

“No, I hadn’t heard anything. What are they saying?” Rory said. It was odd for the city’s criminals to be so unsettled by criminal activity, even something as severe as a serial murderer. Especially not this soon.

“The hedge witches and wizards said they think magic is involved. Some people are starting to notice a few faces that aren’t around our streets anymore--of course it’s too early to know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The Roonies hardly care if one of us gets offed.”

Bridgette shook out a clean white handkerchief--no doubt part of her night’s haul--and used it to wrap Rory’s wound. When she’d finished, he drew his hand away and rubbed at it absently.

“If it’s that bad, then we should both stay in tomorrow,” he said.

Bridgette looked up sharply. “No, we can’t do that. Not after they took what you got tonight. I’ll do some pick pocketing in the market tomorrow. It should make up the difference.”

Rory pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Pick pocketing was the most dangerous type of work for a thief--even in a crowded market, it was easy to be spotted by a Roonie or make a mistake and cause a ruckus. Nevertheless, he knew arguing with Bridgette would be useless.

He retrieved the few items the Roonies hadn’t taken and went to the cupboard where they kept most of the valuable loot. He deposited a few coins, a couple of rings he now had a feeling were fake, and a stark gold chain with a diamond pendant he thought might be quite valuable.

He cast a look over his shoulder at Bridgette and crowded closer to the cupboard to block her view. She was busy at the stove cooking what smelled like porridge.

Rory rooted in the pile of valuables and withdrew a ring. It was set with a black opal--not very large, but one that shone with a fire Rory had never seen the like of. It was going to be his present to Bridgette. Even if she couldn’t wear it in public, she would be able to have something fine and beautiful for herself.

He held the ring up and twisted it in the weak light filtering past his shoulders. The stone seemed brighter than he remembered, and he got the strange feeling that something lurked in the depths of its blue and purple veins of fire. He rubbed his thumb over the stone to polish it. It was warm.

“Food,” Bridgette said.

Rory dropped the ring into his pocket, shut the cupboard, and joined Bridgette at the table.

#

In a house on the other side of the low-class district, a Power stirred. It pulsed with anger and impatience as it watched its earthly servant pace the floor of the small, dingy room.

“They’re onto us,” the servant said. He dropped his voice to a mutter. “We should lay off and move somewhere else again.”

The Power vibrated, disapproving. I am almost free, it hissed in the servant’s mind. One more victim and I will no longer hide in this box. I will conquer this city in one blow, and you will no longer worry of imprisonment.

The servant sat on the lone stool in the room and cradled his head in his hands. “The mage followed us from Berinum,” the servant said. “He’s looking for us--one mistake and we’ll be good as charred roast.”

There will be no mistakes.

“Almost was, last night,” the servant said. He scuffed the floor with his foot, and a cloud of dust rose to join the motes swirling in a shaft of sunlight. “We were almost discovered. If those guards had come down the alley a few minutes sooner . . . The thief nearly ran over us, anyway.”

Something in the servant’s voice made the Power suspicious. There was no mistake! I concealed you, didn’t I? Suspicions were cast away from us--they caught the thief.

“The palace was dangerous. Two in one night was risky.”

The sooner we are finished, the better. Besides, it taught them our power.

“It was still--”

Enough! I tire of your whingeing. Just one more. The ritual--tonight. I will be free . . .

#

Rory woke near evening from an unsettled, feverish sleep. He could tell through the hole in the eaves that the sun was fading. They would light the lanterns in an hour or so, and Bridgette should be home soon after that. She never stayed out late when she pick pocketed.

Rory shuffled about the room. He wasn’t used to staying inside during the night. He wanted to be out prowling the rooftops. But injured like it was, his hand would be useless for climbing. The risk was too much, and Bridgette had commanded him to stay home until it healed.

He worried about how long it would take him to recover. They still had the cupboard stash, and the linens and kerchiefs Bridgette had taken. She would garner some money from today, no doubt. But after the stash and linens were fenced and the money spent on food, what would happen? Bridgette couldn’t support both of them.

