Brutal Women (11 page)

Madden’s Lady would soon believe in
vengeful spirits. She would soon believe in many things.

This is probably the worst story
of mine to ever see print, and also the first fiction story I published. It
showed up in
The Leading Edge
in 1997. It’s probably one of those
stories I should try to bury, the way Michael Cunningham disowns
Golden
States
. It has alls the usual clichés – evil magicians, telepathic wolves,
scourged villages, and angry heroines. But I’ve always found comfort in knowing
that other writers have written crap, even if none of it is as crappy as mine.
It’s inspiring or something.

Faylle rubbed the small stone in
her pocket. Emptiness crept into her chest. She felt hollow. Vultures circled
the sky, and a few of the braver birds settled on the outskirts of the bloody
carcass. Thick, savage beaks pecked at fingers, toes, eyes.

The body would not be found.

Faylle twisted around, her back to
the scavengers. Sun dappled her shoulders, her dirty blond hair. Endless hills
of yellow grass lay before her, met the horizon, blue on gold. Scraggly trees
twisted up from the long grass, reached for the sky, fell short, and remained
huddled down close to the ground as if seeking to return to it.

She surveyed the trees, and could
feel the pack of wolves that lay in wait, their golden coats blending them into
the grasses. They lay to the west, beneath an ancient tree, silent and unmoving
as stone.
Do not shun me because of a promise
, she thought, staring into
their hiding place.
What I do, I do for you. For all of us. I keep my
promises
.

Faylle started down into the vast
grassland, her bare, callused feet padding soundlessly across the turf. As she
passed the second pack of wolves, she felt them stir. Ears twitched, gazes
flitted in her direction.

Where do you go, Wolf Lady
?
One of them asked. The image burned in her brain.

She answered,
I go to the tower.
To make good on a promise.

Confusion sped through the wolf’s
mind at the image of “promise.”
I don’t understand
, he told her.

You can’t understand anymore.
Finish the kill. Scatter the bones. It is my gift to you.

It smells bad.

Faylle recoiled at the scent the
wolf projected. She stumbled, nearly fell onto the grass at her feet. She
focused on the grassland once more, looked for the faint line that was the main
road.
You remember the stink, don’t you?
she said.

No answer.

She snorted, lifted her nose to the
wind, tried to clear her nostrils of the stench.
I go to the tower
, she
said.
Let me be. Finish the kill.

It smells like the tower.

At least you remember that much.

Faylle stepped forward, and her
bare feet met warm, smooth oaken panels. The road. She gazed south, up the
plank roadway, and hesitated only briefly as the wolf sent her one last
message.

I speak no more to those who go
to the tower
, he said.
There is death there. And no wolves. We have
sense enough to stay away, Wolf Lady. You never had sense.

She felt him move away, lead his
pack toward the remains of the kill.

Across hot planking she ran, ever
southward in the oppressive heat of late afternoon. The sky turned glassy, and
sweat beaded across her forehead, her upper lip.

And she ran on, toward the tower.
Grassland swept past. Hours crept by. The hot orange sun sank low, turned the
sky into a swath of molten reds and yellows and pale pinks just over her right
shoulder. Heat escaped with the sun, and the shadows of evening wrapped Faylle
in a cool blanket, dried the sweat on her face, billowed chilly air through her
loose brown tunic and trousers. The road widened, and as she came to the crest
of a slight hill, she slowed to a walk. Ahead of her, below, in the valley, lay
the tower.

All those she knew, from the
beginning, had called it “the tower.” There was never other name. A thick, gray
stoned tower, it stood encircled by a dry ditch some twelve feet deep that
filled with water when the rains came. Slit windows ran up the tower’s height,
providing light to those within, but no view inside to those without.

From her place on the hilltop,
Faylle could see candlelight glowing from one of the lower windows. The tower
had defended them until it was the last human dwelling left standing. The
unlucky ones had their homes turned into roads. Faylle shuddered, scraped her
foot across one of the oaken panels that made up the roadway. Whose house had
this come from? Mister Connell? Her mother, Marion? Or the three weaver sisters
who had lived so close to here?

All gone now.

Faylle made her way down the road
and across the stout oak drawbridge. She gripped the heavy iron knocker on the
front of the gate.

Once, twice, thrice, she knocked,
and waited.

A cold wind blew, whipping her hair
from her face. She scratched at a bug bite on her elbow, eyes still locked on
the iron-wrought door. From inside came the sound of metal on metal - a
screeching, squealing sound that hurt her ears. A boom followed, and she
stepped back as the small sally port - the smaller gate within the gate -
opened to allow her entrance.

From the sally port, a small,
slight, pale face gazed out at her, eyes wide. “He is expecting you?” the small
person whispered. Masculine or feminine? Faylle didn’t know.

“Yes,” Faylle said.

The small figure waved for her to
come in, and she followed, stepped into the musty darkness of the tower. The
air stank of closed, confined spaces and thick dust. Faylle stared into the
wide, circular room that made up the base of the tower. Lamps burned in sconces
along the wall - they used less smoke than torches.

The small figure who had led her in
started forward to the stairs, expected her to follow. Faylle had been in this
room many times before, and it still held no decoration, nothing other than the
lamps and staircase. She followed the servant to the stairs.

A new servant; a face she did not
know.

She mounted the dark staircase,
followed the servant ever upwards. One, two, three flights she climbed.

