The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (34 page)

Smith was waking up.

“No,” he whispered and shoved Timothy away. “Go. Go. Just go.” When Timothy tried again to reach for him, he shoved him even harder. “Go!” he shouted, desperate now. “Leave—I’ll go to Madeline, but alone!”

“Non, quiera!” Timothy said and reached for him again.

But the second he touched Charles, there was a crack, sharp and hard, and Timothy fell backward to the ground. Charles smelled burned flesh and stinking magic, and when he looked down at his lover, he saw the magic beginning to curl around him.

“I won’t let him have you!” he whispered. He drew back, turned, and stumbled down the street.

He moved quickly, running, leaping, darting, first into a side street, then ducking through a garden, then heading into an alley; he could still feel Smith reaching for him, and he moved faster, as fast as he could go. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Timothy hadn’t followed. He saw him very far in the distance, heard him shouting.

Charles ducked into the alley and moved faster.

He felt the magic tearing at him, pulling at his skin. It was like the morning when he had run from the abbey, and he knew it would claim him before long. But then he thought of the Goddess, of what she had told him, how he had pulled part of himself away. No. No, he would not go back. He would not let the spell take him. No matter what it cost.

He felt Smith pulling on him actively now, the spell raking him like claws. It made him stumble and fall. He cut through the drain alley, waded through the sewer, all the while feeling strange new cuts forming on his face, his hands, his arms, his back, his feet, his sex. He winced as unseen hands battered him, trying to knock him down. Still he did not stop. He cleared the edge of town and ran north toward the moor. The hands were tearing into him now.

The spell dug into his chest and into his mind.

He pushed it back.

He stumbled through a ditch and up the slope of the moor. Clouds were forming overhead, promising rain. He kept on. On and on, over the ridge, over the hills, onto the moorland itself. He could see the Stone Circle in the distance.

“Come back!”
He heard Smith calling to him in his mind. He wasn’t sure if it was real, if it was the spell, or if it was some sort of madness from the pain. But he could hear it.
“Come back, you stupid twit! Come back! You have no will! Your will is mine! You are mine! Come back!”

Charles shook his head, feeling the cuts burn as he did.
“No,”
he whispered back, because he did not have the strength to shout.
“You cannot claim me. You cannot claim all of me. I am not yours. I am my own.”

Smith roared, and the spell raked Charles from head to toe.

Charles’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell forward onto the ground, gone.

Chapter Nine

catlio

wand

The wand symbol associates with fire.

The wand focuses power and can create the spark of life needed for a spell.

A wand is a tool, but it is also a weapon.

Timothy had lost Charles.

He sagged against the wall of a house and sank down to the ground between two garbage cans as he tried to catch his breath. Ten seconds. He had been stunned by something when he reached for Charles, and for ten seconds, maybe less, he had been frozen, and Charles had run away. Timothy had broken free, climbed to his feet, and followed him, but that was all it had taken.
Ten seconds
, and Charles was beyond his reach—again. Timothy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sank to the ground, letting his eyes fall closed. Not even half an hour’s search had found him. And now Timothy was crowded beside the refuse, gasping, legs aching, tortured with guilt and rage and fear.

He was still slumped there when the alchemist came past.

Timothy heard Smith before he saw him, his weaselly, murmuring voice echoing softly as he came into the alley, and Timothy reached for his knife. But he still didn’t have his wind back, so he stayed quiet. He would jump Smith when he came past, and he’d throw the knife into his ankle. Then he would drag the blade up the side of his leg, cutting every vein and artery as he went. He would take great pleasure in the kill.

But as the alchemist drew nearer, Timothy realized Smith was murmuring spells. He said them over and over again, faster and faster, his desperation plain. Timothy didn’t recognize any of the words, but every now and again he heard him say, “Charles.” He remembered the last time the alchemist had stunned him, how he hadn’t been able to move until the charms were dislodged. He also realized there was no one here this time to dislodge them for him.

