PULL ME UNDER - Leaf And Stream - Eleven

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Eleven

If it weren’t for Rudda’s excellent eavesdropping, they wouldn’t have discovered the gossip of local cloth merchants wondering why Grandfather had remained at the castle, instead of heading south. His concubines and wives and armoured men had all gone, as did all the business, as usual—was Grandfather ill? Would they have to convene a moot soon?

No mention of any witch, or any girl.

It prickled Ddun’s skin to hear this from Rudda, as they feigned interest at the horse corral outside the castle gates. “It smells like an electrical fire,” Tanner declared as they walked the perimeter of the fencing, salesmen thirsting after them and barking offers, getting increasingly desperate as the four ignored the noise. Ddun didn’t know what Tanner meant by the observation, except Ddun now knew an electrical fire smelled like a herd of horses.

“I almost wish it was the height of summer,” Rudda said once they passed the corral, “more people means less attention on us.”

“Either way, the keep always has guests. With Grandfather still there, we can try and seek audience with him.” Ddun bit into the honey cake he bought from a stall they had passed on their way. Honey was irresistible.

“The Stenya,” Tanner backhanded Ddun’s arm with a flick, almost knocking the cake from its route to his mouth. The risk of losing his sweet made Ddun’s face go hot. It was his one vice when he came to the city. If Tanner had knocked the honey cake out of his hand, the idiot’s face would be meeting Ddun’s foot. “Tell him about the attacks.”

“Will you be alright to stay out of the feast-hall?” Antoll asked Tanner. Ddun stuffed the cake into his face before there was any more risk of losing it, honey sticking in his beard and on his fingers. “You aren’t a—”

“I get it,” Tanner said, a curt stab of words.

Ddun had sympathy for him, despite the recent annoyance. “Offer up something. Your jacket, the gun. Offer it to the witch, if she really does collect these things. You won’t let her take them, of course.” Ddun was still cleaning his fingers as he spoke.

“Obviously.”

At the castle gatehouse Ddun told the gatemen they sought audience, and was told to wait.

Tanner pressed a hand to the ancient red stone, the mortar crumbled at his touch. Ddun’s heart crumbled with it, dreaming while awake of what the ancient plaster, desperately clinging in few patches, was once painted with. It had covered the entire wall top to bottom, centuries ago. Scenes of past glories, of fables or heroes—he had always admired what was left still stuck to the walls, all the faded colours on the stark white—and watched with an inexplicable sadness as Tanner fit his fingertips in to pull a dusty pinch of stone and plaster off that fell with a patter on the ground. This place was ready to turn to dust. Everything did after a long enough wait, he supposed; the mountains might crumble, the lake might dry up, the tower might collapse. But this castle—this sacred place to the Dvarri—to see it so weary made something in Ddun’s heart pang for a past he never knew. Tanner didn’t touch the wall again and he was glad he wouldn’t have to stop him. Tanner had a sorrow in his eyes, too, as they scanned what was left of the brilliant plaster. “This should be preserved.”

“I’d like to,” Ddun said, half-whispered and mournful.

The gatemen returned and bowed their heads. “Grandfather will see you in the feast-hall.”

As they passed through the large gatehouse Antoll spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Well, that was easy.”

The tower like a lance to the heavens, the temple, the servants quarters and the barracks, the brewery, and the menagerie. Tanner’s eyes could hardly take it all in and his head was ready to snap off his shoulders for how much he twisted it around to look. Especially at the menagerie. Ddun heard Tanner take a sharp breath.

“Ddun, remember what Lauren was drawing the night she vanished?”

“Yes, why?” He followed Tanner’s gaze. He had secretly flipped through that precious book more than once after she vanished. It was far from a waste, and he regretted his ignorant words. The memory summoned her art in flesh: Ddun spied the rich, ruddy brown head shake side to side, intricate iron fence keeping it in. A gorgeous beast, real soul in its eyes even at a distance, ears reacting with little flicks. He wanted desperately to see it close.

“That’s a real fucking horse,” Tanner’s voice was air. “A real horse.”

“Yes, it’s miraculous and marvelous and all the rest, calm down.” Antoll nudged him. “Practise formal impartiality while we go before Grandfather. We’ll all be, too, our masks will stay tied to our belts as we enter.”

Tanner hadn’t stopped walking, hadn’t tripped up. “Right.” He faced forward and took a breath, wiping sweat from his brow.

The halls were empty and dead compared to when Ddun had entered them last. Their leather soles had their footfalls silent on the stone floor, the interior darkened and relied more on ornately painted clay lamps and wrought iron sconces instead of sunlight. Ddun half expected Lauren to pop out of the shadows, but there was no one but a few armoured men between the entranceway and the feast-hall.