A couple of hours passed. Rory knew the night mist would be descending on the city, and the rats beginning to scurry through gutters. His anxiety grew as each minute slid by.

He sat down on his cot, stood up, paced the room, sat back down. He repeated the pattern. Another hour passed, and a low panic simmered in his stomach as his mind ran through all the things that could have happened to Bridgette. She could have been stopped by the Roonies, could have fallen into the river, been in a cart accident . . . He shivered and shoved his hands into his pockets. His fingers brushed over the warm stone of the ring.

Rory’s whole body seized, and he felt rooted to the floor. He couldn’t move--his fingers were glued to the ring. The room around him grew dim, hazy and indistinct, as if his sight were failing. Then another image overlaid what he knew he was actually seeing. The two images conflicted, made him feel sick and disoriented, and then his small home was gone, and he was standing in an empty, unfamiliar room. Dust lay thick over the floor, except where it had been scuffed by someone else. The ceiling was pitched, and half of the room was inaccessible where the roof had caved in.

The door opened, and a man appeared with a large bundle of cloth. He dragged the bundle into the middle of the room and unwrapped it.

Bridgette. Rory’s heart clenched, and he fought to get out of the vision and run to her. She was still alive. He saw her chest rising and falling under the shroudlike fabric.

The vision ended. Rory stood in his own room once again, shaking. The opal blazed white-hot against his fingers, and he yanked his hand out of his pocket and sucked at them. He was surprised to find they weren’t burned.

Rory didn’t try to think about what he’d seen, didn’t try to understand how he’d seen it. He dashed out the door and flew down the stairs, nearly tripping over rubble at the bottom. He ran through the streets, paying no mind to the curious stares of the vagrants and street-dwellers.

He crashed into the gate of the gaol and shook it. The chains holding it shut clanged and jingled. A Roonie poked his head out of the gaol door.

“What?” the Roonie called.

“I need to talk to Darren,” Rory shouted. “It’s important!”

“He’s out on his beat,” the Roonie said.

“Where?”

“Nah, nobody knows where he patrols.”

“Gods damn it,” Rory muttered. He shoved the gate once more and turned away.

“What’s this about?” the Roonie yelled.

Rory paid him no heed. He shoved his hand into its pocket and grasped the ring. He felt a strange sensation--pressure between his shoulder blades, as if someone were gently but insistently pushing him forward. He took a step in the direction, and then another. Then he ran.

He dashed down streets, skidding to a stop and then careening down others whenever the pull dictated. Whatever it was, it led him deeper into the heart of the criminals’ district. The streets were even darker here, the crumbling faces of buildings black with mold and the tar that held them together. Rory could see figures in the shadows, watching him, calculating.

The pressure grew stronger as Rory ran onward. It yanked him onto a side street, and Rory saw it: an old house with a caved-in roof, its whitewash long turned brown with age and seepage. The pull followed him through its front door and up the stairs, swung him around a corner and up another flight of stairs. He burst through the door at the top and into the room from his vision.

Bridgette lay spread-eagle on the floor, her hair pooled about her face. A chalk circle had been drawn around her, and a thin, scrawny man knelt, drawing runes around the outside of it. He looked up.

Rory tackled him and drove a punch into his face, and then one into his stomach. The man croaked and doubled over, clutching his nose. Rory aimed a kick at him that sent him sprawling into a corner, and the man curled into a ball and whimpered.

Something moved on the other side of the room. Rory spun to face it.

A small, darkly ornate box sat, its lid tipped back on its hinges, on the only table in the room. Shadow and darkness boiled out if it and formed an indistinct, black shape, too large to have fit in the box. The dark mass trailed ribbons of mist along the floor as it advanced. Underneath it, the wood rotted and shriveled.

You shall not interfere! the thing roared. Its voice seemed to bypass Rory’s ears and go straight to his mind. He clutched at his head as it screeched with the sound of metal on slate and boomed with the deep intensity of distant thunder.

The scrawny man grabbed Rory from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. The man’s grip was tight, belied by his thin arms. Rory struggled for a moment, and then the shadow figure pointed a finger at him.

