Wren the Fox Witch (Europa #3: A Dark Fantasy) (11 page)

I thought it would be worse.

She wandered back out into the bedroom dripping water as she went and looked at the dresses again. There was only one in black.

Well, that makes this simple.

The long skirt was pleated and fringed in black lace, which she found amusing and she wondered how long that fringe would survive. The blouse was so thin and cold and smooth that she couldn’t imagine what sort of fabric it was made of, and resolved to ask Omar about it later. When she had the top on, she found that it too had black lace around the cuffs and the neck, and there were voluminous folds hanging from her upper and lower arms, overlapping to transform her arms into drooping black flowers. The black jacket at first seemed too small, but that was only because the sleeves only came down to her elbows, the better to display her layered blouse sleeves, she guessed.

When she was finished dressing, she stood in front of the window and squinted at her dim reflection superimposed on the view of the palace grounds outside. A tiny draft whistled around the edge of the window and the movement of the air made her lace and ruffles and ribbons flutter gently around her.

I look like a raven.

She smiled.

A pretty raven.

She found a black ribbon in one of her jacket pockets and used it to tie her thick red hair back from her face, and then she covered her hair and ears with a thin black scarf that she found in the dress cabinet. She stepped back out into the hall and said, “I’m ready.”

The short officer turned and looked at her, and froze. He blinked. “Uhm. Yes.” He smiled, and a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth made it look as though he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say.

Wren waited.

“Right.” Tycho tugged his jacket down smooth over his chest and straightened his back. “Let’s be off.” He started walking and she followed, but he kept slowing down a bit to walk beside her instead of in front of her, and since she didn’t know where they were going, she kept slowing down to follow his lead, and so they proceeded rather slowly, glancing at each other every few moments.

Either he thinks I’m pretty, or I put the dress on backwards and he’s trying to think of a polite way to tell me. I don’t think I’d know what to say to either one.

She followed him out into the courtyard and down a broad brick road through a park of yellowed grass and naked trees. Gradually, the major stopped looking up at her and they quickened their pace, and her thoughts returned to the task at hand.

Damn it, Omar. You old coward. Why am I going to talk to this woman? She doesn’t know me. I don’t know her.

“Can I ask you something?” Tycho said, glancing up at her.

Wren looked at him, and for a moment she forgot about the corpses and the immortals, and she saw a handsome young man struggling to keep pace beside her, and she slowed down a bit and managed a smile. “Sure. As long as it’s not about my ears.”

“Oh.” He looked away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Oh gods, he looks mortified!

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” she said. “I’m just a little sensitive about them, and it’s a rather long story.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’d tell you about my condition, but it’s a rather short story.”

She smiled, and he smiled back.

“All right, well, I’ll tell you the short version then,” she said.

“Just my type!”

She said, “Well, there was a plague, and everyone in my country was becoming infected, including me. It wasn’t a normal plague, with spots and smelly bile and death. It was a…
soul
plague, I guess. Then Omar found a cure, except it wasn’t quite perfect, and everyone was left with a little bit of a fox’s soul inside them, which gave us these ears and eyes.”

“You have a fox’s soul inside you?” He glanced at her with a look of mingled amusement and disbelief.

“Yes. But just a little piece of one.”

“And now everyone in your whole country has ears like that?”

“Yes.”

“Even the men?”

She laughed. “Yes, even the men, although they weren’t very happy about it.”

Tycho blew out a long breath. “Well, if that’s the cure, then I’d hate to see the disease.”

Wren winced and looked away. Visions of deformed monsters ran through a blood-soaked tapestry in her mind. “Yes, you would.”

They walked on in silence for a minute, nodding at passing servants and soldiers. Wren tried to study the strange buildings around them, the huge towers and domes and arches and columns. Omar had told her about the buildings in the south, that they would be larger and grander than anything she had known in Ysland. And he was right, as ever. But there was no magic or mystery about the palace. It was all just cold, gray stone. Shaped and polished and cunningly arranged, yes, but just stone all the same.