The pillared expanse still had silken pillows and woven mats laid carefully on the floor, gold embroidery and stuffed tight with down, awaiting the mass of warriors that would feast there next summer. Shields and tapestries decorated the walls, the plaster as badly crumbled as the outer walls but what few images remained were brighter. The pillars were carved in an ancient language, encircling each pillar ceiling to floor but as far as he knew no one understood the words. Grandfather sat in the formal way, a skinny old man with whisps of white hair and sagging jowls, dandruff coating his chest, and they all bowed to him and sat at an equal level. Behind Grandfather stood a woman Ddun didn’t recognize, a tall woman wearing the long fur-edged silks so fashionable to the cultures north of the mountains, pale blue and shimmering, her dark hair piled high on her head. He admired her rose-tinted cheeks and cunning eyes for only a moment until she spoke.

“You have intriguing gifts there, young Dvarri. Make a proper offering of them, then.” Ddun could see Tanner’s jaw knot as he removed the jacket off his back, laying the gun on top of it.

“Not gifts,” Grandfather corrected her with a raise of his hand. “We will pay him fairly.”

Her eyes narrowed arrogantly, focused entirely on Tanner. “And where did you acquire these things? I’m sure you came here because you’ve heard I’m a collector of these… odd objects.”

“In truth, we came to discuss my clan’s troubles with Stenya encroachment in the westlands,” Ddun said with practised formality. “We heard Grandfather was still here and sought audience. Your collection will benefit us both, in this case. We could hire smiths for battle-clothes.”

The woman didn’t take her eyes from Tanner while Grandfather spoke. “Stenya… yes yes. But skirmishes on our western boarder is nothing new. Is there something different now, anything else I need know?”

This was where Ddun felt the eyes of his kin on him, knowing while he sometimes lacked words he had the confidence in the projection of them, and rarely faltered when speaking with Grandfather or anyone. “We seek your blessing to unite clans and raise an army, to remind them where not to pasture.”

“What brought you here, instead of Kisku?” Her tone was both bitter and inquisitive. “You wouldn’t have known Grandfather remained behind, not if you’ve travelled the gruelling distance…”

“Coincidence, Lady…”

“Meired, my apologies, here I am being a rude host—she is a guest here, helping me oversee the castle, an ambassador from the north.” Was that a drop of sweat at Grandfather’s temple? Ddun kept his face and limbs as still as glass, though his stomach tightened.

“Lady Meired,” Ddun said. “It was a coincidence, as we came looking for someone very dear to us. She was last seen here in Kaddusk.”

“Oh?” Eyes still on Tanner… Ddun could see Tanner struggling not to fidget under her scrutiny—but he maintained good posture, Ddun was satisfied with the attempt. “That is a coincidence.” She stepped toward them, embroidered slippers brushing the stones, arms loosely crossed in a contemplative pace. Tanner kept his eyes lowered, and Ddun wished he could read what was on Antoll or Rudda’s minds. Did they distrust her as strongly as he did? “I’d like to show you where I keep these treasures—just you,” she pointed to Tanner. Ddun kept his arms at his knees with increased difficulty, wanting to reach for his knife.

Tanner looked to Ddun with eyes that pleaded for guidance, but he could offer none. “I’ll go,” he said with slight hesitance. “I’ll see your collection.”

Grandfather smiled thinly. “I’ll have tea with these men in the meantime.”

Ddun didn’t want tea. He wanted to find Lauren and get out of there, the tingling up his spine getting stronger. “Wonderful, Grandfather. An honour.”

***

“Leave those,” Meired said as Tanner reached for his jacket and the rifle. His guts were all tangled in him, to stand with Dvarri politeness took huge effort. Her voice was carved ice. Clear and sparkling, cold and dripping. She dressed as if it were perpetual winter, long-sleeved gown tight from neck to navel and the skirt long and loose. He followed her from the hall (she walked like a cat in heat) and gave one last look over his shoulder to the others on the cushions, all but Grandfather had a look behind their eyes of distrust, he was getting used to Dvarri stone-faced expression, but there were tells unique to each man. Ddun made to clench a fist but stopped himself, hardly more than a twitch. Tanner swallowed, stomach tight as he passed through the archway after Meired.

The halls were silent, sleepy guards with scaled armour posted in doorways their only company. Eventually they came to a narrow passageway, twisting stairs leading downward, and everything inside him screamed not to follow her down, yet his legs moved anyway. He went to put a hand to the knife at his belt, only to find it missing.

How? He never removed it.

His head hurt, a dull throb out from the centre, making it hard to focus his eyes.

