Chapter Fifty-five
Mircea, Venice, 1458
Mircea looked around, still not sure what he was seeing.
The room looked like a storehouse for weapons, only he didn’t know why anyone would bother keeping these. Baskets held sword and ax blades that were almost eaten away by rust, their pommels long since lost to time. Ragged quivers were full of arrows that looked like they’d disintegrate with a breath. An old piece of cloth—possibly a banner, judging by the shape—lay on a table, so tattered and burnt that it would have been impossible to display any other way.
Yet it had once been magnificent: a heavy weight of silk with glimmers of gold here and there, their brightness undimmed by time. And it had some sort of pastoral scene painted on it, although it was so faint now that he couldn’t quite make it out. He bent closer, putting out a hand—
And had it grasped by the witch, hard enough to hurt.
“Careful.” Her voice was rough. “It looks like the praetor collects more than just human art.”
Mircea frowned, not understanding. And still didn’t when he raised the candle, because the lanterns left deep shadows draping the walls in places. And sent light dancing over maps he didn’t recognize, books he couldn’t read, and strange-looking shields with designs he’d never seen. And clothing . . .
That was trying to crawl up his arm.
He dropped the candle, and the witch’s hand abruptly tightened, jerking him back. “Fey,” she told him, before he could ask. “And old—very old. I don’t even know how the spells are still active.”
Mircea stared at the mail shirt now gleaming on the floor. Unlike the weapons, it showed no ravages of time, shining as brightly as if just made. And it hadn’t felt like metal, but more like silk against his skin. He’d never seen anything so fine.
He looked at the witch, because something had just registered. “Fey?”
“Yes, fey. You know.”
Mircea didn’t know.
She put fingers beside her ears and wiggled them at him.
He just stared.
And then snapped out of it, because they didn’t have time for this! “The fey are a myth! A tale told to frighten children!”
“Like vampires?”
Mircea stared at her some more.
And then caught a pair of greaves trying to inch their way out of a basket. Which was less of a concern than the fact that they stopped as soon as he spotted them! He looked at them, slumped innocently over the weave, and felt a hard shiver crawl up his spine.
“Be careful what you touch,” the witch said, completely unnecessarily, and moved off to begin a search. Mircea retrieved his guttering candle and took it as far from the damned armor as he could get. Only to be distracted by something on the banner.
Or to be more precise, something in the banner, which moved between the rents, shivered over the threadbare patches, and thundered across once-verdant fields, now gray with age. Something that sent little puffs of dust up, here and there, as it traveled across the surface. Something . . . impossible.
Half in disbelief, half in wonder, Mircea edged closer, tracking the movements of tiny riders on tiny horses, silently braying hounds, beaters with their little sticks, driving prey before them, and deer that flickered in and out of sight as they fled across ghostly fields—
And then off the cloth entirely, golden light that hadn’t come from Mircea’s candle following them as they jumped to something covered by a sheet.
Mircea sidled over and gave a cautious tug. The fabric slithered away to reveal a huge, leather bound book on a wooden stand. It was open to a page where a hunt was depicted, one he could see clearly now, because there was no corruption here. Like the mail shirt, it looked like it had been finished yesterday, the colors so glossy and bright that he was almost afraid to touch it, lest he smear the paint.
But he did, after a brief glance over his shoulder at the witch, who was muttering to herself and whacking at something in a basket with a piece of broken spear.
Mircea turned back to the book, and gingerly turned over a gossamer page, being careful to touch only the unpainted edge. And then another and another, because they were like nothing he’d ever seen: illustrations, in vibrant hues picked out in gold, that would have been wondrous enough on their own. But, like the ethereal hunt, they also moved.
He saw nobles riding in procession, their gilded leather trappings gleaming under a painted sun; peasants tilling the land, the soil under their tiny plows so warm and rich that he swore he could smell its scent; people dancing around a painted bonfire, the little sparks glowing like jewels as they rose off the page and into the gloom; and two navies clashing in the midst of a majestic, rolling sea, which sent what felt like miniature sprays of water up at him.
He turned page after page, eagerly, almost hungrily. They were painted poetry, all of them, more perfect than any masterwork he’d ever seen. Far more, he thought, after sighing a little too hard on a page, and sending a noble’s hat flying, which the tiny man scrambled around and only just managed to catch.
Mircea stared at him, sure he’d been mistaken, and accidentally brushed the edge of a painting. And had a very small, very angry squirrel glare at him from under the edge of his fingertip. And then push out from beneath the pad to bark at him in outrage.
He grinned, utterly enchanted, and turned over another page.
And felt his smile grow puzzled.
That was . . . strange.
The illustration took up both pages this time, bright and colorful, like all the others. But instead of a distant view of an expansive scene, it showed only a close-up of a crowd—very close. So much so that Mircea could see virtually nothing, except the backs of jostling, milling people.
Something appeared to be happening up ahead—something important, judging by the animation of the crowd—but he could see little of it. Just occasional glimpses of a bright blue sky, and something that might be a castle on a hill. But the view was so intermittent that even that was debatable. He found himself pushing at the crowd of bodies, even poking at a fat man who refused to budge, trying to see—
Everything.
