Deep Water (42 page)

“As far as we know, they don’t suck blood.” As they realized what he meant, they stood still and silence fell. “There are
ghosts, raised by an enchanter. They do have bodily strength. They cannot be killed again.”

Murmurs rose from both the men and from Sorn’s household. One girl was giggling wildly, another gasping with fright and looking
around as though expecting the ghosts to jump on them immediately.

“
But
 . . .” Leof shouted, and they quieted. “But, the spell is of limited time. In Carlion, they faded as the sun came up. They
have no more strength than they had when they were alive. Although they cannot be killed, they can be stopped. They cannot
enter a barred door or a shuttered window, anymore than a man can.” He held out his hand and Hodge put the halberd into it.
He brought it round in a wide, hissing swipe and smacked the pole into his other hand. All eyes followed its sweep. “If you
cut off their arms, they will do no more damage.”

A few men in the ranks began to smile. Leof nodded to them.

“Yes. That is why we have been practicing with battleaxes and halberds these last days. That is why you will all learn to
use boar spear, because if you impale one of these ghosts on one, he will be easy prey for the man with the battleaxe. Do
you understand?”

“Aye, my lord,” a few enthusiastic ones shouted.

“Do
all
of you understand?” Leof called.

“
Aye,
my lord,” they shouted back.

He nodded to them and smiled again. “They are an unusual enemy, my friends. But they are
not
unstoppable. So far they have taken on unarmed townsfolk, who have never before even
seen
an enemy. I think they will get a surprise when they come up against
us.
”

He tossed the halberd in the air so that it gleamed in the sun and caught it again with a flourish and they cheered. Then
he turned to the household and bowed to Sorn. “My lady, you and your people should be in no fear. Sendat is well protected
and well armed against this enemy. You are in no danger.”

She smiled at the halberd in his hand with real humor. “So I see, my lord.”

The cook laughed at that and, when Sorn smiled in response, the others laughed, too. Sorn and Leof bowed to each other and
she went back in to the hall, calm as ever. Leof watched her go with a half-smile on his face. She made everything so easy.

Hodge dismissed the men and Leof went down to the town to make the same speech, with a few small variations, to the townsfolk.
To them he emphasized the fact that barred doors and good shutters would keep out the ghosts, and that the fort was being
rebuilt so that, in an emergency, it would safely hold all the people from the town.

“Not that we’ll need that,” he said cheerily. “My men are training now to make sure that,
if
these ghosts turn up anywhere near here, they’ll have their arms and legs cut off and be squirming on the grass like fat
white worms before they know what’s hit them!”

They laughed a little, but were not so easily reassured as the soldiers had been. Leof sobered.

“Remember, my friends, these ghosts have not been seen again since Carlion. It may be that this was a spell which could only
be used there.”

“What about Spritford?” someone at the back yelled.

“You, come forward,” Leof said. He thought quickly as the older woman struggled toward the bench on which he stood. If there
had been another incident, it would be best if news didn’t get out about it now. He leapt down from the bench and waited for
her to reach him.

The woman was middle-aged and truculent, in no mind to take orders from a young man, even a warlord’s officer.

“Spritford?” Leof said quietly. “When was that?”

“Last autumn,” she said. “My sister’s man was killed there, and she came to live with me.”

“So,” he said, raising his voice, “nothing has happened since Carlion?”

She shook her head, and the people around her relaxed.

“Wait here for a moment,” he said to the woman and climbed back on the bench. “My friends, you know the truth now. Go home
and prepare, as we have been preparing for you. Remember that your warlord ordered you to secure your homes many months ago,
so that no matter what enemy faced us, you would be safe. Remember that he lent you his own carpenters and smiths to help
fortify your homes.”

“That’s true,” he heard someone mutter. “We’re in good shape.”

“Go home and give thanks to the gods for our safety and pray to them for the warlord’s well-being.”

They drifted away, some to their houses but more to the road that led outside town to the black rock altar near the stream.
The woman waited stolidly.

“Can you bring your sister to the fort?” Leof asked. She nodded and turned away.

