Wren the Fox Witch (Europa #3: A Dark Fantasy) (23 page)

“Outside.”

“Where’s my Koschei?”

Wren took a deep breath. “The real Koschei is on a Turkish ship. And sooner or later, he’ll be set free or he’ll be rescued, and he’ll come home to you. He’s immortal, just like you. You’ll see him again soon.”

Yaga sat up and looked around the clearing. “I’m home?”

“No. This is a dream. Your dream. You’re not really here, in Rus. You’re in Constantia, in the south. You’re in a tower in the palace.”

“I know you.” Yaga frowned. “Or do I?”

“You do, in the waking world,” Wren said. “I’m a vala, a witch, from Ysland. We met earlier today.”

“I’m dreaming.” Yaga looked at her sharply. “But I’m not asleep.”

“No, and that’s the problem. You need to sleep. And you need to stay out of there.” Wren pointed up at the cabin above them.

Yaga nodded. “I’ll go to the village.”

“Good. I think some of the people are coming to check on you now.” Wren looked over her shoulder at the woods and saw tiny shadows moving among the trees. “So I’m going to go back to the waking world now. Are you going to be all right here?”

Yaga nodded slowly. There was a miserable blankness about her eyes and mouth.

“All right then.” Wren stood up, leaving the old woman sitting in the snow in the shadow of her cabin by the edge of the stream. She hesitated, uncertain of what to do next, and then she started walking upstream, away from the approaching people.

When she was back among the trees and the clearing was out of sight behind her, Wren sat down on a cold stone and looked at the ring on her hand. “All right. I’m ready to go back now. Back to my own body. Back where I belong.”

A soft cackling laughter resounded from her ring.

“Gudrun? Kara? Hrist? Brynhilda? I want to go back to my body now.” Wren glared intently at the ring. “Come on now, I know how this works. Omar told me. You can’t just do whatever you want. You have to listen to me, like when I make the ring glow, you have to do it. I’m in control here.”

The dead witches laughed louder.

Wren tightened her hand into a fist and focused on the little golden ring between her knuckles. “I command you to take me back to my body! I command you! Right now!”

The world fell out from under her and Wren flew up into the air, tumbling out of control into the cold white sky above the silent forest. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the clearing where Yaga’s cabin stood above the stream, and then everything went black.

Wren sat up. She was sitting in the dark again, on the blank patch of cold, smooth earth beneath a pale circle of moonlight in a starless sky. “Gudrun? Kara?”

The eight valas of Denveller stepped out of the darkness, ringing her in on every side.

“You’re just a child,” Rangrid said. She was a bulbous creature of folds and mounds and humps, and she hobbled forward with her little fingers fidgeting together over her huge breasts. “You were nothing as an apprentice, and you’re even less now. You don’t deserve to wear the ring of Denveller. You don’t deserve to command us.”

“Truly the great line of Denveller has failed,” Kara said. “But perhaps it can still be salvaged. Perhaps one of us should return to the world of the living in your place and—”

“Enough!” Wren shouted. “All of you! Shut up! You’re all dead. Do you hear me? Dead! And I’m sick and tired of listening to your insults and your cackling. You’re dead, and you’ll do as I say!”

“You think you can threaten us?” Gudrun hissed. “We are, as you say, dead. You can’t threaten the dead, little one.”

“Can’t I? I wonder.” Wren lunged at her shriveled little mistress, spun the crone about, and wrapped her arm around the old woman’s throat.

Gudrun gasped and wheezed as she clawed feebly at Wren’s arm. “Let me go!”

“Why? I thought I couldn’t threaten you,” Wren said softly.

“What is this?” Kara backed away with a look of horror on her face. “How can you do this? We’re ghosts, we’re invincible here.”

“Remember the corpses in Vlachia?” Wren asked. “Omar said the ghosts were clinging to their bodies. Even though they knew they were dead, they still wanted to be human. Do you see, ladies? The human soul can’t become something else, something more than human. We’re human. We’re
always
human. We’re
only
human. Now and forever. Even here, in death, we’re still human. And you can still suffer, like any other human being. We don’t transcend. Humanity isn’t some step toward a higher state. Humanity is our lot in life. And in death.”