Tycho led her up the steps to a many-arched entrance, and Wren saw high above the building a square tower rising behind it.

“She’s up there?” she asked.

“In the Tower of Justice? No, not usually. She’s made herself quite comfortable in the lower chamber. It’s an older hall, abandoned long ago, but still intact,” Tycho said. “It’s not very nice down there.”

“Then why does she stay there?”

“She says she likes it.” Tycho opened the door and ushered her inside a nondescript room of polished marble filled with doorways to other chambers. “When Prince Vlad agreed to defend Constantia, we had no idea he would bring someone like Koschei with him. And I think even Vlad had no idea that Koschei would bring his mother.”

“Life is full of small surprises,” Wren said.

Tycho paused at the top of a stair that led down into a well of flickering torchlight. “Listen, to be honest, I’m still not sure what sort of person she is. She spent most of her time alone even before Koschei was captured. And now, since he’s been gone, she’s been more than a little unhappy, as you can imagine. She comes out at night to harass the soldiers from time to time, but other than that, we don’t see her.”

“No one sees her, not even to bring her food?”

“The servants leave it at the bottom of the stairs for her. But she’s made it fairly clear that she’s not in the mood to take visitors unless there’s word that her son has been freed.” Tycho said, “Are you really a witch, like her?”

“I’m not a witch. I’m a vala.”

“What does that mean?”

“I make medicines from herbs, and I read the stars, and I read dreams, and I talk to ghosts,” said Wren. “Anyone can do what I do, if you learn how.” She fingered the ring inside her glove again, feeling a vague sense of guilt at her one omission.

But he doesn’t need to know about the aether-craft. Not yet, at least.

“I didn’t think you were really a witch, exactly, but the black dress, and the ears, well…” Tycho shrugged. “Are you ready?”

Wren nodded, and they descended the stairs.

The steps spiraled down and the air grew cooler, until they stepped out of an alcove into a large chamber in which their footsteps echoed far into the distant shadows. But only a few paces from the alcove, the floor was covered in Persian carpets, which were covered in dirty animal pelts, many of which had their heads and paws still attached. Three iron braziers stood in a crooked triangle around the rugs, all burning brightly and throwing off waves of heat.

In the center of the braziers there was a collection of gold and silver plates and goblets, none of the same size or design, and all with the remains of some old meal dried and crusted along their edges and bottoms. And seated amidst this chaos and debris, was a woman.

Wren wasn’t sure what she had expected. A crone, a gibbering lunatic, a vicious old mother, a lady in mourning? But not this.

The woman sitting on the pile of skins, surrounded by chewed bones and dried wine, roasting between the braziers, was…

…beautiful. She looks like an ancient queen. What sort of witch can she possibly be? And why is she down here, living like this?

Wren stared at the woman’s blood-red dress, the crow feathers tied into the braids of her snow white hair, the silver bracelets on her wrists, and the necklace of tiny animal skulls hanging around her neck. The woman looked up, tilting her face to the light, revealing a thousand fine lines of age and worry, but her skin was still firm, her eyes keen, and her lips ever so slightly pink.

“Where is my son?” she asked in a deep, commanding voice.

Wren blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“Then get out!” The witch flung up her hands and a white wind blasted across the braziers and shoved the two near the alcove.

Wren stumbled back as the aether struck her flesh, and she instinctively threw up her own hands to shield her face, and the aether fell away, melting into the darkness. Slowly, she lowered her hands and looked at the woman, and felt the cool air tickling her tall furry ears.

Damn. The aether couldn’t move my scarf. I must have knocked it back myself. Stupid, clumsy…

“Lady Yaga, if you please!” Tycho said loudly from behind Wren. “We have something very important to discuss with you. And I’ve brought this young woman to meet you. She’s from Rus, too.”

“Ysland, actually,” Wren corrected him quietly.

“Right, Ysland.” Tycho nodded. “This is Wren Olgasdottir.”

“What the devil is wrong with your ears, girl?” the woman asked.

“I’ve, uh, I have an extra—”

“An extra soul, a portion of an animal, something thrust into you.” The witch rose to her feet. “Come here. Let me look at you.”