A rattle of keys and a squeal of iron at the bottom of the stairs, and there was the room. She took a lit clay lamp from its hanger and held it out to lead him in.

The glow from the lamp passed over her treasures, leaving him cold and sick to see it all. Radios, a pager, clothes, watches, wallets stuffed with useless business cards and government issued IDs, children’s toys, things too old or unusual for Tanner to identify… anything that might have been in the pocket of whoever came through to this world. There was a pile of weapons: pocket knives, pistols, hunting rifles, camp hatchets, even a couple fishing rods. It was like looking into an antique shop with all the displays spread on the floor. Then there were scrolls and tablets and books, sheets of illustrated vellum scattered and haphazardly piled and all pushed up against one wall, maybe the room had been a library at one time and she re-purposed it for her own hobby.

A manifestation of all the people lost, maybe hundreds of years, stacked in piles. He choked.

“I’m thrilled you found your way here,” she said. “Makes my life that much easier. You know, when Lauren was first brought to this room, she cried. What do you feel, to look upon these things?”

Lauren is here! His heart bubbled with trepidation.

“I wish so dearly to control the portals. Do you know how hard it is to collect these things? Trading with locals too clueless to understand what they found. I’ve gone as far as the fingers of trade can stretch. And then… I felt it, I felt the disturbance that someone else came through, and I went through every scroll and tome for any clues how to control it, how to find you… I finally had it work—just once!—but it led me to her. I didn’t know about you until she told me.”

He didn’t want to listen anymore. His fingers flexed in and out of a fist while the woman continued talking.

“She can’t control the power either. Despite being the only ones I’ve found still living who have passed through the worlds… I haven’t quite discovered how to get her to command the gift. Maybe you? I’d hate to think you’re both as useless to me as this brickabrack.” He eyed the hatchet across from where she stood, sweating with the urge to grab it and hack her to death. She laughed, flickering the flame on the lamp as her hand bounced with the movement. “I’m rambling, forgive me.”

“Take me to see her.”

“No, no I don’t think so, not yet.” She turned to him, and everything went dark.

***

Grandfather held his porcelain cup in two shaking hands, the tremble of an old man. Ddun hoped to be dead before he got that old, there would be one last raid, one last battle, and he would die with honour in the field. He would be miserable to be so old.

He sipped his own cup. It was luxurious in his mouth, as was anything served in this hall. The thick milk that cooled the tea was like velvet over his tongue. And yet the usual comfort he derived from it was hollow; he was too uneasy by that woman, by Grandfather’s dismissive avoidance. There was something wrong. It threatened to curdle the milk in his stomach.

Antoll tried again to discuss their troubles, to make their pretence for audience seem more real—not that it was false, but… “We should have them exiled from the cities if they are going to be so hostile to our people in a time of supposed peace. These are Dvarri lands and we need to show them that we mean to keep it that way, otherwise everything is performative. If they were invading with an army, it would be clear—we would don our battle-clothes and organize our men to action—but instead they are rooting us out from underneath.”

Grandfather stayed silent in his cup, as if there were Stenya listening in the sandstone and he was afraid to speak.

“Do we have your blessing, Grandfather? To make Ddun a true chief in the westlands, to gather our plainsmen brothers, to lead them?”

Ddun was taken aback by Antoll’s words. Am I really worthy of such a thing? What have I done to prove myself? But there it was, out on the mat like the tray of cheese and tea, for Grandfather to take.

But he left it to the flies. “I will not take our people back to those times. A chief of the westlands, a chief of the innerlands, next the eastlands and the lowlands, ambitious chiefs sprouting up everywhere, where does it stop? When we all kill each other, that’s when. Let us say Chief Ddun pushes back the Stenya, they are wholly dealt with, and then, what? You’d go after each other. This is why I am here. I remember you at the games, young man,” he spoke to Ddun, “there’s no doubt in my mind you would be able to command. But not now.”

Ddun clenched his jaw, failing at keeping his face impartial.

“They will pick us off one at a time like rabbits,” Rudda said, his only words so far. The air was heavy where the words fell, and the men all returned to choking down tea, politely and quietly.

Finally the old man lowered his cup. “I will bequeath a secret to you three, so you might not think this meeting was all for nought. Meired is close to a discovery that will give us untold advantage over all the other tribes and nations, power that we can’t even conceive.”

Ddun put his cup down hard. “I don’t yearn for any such power, Grandfather, I just want my people safe and free to live how we have always lived.” And you shouldn’t, either. That witch is getting to your head, and you’ll wind up losing it from your ambition.

There was a commotion down the easterly corridor, heads turning with curiosity to the sound. Guards were shouting, and Grandfather began to shrink up and sweat.