She released Gudrun and the old woman hobbled away into the soft arms of Rangrid. Wren straightened up. “That’s my lesson for you. Something none of you knew. Something I learned for myself. Something that I don’t think even Omar understands.” She pushed her hair back from her face, tickling the edges of her tall fox ears. “So, now, I’ll ask you ladies again. Let me back into my body. Please.”

Wren blinked and sat up. She was on the floor of the Tower of Justice, and to her right she could see out the balcony to the eastern sky where the first soft fingers of dawn were rising over the horizon. Yaga lay on the floor beside her, snoring loudly.

Wren smiled. “I did it. It’s over.”

And from outside she heard the urgent clanging of a brass bell.

Wren frowned. “Or not.”

Chapter 18. Morning

Tycho sat shivering in the bow of the dory, listening to the clangor of the bells coming from the Palace of Constantine. He looked over at Salvator and Lycus and the other marines. Some of the boys were asleep in impossibly uncomfortable-looking positions, but the others were all sitting, like him, staring out at the dark gray water and the light gray sky.

“What now?” The Italian groaned and squinted down the Strait at the palace. He was pale as death, his face thin and his eyes haunted. His lip trembled. All night long he had hunched in the back of the boat, both of his arms wrapped around his belly, his breath coming in shallow wheezes as he stared blankly across the water.

“Listen to the pattern,” Lycus said. “It’s the palace alarm for enemy ships, an attack from the sea. The Turks must be moving. Sir?”

Tycho nodded. “We need to get back there.”

Salvator rolled his eyes. “We just spent half the night rowing to stay ahead of the aether, and we spent the other half sitting out here in the freezing cold, watching for Turkish patrols. Now you want to row all the way back?”

“No,” said Tycho. “The current has been carrying us back toward the palace for the last two hours. I didn’t say anything because the aether has been retreating as well. So we only need to row part of the way back. How are you holding up?”

His only answer was the sound of oars slipping through oar locks and then shoving through the cold black waters of the Bosporus.

Tycho sat in the bow with his eyes fixed on the dim outline of the Seraglio Point. He could see the gray shapes of the Furies still sitting quite still in the center of the channel.

Who could be attacking us now? I thought everyone would be exhausted this morning. I thought maybe we’d have a quiet day for once.

It took most of an hour to row back down the Strait. Along the way, they saw weary sailors on the decks of the ships near them, and weary men and women moving about the city streets above the docks, going about their business in silence, casting dark and haunted looks at each other.

As they crossed the river spanned by the Galata Bridge, Tycho kept his hand on his revolver. He only had two bullets left, but the gesture gave him a measure of comfort, and control. The blackened wreckage of the Hellan ships still floated around the hulls and anchor chains of the Eranian ironclads, and sea gulls floated amidst the flotsam. High above them, they could hear men moving about on the decks of the Furies, but they saw no one, and no one called down to them, and they rowed quietly on.

The two dories knocked against the black rocks of the Point below the high sea walls of the palace. Tycho climbed out with Salvator and the marines, and moments later a voice called down from above. Hellan soldiers leaned over the top, waving down, and Tycho waved back. At the base of the nearest watch tower, Tycho thumped on the iron door and a few moments later he heard the locks turning and the door swung out. A young soldier nodded to them. “Major. Good morning.”

“That remains to be seen.” Tycho led the way into the tower and then back out into the park inside the walls. “What’s happening? Who’s ringing that alarm?”

“I don’t know. It’s coming from the south end.” The soldier pointed to the far end of the palace grounds, out beyond the Church of Saint Irene.

“Why don’t you know? It’s been ringing for over an hour now,” Salvator said.

The soldier wavered. “Well, no one’s come to tell us anything, and there’s only three of us awake so far, and I… didn’t want to…”

“It’s all right,” Tycho said. “Last night was hell. We all know it. But today is a new day, and we all have a job to do. So I need you to get up to your post, wake the rest of your men, and get someone down to the south tower to find out what’s the matter.”

“Yes sir.” The soldier nodded and jogged back into the tower.

“And us?” Lycus asked.