Smith did not see him. He saw almost nothing, it seemed. He looked as if he were following an invisible trail, but he also looked as if he kept losing it. He was sweating and nervous, and his shoulder was full of blood, but he looked ferocious too. He looked as if he would destroy any and every thing he had to in order to get his way.

Timothy waited until Smith had passed, and when he rose, he used every trick he knew, every skill he had to make not a single sound. He looked backward first, reminding himself of all the risks, forcing himself to see that, just as in the war, while he might take pleasure in the pursuit, it was more important he not be caught.

But it was also important, he knew, that Charles not be caught, either.

He raised the tiny throwing knife above his head, and he shut out the world as he stared at the back of Smith’s head, pretending for one beautiful moment that this could be his target, that he dared to risk making it a fatal shot. He forced his gaze down to the center of the alchemist’s back, to the great, broad target it made, and as if the entire world depended on his knife landing exactly there, he sent it flying.

Then he turned and ran like hell back into the street.

Timothy did not stop until he was back at the inn, tossing Catalian gold coins at the hostler and leaping onto the swiftest-looking saddled horse in the yard. But he smiled to himself as he rode out of town, because he’d seen the knife land. He had not missed. And when the alchemist found someone to dig the knife from his back, he would see the Catalian inscription on the handle and he would know who had thrown it.

His smile fell by the time he came back to the abbey. It was raining now, and it was evening. He had been searching for Charles all day, and none of his searching had turned up any sign. No stable and no hay or water waited for the horse; Timothy rubbed it down as best he could, gave it a bucket of water, and turned it loose next to some rich-looking grass. Then went inside to look for Jonathan, hoping that he, at least, could be found.

Timothy did find Jonathan, but it took some doing. He was not in any of the tower rooms or the kitchen, the only truly functional places left. There was, however, a great deal of banging and clanging and guttural noises coming from deeper inside the abbey. Timothy frowned into the ruined hallway from where they were echoing, following the sounds through the winding maze.

It was difficult to believe the abbey had only been unoccupied for ten years; by the rate of decay, of fallen walls and crumbling ceilings and floors, it appeared to have been standing untended for well over one hundred. The halls felt strangely close, as if someone else were there with him—several someones. He thought of the ghosts and started looking more carefully into the shadows, but he saw no shimmering shades of blue or anything but more dirt and dust and rubble.

He came around a corner to find the way blocked. A tree had fallen through the wall, taking half the wing in on top of it. Great vines that looked like they belonged in Catal instead of Etsey twined around the wreckage and up over the gilded portraits lining the walls, and snaked across the floor, where they burrowed into the plaster on the other side. He could still hear Jonathan from somewhere close by, but when he scanned the pile of rubble, he decided Jonathan had
not
climbed over that, and he turned to find another way around.

When he did, he saw a ghost standing there, smiling at him.

The Goddess.

Her eyes were duller, more shapes beneath the veil than eyes at all. The other ghost had been beautiful and powerful, but this one looked subdued and diminished. And sad. Just looking at her made Timothy feel excruciatingly sad.

“I am trying to find Jonathan,” he said, not knowing what to say. Trying not to be angry.

The ghost smiled and gestured to a wall beside her.
“We can lead you there.”

Timothy hesitated.

The ghost held out her hands.
“You will come to no harm. We would not harm Raturjula D’lor.”

Timothy took a step back, almost tripping on a vine. “Are you the same—are you the ghost from the tower?”

“No,”
she said without concern.
“We are another shard.”

Shard? Timothy didn’t know what that meant, but there were more important questions just now. “Why do you keep appearing to me? How do you know my name?”

The ghost laughed, a beautiful and haunting sound.
“How do we know the sun? Because we see it and we know it is the sun.”
The ghost motioned to him.
“Please. Come. We will take you the androghenie way.”

She turned to the wall, touched it, and the wall melted away. A tall, wide, well-lit, and richly furnished corridor appeared, and the ghost stepped inside.

Transfixed, Timothy followed.