Leof wondered if he should go with her and see the woman straightaway; but he wanted Sorn to be part of this meeting. She
will be better at talking to women, he told himself. Particularly a grieving widow.

He went back to the fort and found Sorn in the kitchens, discussing the evening meal with the cook. She looked up and smiled
as he came in.

“Roast kid for supper, my lord?” she asked.

“Always good,” Leof said half-heartedly, his mind on Spritford and ghosts.

She mistook his lack of enthusiasm. “Something different tomorrow perhaps, then, Ael. An ash-baked dish, perhaps. Lamb with
onions and wild greens and parsnips in some stock with lemon and rosemary, I think.”

The cook shrugged, resigned. “Too late to start that tonight, my lady.”

“Which is why I said ‘tomorrow,’ ” Sorn said gently. The cook flushed and shifted his feet. “Tonight you will take the roast
kid and fry it with brown ale and onions and thyme and some of the olives from the Wind Cities. You will cook the carrots
with honey and serve a bitter salad of dandelion greens and wilted spinach in lemon juice, to aid digestion. There will also
be dessert.”

“Yes, my lady. What kind of dessert?”

It amused Leof to see how thoroughly Sorn had cowed the cook, who was a big man and known to be free with his fists after
he’d had a few drinks. Sorn smiled graciously at him and turned to Leof.

“My lord? Do you have a favorite dessert?”

“Strawberries?” Leof suggested.

“Griddle cakes served with strawberries and the first skimming of cream,” Sorn instructed.

“Yes, my lady,” the cook said, looking at his feet.

Leof’s lips twitched and a dimple showed briefly in Sorn’s cheek but was banished immediately. She patted the cook on the
arm.

“The bacon and barley soup was excellent this noon, Ael,” she said.

The cook looked up, met her smile and smiled back. “Thank you, my lady,” he said.

Fortune was waiting resignedly outside the kitchen door, and jumped up, barking softly, as Sorn appeared. Leof clicked his
fingers and the dog danced up to him and licked his thumb. Sorn smiled. They strolled back to the hall together.

“You have a big household,” he commented.

“It was enlarged considerably when I was married,” she said. “My father did not care for home comforts in the same way that
my lord Thegan does.”

Leof had never thought of Thegan as caring about comfort in any way.

Sorn caught his expression and smiled, a little grimly. “My lord appreciates good food and good service,” she said. “Such
things do not happen by chance.”

Leof nodded. “Anything of excellence is the product of hard work,” he agreed. He led Sorn over to her customary chair and
seated her with the appropriate bow. Fortune gave a sigh as he realized they were not going for a walk, and sat down. “Your
household is exemplary and I am interested in how you organize it. Unfortunately, there is another matter to deal with at
this time. A woman in the town reported an earlier uprising of ghosts in a town called Spritford.”

“That is in the Western Mountains Domain, near the Sharp River,” Sorn said.

Leof was surprised that she knew the Domains so well, and it showed in his face. She smiled wryly.

“I was courted by quite a few warlords and their sons and for a while studied the other Domains with a great deal of interest.”

He laughed. “No doubt you did!”

She smiled back and laughed a little herself, her green eyes shining, then sobered quickly. “Spritford,” she said. He sobered,
too, indicating the door where the woman from the town had appeared, arm-in-arm with a slighter, shorter woman with strikingly
similar features.

Sorn rose immediately and went to greet them. They bowed low, but she raised them up by the arms and led them to seats. Fortune
hid behind Sorn’s chair from the strangers.

“Come,” she invited them. “Tell us about these ghosts.”

The shorter woman, Ulma, was as stern-faced as her sister, and stoic. Not the wailing widow Leof had expected, but the grief
was real enough. She told the story: ghosts appearing out of nowhere, solid, armed, angry. Seven dead in Spritford, she said,
including her husband, struck down by a small man wielding a scythe, in the full light of the sun. That was unwelcome news;
more welcome was the fact that they had faded at sunset.

“So I came here,” she said finally, “thinking to find safety, but it seems maybe there’s no safety anywhere.”