Tycho wanted to smile, wanted to offer them something warmer than orders and work, but orders and work were all that he had. “I want all of you here on the wall for now. Spread out. Check on the soldiers. Remember, they were all in the center of the storm last night. They had the worst of it. But we do need them awake and on their feet as soon as possible. The Turks will be waking up now too, and we can’t let them catch us sleeping.”

“Yes sir.” Lycus and the other young marines trudged back into the tower as well.

Salvator sighed. “The palace?”

Tycho nodded. “The palace.”

The pair began walking across the wide green lawns up toward the palace grounds. The Italian hobbled along, leaning heavily on Tycho’s shoulder and wincing with every step.

“What’s the plan when we get there?” Salvator asked.

“First we find you a surgeon, and then a valet or courier or something to run your errands. Use them to track down the Duchess and Prince Vlad. God only knows where they ended up last night. We need to make sure Lady Nerissa is safe and secure, and see how many soldiers we still have on their feet,” Tycho said. “I’ll go to the Tower of Justice and find the witch.”

“The old one or the young one?” The Italian grinned.

“Both of them.” Tycho gazed worriedly at the tall tower beyond the Chambers of Petitions.

I can’t imagine how much that poor girl must have suffered, being right there in the heart of the storm all night long. What if she’s gone mad? What if she’s dead? And it’s all my fault. I took her in there. I introduced them. And then I came back and told her about Koschei. What the hell was I thinking?

At the edge of the park, Tycho handed Salvator over to a pair of exhausted porters to carry him into the palace. As Tycho continued across the Second Courtyard and climbed the steps to the tower, he saw a few servants moving about the buildings through the windows and he saw others still lying on the ground, but he left them where they lay. There would be time for rude awakenings soon enough.

“Hello?” Tycho called up the steps to the top of the tower, but only his echo answered. With a grimace, he trudged up the tall marble steps, gripping the cold brass railing for balance. But when he reached the top, the landing and the balcony were empty. “Wren? Yaga?”

He stepped out onto the balcony for a moment to look down over the palace. There were quite a few people moving around now, maids carrying trays and linens, porters with sacks and boxes. It was still deathly quiet, but seeing the people below made the palace feel less desolate.

How can they just go back to work like nothing happened? I heard them screaming. They screamed all night, half the city, screamed until their throats were raw.

Maybe they don’t remember. After all, they don’t know what caused it. Maybe they think they all had normal nightmares.

Maybe I should be grateful for that.

Tycho climbed back down the stairs. By the time he reached the ground floor, his back was aching and his belly was growling, but he continued down into the cellar, spiraling down into the darkness.

Fire light flickered at the bottom of the stair, guiding him down, and when he stepped out into the cellar and saw Wren sitting beside Yaga’s sleeping figure, he felt every muscle in his body relax as he whispered, “Oh thank God.”

Wren looked up. “Tycho?”

He came over and knelt on the edge of the mismatched pile of fur rugs and Persian carpets. “You’re all right?”

She nodded, her golden eyes flashing in the fire light. “It was a long night, but everything’s all right now.”

“What about her?” Tycho nodded at the white-haired witch.

“She’s better now. She needs to sleep. But when she wakes up, she’ll be better. There won’t be any more aether storms for a while. I’ve seen to that.” Wren pointed to the pile of silver bracelets by her leg. “And there shouldn’t be any more walking corpses either. That was Yaga’s doing as well, although it wasn’t intentional. She was just… she just missed her son, was all.”

Tycho nodded, hoping he could believe her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine.” He looked up at her, into her golden eyes and tall fox ears, and he smiled. “I’m fine. I had a lovely moonlit sail up and down the Strait with a few close friends, and it looks like everyone is all right now. I even rescued Salvator, and with any luck he’ll live out the day.”

“Who?”

“No one. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re all right. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry that I left you here alone with her. I tried to come back in, but I couldn’t. I should never have brought you here in the first place, never should have asked you to deal with this.”

“It’s all right,” Wren said softly. “Everyone’s alive, and the nightmare is over. That’s all that matters now.” She smiled at him.

Tycho smiled back and sat up straighter. “Sure, yes, you’re right. So, is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?”