The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (39 page)

“It’s going to be strange, taking orders from you,” she said. We were both swimming deep in corn beer by then. “I’m better at giving orders than taking them. But then again, I guess, so are you.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“It will be a little strange, returning to the world of the living, after living here,” Ash warned me. “But it can be fun. We can move among them as whomever we want them to see, or even remain completely invisible.”

I caressed her scarred face.

“You know, you are really very beautiful,” I said.  “Have I told you that?”

“I believe you told me that I would look better if I burned the other half of me,” she replied.  She meant it as a light joke, but it came out too sour.

“Ash, I’m sorry.  I didn’t know better.  Please forgive me.”

“Sure, no problem,” she shrugged, blushing under her scars.  “I wasn’t too nice to you at first, either.”

“No, you weren’t,” I said with a small smile. “But I have come to love you—”

Ash’s eyes widened. I kissed her on the forehead.

“—as the sister I either never had or cannot remember,” I finished.  “I swear to you that I will protect you as diligently as any brother ever defended his sister’s honor. I will never again allow any man to hurt you as those beasts did.”

Ash hesitated, then leaned forward. “I have something to tell, Umbral. I will pour this secret into your ears alone. Not even Dame Vulture must learn of it. I can trust you, but no one else would understand. And don’t worry—it won’t take me long…. It won’t interfere with our hunt for the Vaedi.” Her voice lowered even more. “Snake Bites Twice was able to get me some of the antidote.”

“What antidote?”

“To the forgetfulness venom. Made from the venom of the same spider, but with the opposite effect. There’s a special
tama
too…something about reweaving what was unwoven. Snake did it for me.”

“Ash…”

“I know their names now, Umbral. I remember their faces.”

Was she serious? She spoke so casually, I suspected I was the victim of another prank, like pretending the pork was human flesh.

Before I could press her about this alarming revelation, some Deathsworn approached to congratulate me. Ash winked and disappeared into the crowd.

I slept the rest of the day, and awakened at dusk. A sept of Deathsworn were ready to follow me on the hunt: Ash, who would be my second in command, Owlhawker, Pox, Stoneheart, Masher and Mad Eye. Snake Bites Twice summoned us to his presence.

“The time has come,” he said, “For you to hunt down and slay the Vaedi.”

Finnadro fought his way out of the Vision. He wrenched free of Umbral’s choking grip and redoubled his own blows against him. Umbral fought back at first, but he collapsed at last. Finnadro hardly registered the fact. Lost in a blood haze, Finnadro kept pummeling Umbral’s crumpled form.

No wonder Xerpen had not revealed that Dindi still lived—even to Finnadro.

Dindi is the Vaedi.

He hadn’t believed it when Umbral spat it out the first time, but now everything snapped into place. The secrets behind all the masks, unveiled, made sense of the last three days, indeed, the last several months. Umbral had kidnapped Dindi because she was the Vaedi. His goal the whole time Finnadro had interrogated him had been solely to find Dindi and murder her, which was why when he saw Dindi speaking with Xerpen, Umbral had risked revealing all his lies by launching himself at her throat.

Umbral had almost fooled him, with all his twisted Visions and tricks. Finnadro had only himself to blame, however, for he was the one who had been desperately in search of an answer already in front of his face. Umbral had been born wrong, and he would die wrong. He was a monster because evil was in his blood. A man did not
become
a monster. Some men simply
were
monsters.

Umbral finally stopped twitching. Xerpen and Dindi had gone. Finnadro was sure Xerpen already knew who she was, and was protecting her, but just in case, Finn would speak to him about it as soon as possible.

After he took care of Umbral.

Blindmutes answered his summons to drag Umbral’s body. There was no question of the destination. They returned to the Blood House. Finnadro picked up a jar of fetid water and threw it in Umbral’s face. He slapped the man until consciousness returned.

“I want you awake, Deathsworn,” growled Finnadro, “To meet the dark. You were born from the dark and you will die there!”

Umbral tried to spit at him, but nothing came from his bruised lips but a drizzle of puss and blood that stained his own chin.

“Throw him into the Pit!” ordered Finnadro.

The blindmutes moved the stone engraved with a spider. The sound was like a thousand nails scratching a knife’s edge. The blindmutes pierced Umbral’s flesh through the shoulderblades with cruel hooks, attached to the ropes. Umbral found one last shred of strength, enough to roar and fling them off, and Finnadro himself stepped up and punched him into the dark, into the Pit of Zithra-Lume.

Xerpen laughed and shook Dindi as a wolf shook a squirrel in its fangs. “Do you really imagine shutting your eyes will protect you? You have not yet heard me sing. Whole nations used to jump to my tune, and will again.”

She didn’t answer, nor did she open her eyes until he dropped her. She landed on the Green Lady, now a stone statue of herself, until daybreak released her from her faery death. Dindi kept her eyes down, on the stone, and did not venture to peek at Xerpen. She was aware of every rustle of his robe, nonetheless. She felt the reassuring weight of the corncob doll under her black tunic.

“So you thought you would free the Green Lady,” he scoffed. “I suppose Vessia put you up to this.”

“No, it was my idea.”

“You’re a poor liar. I recognize Mri’s clothes. No other Aelfae favors dark colors. Don’t worry… I will give you gowns more fitting.”

“I won’t go with you,” Dindi said.

“How will you stop me?”

“With this!” She pulled out the corncob doll, jumped to her feet and hit him with it.

He laughed.

A sick, shriveled rainbow of tarnished hues, defiled by an undercurrent of death shadows, twisted into a shield around him. Strident, irresistible music pounded in her ears. With one hand he pinned her arms behind her back. With the other, he plucked the corncob doll from her, dropped it on a rock, and crushed it beneath his foot.