The dark little room flashed out, the fire-splashed walls giving way to a crowd of people, screaming and shoving and threatening to trample him. Mircea tried to move away, while he figured out what was happening, but he couldn’t seem to control his body. And it wouldn’t have mattered even if he could.
Behind him, a double ring of guards circled the crowd, their swords out, blocking the way back. And ahead—damn it, he still couldn’t see! Until the screams became shrieks, and a huge fight broke out, sending dozens to the ground, and parting the crowd enough to show—
Oh God.
Not again!
Mircea stumbled back, but there was nowhere to go. And nowhere to look except for the caldron straight ahead, big as a ship and gleaming copper bright in the incongruously sunny day. Inside, a crowd of men floated motionless on the bubbling surface of the water, their long hair drifting around them, their skin sloughing off in pieces. Or else they writhed, screaming and fighting, lobster red but still trying to climb up the blistering sides, while a thick line of soldiers with spears shoved them back in.
Mircea tried to avert his eyes—he’d seen enough horrors this day! But they stayed glued to the scene nonetheless. Forcing him to watch as more men, waiting their turn alongside the caldron, used their chains to strangle their fellow prisoners out of pity, before they were boiled alive. While the vast crowd tore at their hair and cried and fought and—
Mircea finally looked away, but only because a woman, beautiful, desperate, and tear streaked, grabbed him. “Help us!” she breathed. “You’re on the Domi! Make her stop!”
Mircea followed her outflung arm, and saw another woman, raven haired and dark eyed, standing on top of a terrace, framed by the castle. She was watching the spectacle and laughing: at the sufferers, their families, him. Knowing he couldn’t do anything, that if he so much as muttered a word against her, he’d join them.
“I can’t help,” he babbled. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
“Murderer!” the woman shrieked. “You may as well be killing us yourself! Do something! Those are your people!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
“Stop saying that!” She was shaking him, and now more people were pausing, were turning this way, were looking at him.
Didn’t any of them understand? He’d done all he could! Why were they looking at him with such hate? What did they expect? For him to die along with them, and his family, too?
“I’m sorry!” he screamed in the woman’s face, shame and horror and panic all coming together into what felt like madness. And why not? The whole world was mad. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
She was backing away now, but still he pursued her, screaming, crying, helpless and hating himself for it, until hard hands grasped him, and strong arms pulled him back. And still he yelled: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”
“Sorry! All of you! And your descendants for generations!”
The voice that finished the sentence wasn’t Mircea’s; it changed as the scene did, dizzyingly fast, but not back to the quiet shadows of the hidden room. But to a night with a waxing moon shining through the bare branches of a winter forest, shedding little light onto a crowded hillside. But it wasn’t needed; a great ring of torches surrounded a scaffold at the top of the hill, where the largest tree of all stood in solitary splendor.
Like the woman from the castle, who was standing in the middle of the platform, her long dark hair streaming like a banner in the wind, the same one that sent ribbons of fire flowing out of the torches, and almost carried Mircea’s voice away.
“Even now,” he heard himself intone, “you cannot accept your guilt. Even now, you spit in the faces of those who would redeem you—”
“Redeem?” The woman’s scornful voice rang across the crowd. “Oh, pray forgive me, masters all. I thought you were here to kill me!”
“The body, lady, not the soul—”
“I’m a queen, not a lady! And I don’t give a damn about my soul!”
“Some truth from her at last,” someone muttered nearby.
“But we do,” Mircea said gravely. “And we choose to give you one last chance.”
He saw his arm rise—although it didn’t look like his, with darker skin and strange attire—and beckon a huge man forward. Only no, not a man. For he was shirtless, and his torso was strangely muscled, and his face . . .
Mircea suddenly stared around at the faces of the crowd, noticing what he’d been too panicked to see before. Because they were beautiful—beautiful but not right. Here was hair the color of bright green grass, there eyes like summer violets, and all of them too tall, too lithe, too . . .
Alien, he thought, and wanted to run, but his feet stayed planted on the scaffold.
“For your crimes, you are cast out,” he informed the woman, as the huge executioner tried to affix a blindfold over her eyes. “Separated forever from your home, your people, and your realm. May you find peace in your new world, and enrich it with your undoubted gifts—”
“I will make it tremble!” The woman twisted out of the guard’s hold, who had foolishly dropped his ax to tie the blindfold, and grabbed a knife from his belt. Before anyone could react, she’d sliced open his stomach, sending him stumbling back with his guts in his hands. “And then I’ll come after you!” She whirled on the crowd. “You puling cowards, you little fools, do you think you’ve heard the end of me?”
“Yes,” a deep voice boomed, and the next second, the beautiful, livid face was bouncing across the boards, along with the head it was attached to, coming to rest at Mircea’s feet.
He looked up, stunned, at a giant blond man with a sword in his hand and a spattering of blood across his face.
“Bury it!” the man snapped. “And may the gods have pity on this world!”
The vision, or whatever it was, snapped, ending as suddenly as it had begun. Mircea awoke to find the witch beating on him and screaming “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” which wasn’t good; then he heard the sound of those running feet he’d been dreading, which was worse.