“Find her!” the witch shouted, unseen in the corridor. “She figured it out, that bitch!”

Grandfather’s face paled and the three plainsmen turned to see what caused it.

Lauren stood at the back of the hall, her eyes darting and confused, chest heaving, and Ddun jumped to his feet without a second of hesitation. “Ddun!” was her only word before fainting. He fell to his knees and cradled her, brushed tangled hair from her face. The deep red silk of her dress, too tight and pinching at her neck, the bronze fastenings pulled at the fabric. Her wrists were bruised with evidence of rope, and to see her cheeks stained with dirt and tears and scratches… there was a fire ignited so rich with hatred he could taste the smoke on his breath—but her heart beat steady, she breathed, so he swallowed the smoke and prayed for her to wake. He stood, carrying Lauren, and turned to see the guards with swords at Antoll and Rudda’s necks, Grandfather was gone from the hall.

“Put her down,” the witch said. “Her brother is a dead man if you don’t.”

“What have you done with him?” Perhaps it was the roar of his question, but Lauren stirred, whispering something inaudible. She brought her arms up to his shoulders and held him. He glowered at the witch that dared threaten him, but she didn’t relent.

“Put her down, or it won’t matter.”

He decided to call her bluff. “No.”

Rudda was quick, plunging his knife up into the groin of the guard that stood over him, movements so slick none of them noticed he had taken the knife in hand. Antoll levelled his man with a strong pull at the leg, and Rudda finished the job with a plunge of blade to the heart—one guard bleeding out and the other dead, at the commotion the witch was fleeing and howling her displeasure.

“Where’s Tanner? Where’s Tanner?” Lauren’s voice was panicked and dry. Antoll grabbed Tanner’s things and ran to Ddun and Lauren, eyes bright with excitement and anger—they’ve spilled blood in the castle, and more men were surely heading there to kill them. Rudda tied his mask over his face, prepared for war, and Antoll did the same, before taking Lauren from Ddun’s arms so he might ready himself.

It was cold without her close.

“She took him,” Antoll said. “We don’t know where.”

Lauren was able to stand with Antoll’s help. “I know where,” she said, shaking words, but fresh guards had arrived. Ddun guided her behind him, their backs to the wall, ready to strike down any of the guards who dared test themselves.

The room shook, the ceiling crumbling on their heads. A low rumble spread through as if the earth itself shifted, as pebbles tapped helmets the guards hesitated in their duty to slaughter. A shrill crowing, a long howl, and the stench of lightening and blood and bile filled the air.

Lauren held Ddun’s arm. “It’ll come from there.” She pointed to the corridor the witch had lead Tanner down, to their left. The guards spun, sweating and quivering to see what demon might appear there. Ddun’s heart rattled in his chest, and he gripped his sabre tight.

Antoll and Rudda took a cautious step back as another ear-quaking cry came from the corridor, and another shake of the ground beneath them. The guards were smart enough to run, fleeing out to the castle courtyard. Ddun didn’t care for smarts in that moment, he wanted to kill everything in the castle without the burden of intelligent thought, including the horror that was about to creep out at them. Antoll grabbed three dusty shields from the wall and distributed each, and Rudda picked up the gun that Tanner left behind.

A horrible black beak appeared, the head of an enormous eagle, tall enough to nearly brush the top of the archway as it skulked its way through. From the head came a sabrecat’s body, claws extended and fur blackened with a putrid grease, feathered wings extended out once the beast was free of the confines of the corridor with another trilling crow. Lauren’s fingers quaked on his arm, and she was whispering something he couldn’t understand, a hasty mumbling. He readjusted his grip on the hilt, Antoll and Rudda spreading out to position themselves behind the pillars, and the castle rumbled again, more dust in their eyes.

“I have to get to him. Ddun, let me go, I know where he is.”

He tilted his head to her, not taking his eyes from the beast. “Can you free him?”

“I think so.”

He didn’t want her out of his reach, after so long, but he relented. He craned his neck to see how far the beast was from the corridor as it howled and spat at them, hackles up and ready. “Wall to the left, run!” She stepped forward, a deep breath and she tore at the collar of the dress to free herself, huffing through her teeth, she flew. Antoll drew the beast away from her, and Ddun waited until she was safely to the corridor before approaching the demon.

Rudda tried the trigger of the gun, but nothing happened.

