The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (38 page)

Umbral said nothing. It hurt to breathe, but even the brittle cold was better than the smoke and screams in the Blood House. There was a cloud cover when he and Finn first emerged into the courtyard, but suddenly, the clouds fled the sky like frightened slaves and the bright, hard stars showed their light against the black. The moon cast down pallid beams, edging the rocks in the walls and flagstones of the courtyard, with eldritch blue.

Two shadowy figures in the courtyard directly above, beyond a low stone hedge and a flight of shale, were thrown into prominence by the moonlight. He recognized the headdress and robe of the Great One, the War Chief of Orange Canyon, the former tyrant of the Rainbow Labyrinth. The Bone Whistler. And gazing with adoration and delight into his face, letting him caress her like a lover, was Dindi.

Dindi?

Dindi. But she was dead. He knew she was dead. Finn had told him. His torturer, Finn, had told him. Finnadro, who had tortured him on behalf of the Bone Whistler, had sworn to him that Dindi was dead.

Dindi laughed and blushed at something the Bone Whistler said, and the truth hit Umbral in a rockslide.

Not only was Finnadro working for the Bone Whistler, but so was Dindi. It was not Mrigana who had betrayed Umbral.
It was Dindi
.

Everything was a lie. She had lied to him from the start. She had lied about her Visions, lied about not knowing Xerpen before, lied about helping kill the tyrant. Umbral saw it now. She had been the bait in the trap all along. Everything had been designed to lure him here, to torture him into revealing the identity of Lady Death.

And he had almost fallen…. He had almost betrayed Lady Death for her!

Umbral had stopped in his tracks, and Finnadro followed his gaze. It took Finnadro longer to recognize Dindi than it had Umbral. A frown furrowed his brow, and then Finn gasped.

“Xerpen saved her! She is alive!”

“Not for long!” growled Umbral. With the roar of a beast, with the strength of pure rage, he grabbed Finn’s knife from his belt, smacked the man across the face with such force that Finnadro flew across the flagstones, and launched himself in great bounds across the courtyard, up the steps, bellowing.

“I will kill you! I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!”

Nothing could stop him, no outside force, nor internal weakness. He reached the pair of traitors, smacked Dindi aside as he had Finnadro and plunged his stolen dagger into the heart of the Bone Whistler.

Inside, the tiny part of Dindi that remained free screamed, but she could not free herself from Xerpen’s love hex. She saw herself simpering like a fool, blushing and giggling, as Xerpen described how he would rape her, then feed her body to the Vyfae for a snack. As ghastly as it was, the greater part of her felt eager to play any role he pleased to give her. She felt pride in her role as sacrifice, and loved him for allowing her the honor to be debased by him.

Then someone yanked her braid from behind and tossed her to the ground like a rag doll. The spell snapped when the gaze was broken, and Dindi lay panting on the ground, shocked, terrified, and clear-headed. She saw a bloody, near-naked man stab at Xerpen, and she was sure Xerpen would fall, and she cheered inside, even before she saw the assassin’s face.

Umbral!

But Xerpen was too quick for his assailant. Even as Umbral’s stone knife arced toward his heart, Xerpen dragged up the body of the Green Lady, who still lay on the ground, and lifted her like a shield before him. The knife plunged into her heart instead. Her body turned to stone, trapping the blade.

Umbral howled in frustration. She wanted to cry out his name, but the look he gave her was so filled with loathing, contempt and rage that she drew back in fear.

“Dindi! I will kill you for breaking your promise to me! I swear it!
I will kill you!
”

Another man tackled Umbral, and beat him until he was unconscious, and dragged him away. Dindi wept and tried to follow, but Xerpen grabbed her arm and held her fast.

She had ruined everything. She could imagine too well what had happened. At some point Umbral had been captured; tortured terribly, she could see that; and then, at the very moment he had somehow escaped, saw her with the enemy, fawning on him like a bride. The Green Lady was dead again because of her, and Umbral’s escape foiled because of her, and the Aelfae’s plan unwoven because of her.