So
that
didn’t work so well
. She scrabbled through a melee of ideas for something else.

Contemptuously, he dropped her to her knees again, not even bothering to hold her. He had proven he could play with her at whim.

“I want to make a bargain!” she cried.
Please, please be fae enough that you can’t resist a bargain
.

“Fool,” he sneered. “You have nothing to trade for your life.”

“I don’t want my life. I want Umbral’s life.”

“The Deathsworn?”

“I owe him a lifedebt,” she lied. “And must redeem it before I die.”

“He’s a war captive,” said Xerpen. His sibilant voice was full of mockery. “What kind of War Chief would I be if I let an enemy walk free?”

“Grant him Ram’s Right to fight for his own freedom,” countered Dindi. “Your people could not fault that.”

He laughed, low and dark. “Your mind is more perverse than I gave you credit for. Your proposal amuses me. But we aren’t in the plaza now, with a crowd of witnesses. There is no audience to win over with your antics, little clown. And I’m not laughing. So try again. Why should I grant him Ram’s Right? Why should I give Death’s dog a chance to live?”

Why indeed.

“Because…”

Her tongue felt like a stone in the dry riverbed of her mouth.  Because I am no hero. Because I can’t save the world if it means letting a friend die. Because I love him.

“Because I can tell you who among the Aelfae is the Traitor.”

“The night’s nadir is come,” Vessia said. The Aelfae looked to the doppelgänger. They had finally convinced the Sheep-Dindi to stop chewing the furniture, and she’d slept for a while, but when no one was paying attention, she had woken up and crawled on all fours to the baskets in the corner, sniffing. A glow of magic flared around her, and when it subsided, all that remained was a baffled ewe. She contemplated the mysteries of life and death, man and ovine, for the slow blink of an eye, then resumed her placid search for edibles in the baskets.

No one remarked on the obvious. Dindi had not returned.

They heard the footsteps at the same time.

“More than one pair,” said Mrigana.

The grunt of the Storm Wraith indicated that whoever approached did so from the front door of the lodge, with no fear.

Xerpen shoved aside the door apron. He threw Dindi to the floor in front of him.

“Really, Vessia?” he mocked. “
That
was your plan.”

She shrugged, hiding her fury and worry.

“Now,” he told the human girl. “You will keep your end of the bargain.”

Dindi stood up shakily. She shot a miserable look at Vessia, an unspoken apology in her eyes.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Vessia.

“The human girl claims to know who the Traitor is,” said Xerpen. “We’ve made a little bargain, she and I.”

“I already told Vessia, but she did not want to believe me, despite the evidence,” Dindi averred.

“Vessia, you soft-hearted fool,” said Xerpen. “Is that true?”

“Yes, the human came to me,” Vessia said slowly. It was a bold lie, and she was not certain she should go along with it, except she suspected it was all that had kept the human alive after Xerpen caught her. Vessia would not deny the little clown this one chance to save herself, even though Vessia’s heart was heavy at what she suspected would be the price.

“Who has been accused?” demanded Kia. “Why would
any
of us believe the word of a human girl?”

“I’m curious to know what the human told you,” said Mrigana. She lifted her brow at Vessia.

“In my judgment, there was not sufficient evidence,” said Vessia evenly.

Xerpen commanded Dindi, “Give me the name, and your supposed evidence, and I’ll judge it for myself.”

“It is a woman,” Dindi said.

Kia balled her hands into fists. “I know who you’re going to accuse, you mangy little…!”

“The Traitor is Yastara!” Dindi pointed and spoke in clear, ringing tones. “For years, she and Lothlo wanted a child, but could not conceive. Lady Death came to her with a bargain, a spell to make her fertile in exchange for spying on her own kind. When we were attacked by the Mud Monster, Yastara used a hex that Death herself had given her to Curse it!”

“That’s not true!” cried Yastara.

“You see,” Vessia said quickly. “Hearsay. The human is guessing.”

“I was there,” Dindi insisted. “I saw the Curse explode the undead Aelfae. What other power could have destroyed it?”

Xerpen’s eyes glittered like black stars. “The human is quite right,” he said softly. “When the undead was destroyed by the Curse, I felt the death magic, not born of the Black Well, but older and more powerful…only
slightly
more powerful, of course… I knew something was amiss. But there was no explanation until now.”

Vessia felt cold. Could this outlandish tale…?
Could
Yastara be the Traitor?

Xerpen believed it to be so. He advanced on Yastara, who cringed back.

“What are you going to do?” Vessia demanded.

“I haven’t settled on a permanent solution yet,” he said. “But for now…”

Fast as a striking snake, he stabbed Yastara in the heart. She turned to stone.

Lothlo bellowed in rage and had to be held back by Gwidan and Hest to keep him from futilely attacking Xerpen.

Xerpen kicked the stone as he met Vessia’s eyes. “Try no other tricks my dear. Not one of you is indispensible to me.”

On his way out, Xerpen grabbed Dindi by the scruff of the neck, like a dog, and dragged her along with him.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, too cold inside to care.

“Not if your information proves true,” he said. “Why would I reward good service with death? But if I leave you in there, Lothlo
would
kill you. You’ll be safer with the other human scum.”

Guards answered his summons and escorted Dindi to another lodge. All the structures in Cliffedge shared a similar architecture, but she recognized the tiny details that distinguished Amdra’s lodge. Tamio, Gwenika, Kemla and Hadi, were all inside, tucked into cots. So were Amdra, Hawk, and their baby.

“We have no more beds!” Amdra complained to the guards. They just shrugged. Amdra stood aside and let Dindi enter, but snarled, “You’ll have to sleep on the floor.”

Hawk brought her several blankets, and arranged them between Gwenika and Hadi’s beds.