Sorn nodded sympathetically, asked a few tactful questions about finances and ways she could help, and eased the women out
the door having charmed them thoroughly. No, Leof corrected himself, watching as Sorn bid them farewell at the door, they’re
not charmed. That’s respect in their faces, and not simply because she’s the Lady. They are strong women and they recognize
strength when they see it in others.

That was a striking thought, because strength was not a quality he had associated with Sorn. His own mother was strong, but
in a very different way — decisive, outspoken, like many of the women in Cliff Domain, where the men were away fighting so
often that the women had had to learn how to do without them. Sorn was another vintage entirely.

“That news is not good,” she said seriously, coming back to where he stood, resting her hands on the back of her tall chair.
“Fighting in broad sun. They are not restricted to the night, it seems.”

“But they faded at sunset,” he replied. “Perhaps they may have a night or a day, but not both?”

“It has been months since Spritford. Perhaps there have been other quickenings that we have not heard of?”

Leof shrugged. They just didn’t know enough. “I’ll send news of this to my lord,” he said. “Do you have any message for him?
I would be happy to include a letter in the package . . .”

Sorn considered, then shook her head. “My lord is involved in men’s business. The only news I have is about women’s work,
and would not interest him.” She said it simply, without resentment, but her reply sent a pang through Leof. It spoke of loneliness.
She had no real friends among her ladies, he realized. Her maid, Faina, was devoted, but hardly a friend. There was no nearby
officer’s estate with its complement of wives and daughters who might provide companionship — only Fortune.

Difficult for her, he thought. Well, perhaps he could provide some friendly company while her lord was away. Impulsively,
he reached out and touched the back of her hand.

“Anything about you must interest him,” he said. Too late, he heard the note of sincerity in his voice. In that moment Leof
felt the softness of her skin. Warmth and silk moving swiftly under his fingers. He felt a flood tide of desire sweep through
him, overwhelm him as surely as the Lake had done. He was just as helpless as he had been then, tossed on a wave too big for
him.

Sorn flushed and pulled her hand away. She half-turned, as though to leave, then stopped herself.

Leof spoke quickly. He couldn’t bear to see her force herself to look at him. “I will send your regards in my letter, my lady.”

Then he turned and left the hall, breaking etiquette by not waiting for her dismissal; not daring to wait for it.

C
OMING TO THE
Deep set Ash’s hair prickling on the back of his neck.

From the bluff outside Gabriston, they could see the wilds that lay to the north of the Hidden River. On the other side of
the water was a simple cliff, but on this side the soft sandstone had been eroded by countless streams into a nightmare maze
of canyons and crevasses, impossible to map. In the middle of the maze was the Deep, a series of caves and canyons which led
to the heart of the demons’ mysteries. Each man who came to the deep found something different there, but each man also found
the same thing: the truth about himself. Which was why Ash’s heart was pounding.

They paused at the beginning, at the bottom of the bluff, where the canyons started and the sound of the river swelled into
a chorus that filled his head. He must make Flax swear the oath. He remembered the words easily enough. He spat in his hand
and offered it to Flax, who copied him and grasped firmly.

“This is the oath we ask of you: will you give it? To be silent to death of what you see, of what you hear, of what you do?”

Flax had picked up on his mood and was uncharacteristically solemn. “I swear,” he said.

“Do you swear upon pain of shunning, never to speak of this place outside of this place?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear upon pain of death never to guide another to this place who has not the blood right?”

Flax swallowed. “I swear.”

“Do you swear upon pain beyond death, the pain of never being reborn, to keep the secrets of this place with your honor, with
your strength, with your life?”

This time, Flax had to work his mouth for enough spit to form the words. “I swear.”

There was sweat on Flax’s forehead. Ash was glad to see it.

He let go of the boy’s hand.

Ash led Flax down one narrow defile after another, the fern-covered walls of red sandstone rising higher as they went, until
they moved in a green gloom. Water seeping through the stone made it glisten in the shadows, as though the hills were bleeding.
Ash always felt that he should have smelt blood here, and death, instead of the clear scent of water, the must of leaf mold,
and the occasional waft of early jasmine. His nose told him it was safe, but his ears strained past the endless trickle of
water and the wind moaning through the rocks, waiting to hear the demons.