Did she never tire of playing the fool? In her whole life, could she never do one thing right?

Xerpen gripped her chin and forced her to look up at him, but she shut her eyes. She’d not again fall into his gaze. If she died, let it at least be with her mind free, aware of the horror that devoured her, rather than welcoming her doom with a sycophant’s grin.

For a moment, Finnadro lay dazed on the flagstones where Umbral had thrown him. With impossible strength, the Deathsworn raced across the courtyard to where Xerpen stood with the young maiden Dindi. In a flash, Finnadro saw that Umbral meant to slay them both.

He rolled to his feet and raced after the Deathsworn. He knew he could not reach Xerpen and Dindi in time.

A flash of green light, and then gray stone, intervened between Xerpen and Umbral. A moment later, Finnadro dragged Umbral off the Great One, who, miraculously, still stood unharmed. Finnadro saw then that the stone which had saved Xerpen’s life had been a fae. He knew that fair face and form better than his own mother’s.

The Green Lady!

My Lady!
He did not cry aloud, but with all his heart.

Finnadro! Xerpen’s voice thundered in his mind. She gave her life to save mine! The Deathsworn slew her!

Umbral slathered like a diseased wolf, vowing to kill Dindi and Xerpen, and something inside Finnadro snapped.

He pounded blows onto the Deathsworn, beating down the rabid beast. There was nothing human in Umbral, no matter how smooth or sympathetic he managed to make himself appear. Some men grew up twisted and rotten, leaf to root. What could be clearer than his reaction to finding out that the girl he’d tried to kill still lived? Finnadro had hoped the man could feel remorse, or pity, but Umbral’s reaction was the very mockery of mercy. His only goal had been to murder her all over again.

“You harmed my Lady!” shouted Finnadro. “You will pay for that, Umbral!”

“Why not?” Umbral rocked with crazed laughter. He took the blows as if he could not even feel them. “I killed Kavio! As I will kill the Vaedi…and as I will kill you! You want a peek into my mind, interrogator? You want to see how you will die?”

Umbral shot out his claws and closed a vise around Finn’s throat. In his struggle for breath, a red haze enveloped Finnadro’s mind, and he almost lost control of the leash. Umbral shoved a memory at him, and Finnadro reeled into the unwanted Vision.

Obsidian beads clinked on my costume for the ritual. My chest was bare, but I wore black leather legwals with ornamented lappets, and had my obsidian blade strapped to my thigh. Storm clouds veiled and unveiled a gibbous moon. The night a Dark Initiate became Deathsworn deserved this sky, blacker than a bat’s wing, scented with damp leather and mushrooms. Stamping feet of the crippled and the elderly, each bent beneath his personal burden of scars and years, trod a circle around the megalith.

At the center of the circle, I knelt, drank night like poison, and recited before Dame Vulture and Snake Bites Twice: “I give you my oath, upon the honor of my blood, my bones and my blade, to serve and obey Lady Death.”

“I name you Zavaedi Umbral, Henchman of the Black Lady,” intoned Dame Vulture.

She lifted a peculiar headdress into the air, and then set it over my head and face. The musk of it was oddly sweet. The weight felt heavy, resting on my nose, but the eyeholes were large enough that I did not experience any lessening of my field of vision. A simple slender ring of stiffened leather formed the headband. The black leather facemask sported embroidery, in obsidian beads and soot-painted incisors. Above the mask, two horns framed a perfectly round circle of obsidian, polished to the clarity of a reflective pool. Altogether, it did not look especially grand compared to many Tavaedi headdresses, but this was the Mask of the Obsidian Mirror. I would earn the right to wear it tonight at a heavy price—the heart of my Lady’s foe.

Two Deathsworn warriors brought out the sacrificial captive, who was masked and costumed in a shaggy mantle, and lashed him to the megalith.

I could not see his face, but I knew his name. Supposedly the son of a faery, he had six Chromas, and my heart burned that he still possessed what I had lost. For this alone, I would not have slain him, but since slay him I must, I embraced my hate to ease my duty.

For the first time since coming to Obsidian Mountain, I joined the dancers. I was now one of them. Deathsworn.