The ghost walked beside him as they moved down the hall. It was a replica of the one he had just been in, but this one had no debris and no decay. It smelled of fresh flowers and summer afternoons. He could hear the trickle of fountains in the distance, and he thought he could smell succulent duck and vegetables roasting from somewhere farther away. Children ran past them in clumps of three and four; they paused when they saw Timothy, whispering and clutching one another and pointing at him. They too were ghosts, their hollow eyes staring up at him, but when they saw Timothy, tiny stars lit in the back of the dark sockets, and they smiled. When Timothy waved tentatively at them, they waved back in delight, then hurried on their way.

“I find it difficult to believe this is happening,” he admitted to his escort. “You seem real, but this—” He shook his head.

“We are in the space between,”
the ghost said.
“When the androghenie were alive, these were secret passages, designed by the ellyuit to keep them safe, but their secrets were given away. We are all dead now, but the spaces live on, and in them, after a fashion, so do we.”

She stopped at an open window and pointed into a courtyard rich and lush with fruit and nuts, things that could not possibly grow in Etsey. They grew here regardless, hale and hearty. Inside the groves, Timothy saw Jonathan. He walked through many of the trees, as if he could not see them. But he was lunging and turning in regular patterns; it appeared he was doing his old exercise routine. Timothy thought he saw the glimmer of a pair of fencing foils sticking out of a berry bush.

There was a sort of glass in the open space of the window, except the more Timothy studied it, the more he suspected it was not glass at all but some sort of magical barrier. He reached out and touched it; it was as firm as glass, but when his fingers touched the surface, it shimmered beneath his hand.

“We are on the Other Side,”
the ghost said.
“Your companion is back in the world you know. We will take you through by another path, but first—”
The ghost turned to Timothy, the stars in her eyes winking devilishly.
“We understand you may have some questions.”

Timothy laughed, a little nervously. “I have a lot of questions.”

Another twinkle.
“We have a great many answers.”

Timothy turned back to the window. He wanted to demand more information about this shard, to try to find out, again, how they knew him, but he suspected he would only get more gibberish about moon and stars. No, he would ask something else, something he
needed
to know. He watched Jonathan move through the trees, through the courtyard within the courtyard. It had started to rain on the side of the world Jonathan was on, and it was falling on him, making his shirt stick to his skin, making his hair plaster to his face. He was full of agony and fury, and every shout he made in exertion was also full of pain. Timothy could not tell if it was mental or physical pain, or if it was both.

“Tell me about this place,” he said quietly. “Tell me about the abbey. About you.” He let out a shuddering breath and nodded to Jonathan. “Tell me the truth about him. Even if it is not what I want to hear.”

The ghost watched Jonathan as it spoke.
“The abbey was the home of the androghenie. It was their safe place, their retreat. The humans hated the androghenie and feared them for their differences and their power. And so the androghenie made a haven, but the harsher the world became, the more they retreated, until they did not leave at all.

“They crafted the Houses as their eyes and ears and arms and mouth into the world, but even here they failed. They feared death above all things, and they tried to escape it. It caused much pain and suffering, and in the end, they died more completely than they ever would have had they allowed themselves to truly live.

“But the Houses lived on. And they still live, because the androghenie put too much power in them, because they are not living things. They too must be brought to accept death. But they are wild things now, the Houses. They are not to be trusted.”
It nodded through the glass.
“He is of the House that betrayed the children first. They were the House of Air, the house of protection. They sold the androghenie for money and power. But this one, the one who walks on the other side, he is different.”
The ghost pressed its hand to the magical barrier, her empty sockets watching Jonathan. Timothy could not read her expression.

“His father made this home a house of terror. The daemon turned demon inside him made him mad, and it made him listen to the cries of the dead. He cried with them because he could not shut them out. In his agony, he began to mimic the crimes committed here. He did unto those he could lure inside what had been done to the androghenie. He raped. He tortured. He destroyed slowly, painfully, with heartless meticulousness. His moments of madness and darkness were his only moments of peace.