The servant drew away. Pain and fire raced through Rory’s veins. His muscles seemed to all clench at once, and he ground his teeth, unable to scream, unable to get away from the pain. He slid to his knees, his back arched, his hands balled into fists, fingernails cutting into his palms.

The shadow raised its hand. The pain disappeared as quickly as it had come. Rory drew back, and the shadow came after. He scrambled now, and tripped over one of Bridgette’s outstretched legs. He fell backward, and the shadow bent over him, exuding a sense of satisfaction. It reached for him--it was going to kill him. Rory threw up his hands to fend it away.

The shadow recoiled. Rory hadn’t realized he’d slipped the ring onto his finger, but there it was on his left hand, blazing blue and purple in the darkness. The shadow fixed its attention on it. Its fear was palpable.

Rory got to his feet. The shadow drew away from him. He held out the fist with the ring on it. The shadow swayed from side to side like an uncertain snake.

What is it? it wailed. I fear it, yet know not what it is!

Rory lunged. The shadow threw its hands up, and he slammed into an invisible wall. He leaned into it, both hands holding the ring out in front of himself. He could feel the force of the shadow’s will feeding the barrier. Inch by inch, he the wall gave way before him. With a yell, he shoved against it once more and broke free. The shadow huddled in a corner--it had nowhere to run. Rory touched it with the ring.

A high, eldritch wail filled the room as the shadow shrank to a point in front of Rory. There was an instant of silence, and then a rush of air as it exploded in a blast of white flame. Rory and the shadow’s servant were thrown to opposite ends of the room. Rory sat up, rubbing his head. The other man lay slumped against the wall.

There was a clatter on the stairs, and Darren burst through the door. His gaze darted from Rory and the ring to the burn mark on the wood floor, to Bridgette, and to the man in the corner of the room, who moaned and stirred.

Darren crossed the room and touched the man, who went limp again. Then he knelt next to Bridgette and touched her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open.

“What--?” she began.

“You’re okay. Your husband caught the killer,” Darren said. He helped Bridgette sit up. Coming to himself, Rory scrambled across the floor and knelt beside her. Taking her warm hand in his, he thanked the Gods she was okay.

“How did you do it?” Darren asked. A slight frown creased his forehead. “I’ve been chasing that thing for years, but I’ve never even managed to find its hiding place.”

“It was this.” Rory pulled the ring off his finger and gave it to him. Darren’s forehead smoothed as he turned it over in his fingers and watched the play of light on the stone.

“No wonder. That’s a Shadow Opal,” Darren said, handing it back. “Very rare, and very powerful. They were crafted as protection.” He cast a glance at the charred spot of floor.

“What was that thing?” Rory asked.

Darren ran his fingers through his hair. “Some form of ancient spirit gone sour. One can never tell where they came from originally.”

Rory shook his head, not even pretending to understand. “How did you find us?”

Darren barked out a laugh. “I could have seen the magic you both were spewing from across the city, let alone from where I was across the district.”

Rory helped Bridgette to her feet while Darren went over to scuff the burn mark with the toe of his boot.

“What happened to it? Can it come back?” Bridgette asked. Her voice shook a little, but she seemed otherwise fine.

Darren shook his head. “It’s blasted it for good. And we’ve also got its mortal servant to throw in the gaol, all thanks to your husband. Oh, that reminds me.” Darren reached into his cloak and pulled out a large pouch. It clinked with the unmistakable sound of money. He handed it to Rory. “There was a bounty posted,” Darren said. “That’s yours.”

Rory looked inside, and his mouth fell open in shock. It was gold--all of it. More money than he’d ever seen in his life, or imagined was even possible for him to see. He passed the sack to Bridgette, who gasped as she investigated the contents. She clutched the pouch to her chest, her eyes brimming.

“Thank you,” she said.

Rory looked down at the ring lying in the palm of his hand and turned to Bridgette. “I meant to give this to you before. Here it is now.”

Bridgette slipped it onto her finger. The opal blazed with light, and then grew quiet, looking normal against Bridgette’s tanned skin.