We danced in a circle around the captive, who was strapped to the stone, for most of the night. Despite the many ropes wrapped around him, the bloodied, misshapen figure thrashed and drooped his head. His top-heavy wooden mask sagged. Near dawn, Dame Vulture called us to a halt. With a nod of her beaked mask, she summoned me to step forward.

I yanked the heavy headdress off the victim.

His broken nose was a mass of battered flesh, his jaw hung lopsided and shattered, he had been tortured until his flesh turned purple and yellow, but despite that, there was something familiar about his face. I wondered if I had known him in my other life.

I lifted away the faceplate of my mask and stepped forward. 

“Now,” Dame Vulture commanded. “You know what to do.”

I nodded. I gripped the handle of my obsidian knife. With one swift movement, I drove the blade into Kavio’s chest.

His inhuman yawp rent the air. I cut away the flesh beneath the costume, and withdrew his beating heart. For just an instant, I hesitated, repelled by what I must do. Then I steeled myself and bit into the heart. I did not swallow it. No power in Faearth, not even Lady Death, could make me go that far. I held the unpleasant morsel in my mouth, trying not to taste the blood on my tongue.

The mask I wore flared with purple-black fire. I pushed it back on my head, displaying my face, which now was, presumably, a mirror to that of my victim. The throng of dark dancers howled and cheered. I spit out the bite of flesh I had taken and flung the heart aside. It flopped once or twice before it stilled for good, already graying.

“Congratulations,” said Dame Vulture. “With the Mask of the Obsidian Mirror, those who look at you will see only the face they most dread or long for. The Obsidian Mirror is one of the three original Weapons of Lady Death herself. No one will know you are an impostor.”

“There
is
one who will know.”

“No, you are mistaken. Now that you have killed Kavio, and assumed his power, you could take his place and the White Lady herself will not be able to tell you are not her son.”

I shook my head. “I didn't mean her.”

“Then who…?”

“
I
will know.” I said it flatly

“Yes, Umbral,” she said. “You will not forget whom you serve.”

I inclined my head.

“How could I forget?” I asked in the same uninflected tone. “I live for Death.”

“Give me the Mirror.”

Warily, I handed the headdress to her. I felt a strange reluctance to let it go. She dashed it on a rock, and I had to smother a cry of outrage. The obsidian disk shattered into a multitude of slivers and shards.

Had I already failed the Black Lady? I glared at Vulture, furious and perplexed.

Then I felt a weight on my head. I touched it; lifted it off my head to stare. It was the Obsidian Mask, intact again. Nothing remained of the shards on the ground.

“It cannot be destroyed,” she said. “Nor can you lose it. Once someone sees you in the Mask, they cannot see your true face, even if you remove the Mask. But if anyone should see your true face first, while you are not wearing it, they will know your real features. For that reason, although the Mask will always be yours, whether you wear it or not, you should wear it as much as possible.”

“I understand.”

I did not feel much like celebrating, but for the rest of Obsidian Mountain the choosing of a new Henchman for their Lady was an occasion for joy.

They took away Kavio’s corpse. When I saw Deathsworn clustered around some large body on a spit over a fire, my stomach lurched. Ash brought me a leaf with white meat, sliced and smothered in spiced blood sauce. Other young Deathsworn gathered around, grinning, waiting on my reaction.

“You must try it, Umbral.” Ash smirked. She shoved some into her mouth. “Mmmmm.”

“I already had a bite, thank you,” I said coolly.

She laughed. So did the crowd.

“It’s roast boar, Umbral!” She pointed to the roast and the Deathsworn scooted out of the way so I could see the pig on the spit. Where had they been hiding that huge beast?

I cracked a smile, relieved and finally amused.

The crowd broke up and I sat with Ash. Deathsworn, despite their earned reputation for gloominess, celebrated like most people in Faerth, with a great deal of drunkenness, leading to increasingly awful singing and dancing and even, (among the younger, more vigorous Deathsworn) dubious liaisons. I drank hard, to forget what I had done.