Merda!
He threw her off, but it didn’t help. She just grabbed him again, yelling for him to keep quiet and apparently not recognizing the irony. While he looked around for a weapon that might still work, because they were about to need one!
And found nothing that didn’t disintegrate under his hands.
So he grabbed the witch instead, and shook her. “What happened?”
“—screaming, and now they’ve probably heard us—”
“They have heard us! They’re on the way!”
The witch looked startled for a moment, like she hadn’t expected him to agree with her, then her face crumpled. “I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew—”
Mircea shook her some more. “Answer me!”
“What difference does it make now?”
“Tell me!”
It was basically a roar, and finally snapped her out of her frenzy. “They—the fey—can weave memories into things, like paint or cloth. Letting you relive what one of them saw—”
The entire wall blew in, sending paneling flying, dust billowing, and a vampire in Medusa-head armor lunging for Mircea.
And then writhing on the floor, seemingly possessed, as he fought with a crowd of people long dead.
Mircea grabbed the witch out of the shelving she’d staggered into and towed her through the wall.
“W-what happened?” she demanded, looking back. “What did you do?”
“Threw the book at him,” Mircea said, and started out the door.
Only to crash into the secretary running in from the hall.
“That’s it! Look in his hand!” The witch pointed at something the secretary was clutching, as his startled eyes took in the two of them. Something glowing like a beacon, with a stronger, purer light than it had ever had before. The praetor’s shield!
Mircea lunged for it, and the next thing he knew, he was hitting the wall on the other side of the study. The secretary might look weak, and he wasn’t a master, or Mircea would be dead already. But he wasn’t a baby, either.
And more guards were doubtless on the way.
The window was open, letting in a scattering of rain and offering a quick escape, but there was nothing but death out there. And if he was going to die, he was going down fighting, not cowering under a damned bridge! The secretary had just knocked the witch aside and now he looked up, in time to see the resolution settle onto Mircea’s face.
“You want this?” the man sneered, holding up the orb, which had just flushed a deep, dark crimson. “Take it!”
He threw the shield right at Mircea, just as the woman sprang off the floor, a heavy tray in her hands, which she swung at the secretary’s head.
And hit the stone instead.
The little thing slammed back into the vampire, hitting him smack in the middle of his chest. Mircea was halfway through a lunge, trying to grab the stone and the witch at the same time, only to have her grab him instead, sending both of them to the floor. “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!” she screamed, and this time, Mircea listened.
Because something very strange was happening to the secretary.
The long, dark hair he wore in a clip had come loose, and was flooding white, as quickly as if someone had poured a bucket of paint over his head. Like his skin, already vampire pale, was fading to alabaster. And the eyes, formerly beady and black, were now beady and blue, almost colorless.
He was albino pale as he batted at the orb, which appeared to have become stuck, and he started screaming: “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”
What looked like a whole squadron of guards appeared in the hallway behind him, but they didn’t get it off. They also didn’t come in. Perhaps because the secretary was screaming; the guard in the hidden room was yelling that he was sorry, sorry, so very sorry; and the witch was standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard and looking . . . fairly witchy.
She’d partly dried, leaving wild tufts of muddy hair sticking up everywhere. They matched her expression, which was a cross between anger and panic that mostly read as furious. And she’d just grabbed the broken spear shaft again, which was too thick for a wand, but it didn’t look like the guards knew that.
Do something, Mircea told her mentally. Pretend to cast a spell!
She did not cast a spell. She did, however, panic at the sound of his voice in her head, habit and fear overriding good sense. Which also seemed to be the case with the guards, when she suddenly ran at them, screaming and waving the “wand.”
They fell back against the outer wall of the hall, alarm on their features, while the secretary flailed wildly and the shield finally dislodged. It fell to the ground, almost clear again, spinning around on the hard tiles of the floor. The secretary gasped and went staggering backward, the witch screamed and beat him with her stick, and Mircea swallowed and stared at the orb.
And then took a calculated risk and grabbed it.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened! Except that it felt warm and strangely full in his palm. As if it contained far more power than before, and it had already contained enough.
“Come on!” he yelled at the witch, and held it up.
And was immediately tackled by one of the guards, who hadn’t bought into the pantomime. Until Dorina flew at the man, doing something that made him scream and flail around, and Mircea yelled: “That’s it! Curse them! Curse them all!”
Suddenly, he and the witch were alone, the vampires thundering down the hallway, the secretary yelling profanity outside the door, and the guard in the hidden room sobbing apologies that echoed off the walls.
“I told you this would work,” Mircea breathed at the witch.
Who whacked him with her stick, very hard, several times.
And then they were gone.
“Dory! Dory!”
I opened my eyes to hardwood floors, a puddle of drool, and Claire kneeling beside me. So were Stinky, Olga, and the troll boy, whose smock was now truly a sight to behold. A handful of fey guards stood on the steps, all looking spooked.
But not half as much as I was.
“Are you all right?” Claire demanded.
“No,” I said, my head spinning as everything finally came together. “None of us are.”
Holy shit.