Wren swallowed and came forward.

“A fox soul,” the witch said, peering at Wren’s head. “But just a portion of it. A tiny scrap. And something else, as well. Something to keep the animal at bay, trapped in your silly ears and those pretty eyes of yours. What is it?”

Wren nodded. “That something else, the thing that keeps the fox under control, is another soul, a bit of a man’s soul.”

Don’t ask anymore. Not yet. Don’t make me say his name to you yet.

“Hm.” The witch turned away with a weary sigh. “Is that why you’re here? You want me to fix you? You want me to get it out of you?”

“Well, no.”

“Good, because I can’t. It can’t be done.”

“I know,” Wren said. “I know how it works. I know about soul-breaking and aether-craft.”

“Do you now?” The witch sat down on her pelts. “Then why are you here?”

Wren knelt at the edge of the rugs. “I’m here because I need your help. The city needs your help. There’s something coming, and I need your help to stop it.”

“We have reports, my lady, of an army marching on Constantia,” Tycho said. “An army of walking corpses. The undead. The deathless ones.”

The witch stared into Wren’s eyes. “You don’t say.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Wren said. “Has this happened before?”

“In Rus, the dead often have a mind of their own,” said the witch. “That’s why the people burn their dead. At least, they do when they can.”

“And when they can’t?”

The witch smiled. “Then they call for me and my son to set things right.”

Wren nodded. “I see. But why does it happen at all? Is it because the aether freezes in the blood, and the ghost stays there, confused, thinking they might still be alive? And then they just drag their dead bodies around by the aether like puppets on strings?”

The older woman narrowed her eyes. “That’s exactly right. Although, the ghost in a frozen body is no more likely to rise from the grave than the ghost in a rotting body. The real question is, why are so many ghosts rising now?” The witch picked up an empty cup and considered the wine stain on the bottom for a moment. “Who has been teaching you about these things?”

“I’ve had several teachers,” Wren said, glancing away. “Why do you think the ghosts are rising now?”

“I don’t know.” The white-haired woman tossed her goblet aside. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters, my lady, because these corpses are attacking every person they come near,” Tycho said. “They’ve devastated entire towns, entire provinces, judging from the reports. Thousands are dead, and thousands more have fled. Some refugees are coming to the city, but most are fleeing into the hills. The farmers seem to think the deathless ones are drawn to cities, to people. And the more they kill, the more dead rise beside them.”

“Then destroy them, and be done with it,” the witch snapped. “Give them the sword, and give them fire. There’s no mystery in this. Cut their bodies to pieces. Take their heads. Burn their flesh. Once broken they cannot be healed, and once the aether melts, the ghost cannot cling to the flesh.”

“We tried that,” Tycho said. “I sent mounted archers to Saray. Many died, and many fled. And the ranks of the dead continue to swell. If they strike Constantia from the west while we are besieged by the Turks to the east, the city will fall.”

“Then the city will fall!” The witch glared at him.

Tycho frowned. “You swore to defend Constantia, before Lady Nerissa and Prince Vlad.”

“That was before those dogs took my son!”

Wren motioned Tycho to take a step back and she said, “Mistress, I swear to you I will do everything in my power to help you find your son. But I can’t do that if this city is overrun by the risen dead. We have to stop them first.”

“
You
will help
me
?” The witch laughed. “What can you possibly offer, except for fleas and a slightly sharper sense of hearing?”

Wren glanced at Tycho and then back again. “I’ve studied aether-craft as well. Quite a bit, actually.” She slowly raised her right hand, drawing the aether in to herself, bundling the mists beneath her, and ever so gently, she lifted herself up from the pelts on the floor and floated in the air. And then, just as gently, she lowered herself back down and let the aether drift away. “What do you say now, Mistress?”

She could feel Tycho staring at her, but she kept her gaze on the old woman, and the old woman gazed back at her. The witch nodded. “Very well. We will try. And you may call me Baba Yaga, little sister.”

Chapter 9. Torture