***

Tanner woke up in a cell, a strong rumbling of the floor jarred him awake. He bolted to a sit and grabbed at the iron bars that held him. Underneath him was a mess of straw, and a stinking bucket of piss and shit in the corner. Rats gnawed at the toes of a dead man across from him, and if he wasn’t so frightened by the shake of the floors and walls he might have puked at the scenery. Instead, he hauled himself to his feet, pressed up against the bars, and banged his palm on them in anger, making a racket. “Hey! Hey, let me out of here! You bitch!” His nostrils flared, his skin burned, and he could barely think.

“Don’t talk to your sister that way,” Lauren popped her head out from down the narrow passageway, and he collapsed to his knees, melting in relief to see her and resting his head against one of the bars he gripped.

“Lauren! Can you get me out? How’d you find me? Are you alright?” He pulled himself up again.

“Shut up and look behind you.”

A haze of an image wavered on the stone wall. Imperfect, like he was seeing a dreamscape, but he recognized the barracks they had passed on the way in. Horses were tied up outside. Lauren rattled the bars and he turned back to her, seeing her hands were wet with fresh blood, and she held a spear and shield for him to pull between the bars. “You have to hurry, they need you up there.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Meired and Grandfather have likely fled by now. There’s another gate at the rear of the castle, that’s where they’d run. I can’t maintain the passage forever, you’d better go!”

He nodded, locking eyes with his sister. He pat her on the cheek and forced a grin. “Good work.”

“Hurry!”

He fled through the wavering image, and went straight for the closest horse.

***

Ddun’s arms were ready to break at the downward force the demon pressed upon his shield; blood, sweat and dust blinding him as he prayed to his guardian spirits that the shield wouldn’t break. A claw was close enough to his mask, if he stuck his tongue through the slit he might taste it. Rudda and Antoll were at the head, avoiding swipes and snaps of its beak, dodging the sprays of boiling hot juices from its throat.

Through the noise a roaring, familiar cry like a mad crow hit Ddun’s ears. The demon stepped off as it turned to the sound, and Ddun breathed a deep, painful gasp before lifting his head to see Tanner charging in on horseback, knees bent above the saddle, readying for a leap. Tanner held a spear above his head as he jumped the horse, propelling himself from the saddle like he was born a cat. Ddun scrambled to his feet as he watched the madman fly through the air, another wild scream as he managed to miss the wing and landed on the neck of the demon, plunging the spear in and grappling on as it flailed in a rage. Antoll, Rudda and Ddun matched his roar and charged, hacking at it mercilessly and watching green life-blood seep from the wounds they inflicted on it, the acrid stink burning their nostrils, their feet slipping in green as they lunged.

Tanner pulled himself onto the demon’s back to ride it, the spear plucked and forced again. Rudda, hit by an errant limb, slid through the sea of green until he hit a pillar. In reach of the pillar lay the gun, and he called to Tanner: “Catch!”

It was a difficult throw, and Tanner nearly fumbled it, grabbing the strap as the beast lurched him upward. He slapped the side of the metal and planted the end into the back of its skull, swearing at it, trying to command it to keep still, and Ddun and the others fled to avoid any mistaken shots, watching from behind crumbling pillars as Tanner blasted a hole through the head of the demon, shooting until the thing sunk with a guttural, nauseating sound from the depths of its body. It swayed in a desperate attempt to keep itself upright, but ultimately it went limp. That acrid, steaming liquid seeped from its mouth, beak broken, its eyes rolled back, and Ddun hacked at the neck to make sure the thing wouldn’t rise again. It was difficult, satisfying work, blow after blow to get the blade through bone and gristle before the head finally parted from the neck and the thing seemed to sink fluidly into the floor, the tenseness of its muscles forever softened.

In the silence, Ddun’s ears were all bells. Tanner jumped off the demon and ran to Ddun, gripped him by the shoulders—Tanner had a madman’s grin on him, it was contagious. “That was the absolute sickest thing I’ve ever done!” Then he howled, tongue out with his fist in the air.

Lauren appeared at the mouth of the corridor. The sight of her helped keep Ddun upright, such relief as she ran to them, Tanner embracing her and kissing the top of her head. To see her, Ddun's spirit glowed as his body was ready to collapse from exhaustion. His leg was sticky with blood and he hadn’t paid any attention to the wound until the silence. Rudda and Antoll leaned against a pillar, heaving hard breaths. Antoll had a hand at his ribs and tried stifling a moan, but the pain that rang him through was too great.

Lauren turned to Ddun, eyes bright and wet. “You did it, you all came for me. You found me!” Her smile turned to a sob as she fell again into Tanner’s arms.

“We should find them, find the sorceress behind all this and kill her,” Rudda said.

“If they’ve fled, can we catch them?” Antoll strained to talk.

“I’m still riding this adrenaline high,” Tanner gave a laugh that was half a growl. “I’ll take that horse and fucking give’er.”