She walked down a dim hallway.
Beside her, in the shadows, she could make out the twisted forms of her friends
and kinsman. Tortured faces gazed out at her, frozen forever in thick white
marble. Lamplight threw shadows across them, made their features change,
ripple. When he first summoned her here, so long ago, she had cried out upon
seeing the statues, and the shadows skittering along their faces made her
believe that they moved there in their marble prisons, writhed and screamed and
clawed to be free.

But such things, she came to
realize, were mere fantasy. Her friends did not rest in the statues. Only their
bodies. Their souls were somewhere else.

Faylle came to the end of the hall,
and the servant tapped on the door. Once, twice, thrice.

The servant opened up the thick
oaken portal.

“Wait here,” the servant said, and
entered. The door closed.

Faylle remained outside the door
and put her hand in her pocket, caressed the stone that rested there, wrapped
tightly in a handkerchief.

I keep my promises, she thought.

The door swung open soundlessly.
“Enter, enter,” came a voice; soft, deep.

Faylle obeyed, walked to the entryway
and stepped into a halo of bright white light. It took her eyes a moment to get
used to the light, and she blinked and squinted, held a hand up to her eyes.

“Too bright?” he asked. The
lamplights sputtered and dimmed.

Faylle found herself in his study.
The door swung shut silently behind her. He stood with his back to her, at one
of the small slit windows. Dust crept into her nostrils. She sneezed. The room
was small and cramped. Heavy tables stood pushed against the wall, piled high
with books and papers and diagrams. In the far corner of the chamber, a twisted
contraption of wire and glass lay, accumulating a heavy film of grime. Beneath
her bare feet, tiny bits of glass and metal and paper littered the floor. No
other doorway was visible, yet the servant was nowhere to be seen. Faylle
wondered it he had spirited it away, returned it to its marble prison.

The man turned away from the window
to face her. A shock of thick white hair covered his head, ran down over his
shoulders to his waist. Black eyes stared out at her from beneath heavy white
brows. His white beard was interlaced with braids decorated in beads and bits
of glass. The beard swallowed the other features of his face, all but his nose,
which stuck out from the mess of white hair like an eagle’s beak. He stood a
head and shoulders taller than she.

Clutching pale, bony hands in front
of him, he regarded her. “I summoned you here for a purpose, Wolf Lady. Tell me
of my sister.”

Faylle’s eyelids flickered. “I
spoke with the wolves.”

The man’s face remained unmoved.
“What care I for the wolves? Tell me of my sister and the package she was to
bring. “

“We spoke of your sister.”

Silence.

“They remember nothing now. I’ve
tried to talk with them, but they don’t remember who they were,” Faylle said.
She reached into her pocket, caressed the stone like a talisman, a ward against
evil. “My father doesn’t remember that I am his daughter.”

The man snorted. “Must we start in
with this again? Be thankful that I spared you, Wolf Lady. You used to be
pretty until sun and wind and age marred you. I have no use for you now but
messenger.

“Tell me, then, is today the day
you join them? Join your family and kinsman as they slaughter and fornicate
like wild beasts?” He paused, gazed into Faylle’s eyes. “No? Not today? I
thought not. Be useful and tell me of my sister.”

Faylle felt hurt and anger pounding
within her, deep in her chest. Color rose in her cheeks. With fingers that
trembled, she withdrew the stone from her pocket, held it out before her. She
gently pulled away the dirty white handkerchief that covered it. The stone
glowed a faint blue in the dim room, casting the man’s face in deep aqua
shadows. His eyes were wide; twin circles of amazement.

“Give that to me, Faylle.”

A shiver ran down her spine at the
use of her name. He only ever used that name late at night, when he wanted
favors of her.

She flicked a corner of the
handkerchief back over the stone, cutting off the blue glow. “I made a
promise,” she said. “It is a promise I intend to keep.”

“Do you know what that -”

“Your sister is dead.”

The man’s face became cold, hard,
like the stone. Thick brows knitted.

Faylle stood solidly, feet planted
slightly apart, jaw set. She clutched the stone in her fist and shoved it back
into her pocket. She bore no weapons, nothing with which to defend herself.

“You murdered her,” the man said,
and stepped toward her. One step, no more.

Faylle held her ground. “I did. It
was the least she deserved, after what the two of you did to us. All of us.
I’ll murder you as I did her. Will you beg as she did? Will you scream as she
did? Will you give me her lifestone, as she gave me yours?”

He stared at her. “What will you do
with that, Faylle?”

“I promised my father something, a
long time ago, when he still held his wits and the whole pack of them was ready
to tear down onto this tower and end your lives. I promised him that I would
kill the both of you.”

The man didn’t flicker an eyelid,
and remained silent for some time. Then he said, “We can come to an agreement,
beautiful Faylle. You and I.”

“You said I’m ugly. I’ve outlived
my use to you,” Faylle spat.

He licked his lips. “You
misunderstand.”

“Why?”

Hesitation. “Because I can set your
family and kinsmen free. What has been done can be undone. I’ve nearly finished
with the valley, Faylle. My work is nearly complete. I’ve stripped these lands
of their magical properties. Bottled them up. Carted them away. I can leave
now, today, if this suits you. Think of it, Faylle. All as it was.”

“You stole my life from me.”

“I’ve stolen many things.”

“You stole everything.” Faylle
pulled the stone from her pocket, opened up the handkerchief again. Blue light
painted the room.

“Faylle, please -”

“They would be wolves in men’s
bodies, if you brought them back. I’ve learned that from you.”

“Faylle, my Wolf Lady, let us be
reasonable.”

“I’m a dead woman here. A dead Wolf
Lady, a woman who can speak with wolves because she should have been one.
There’s no magic anymore. Only heat and death and wolves.”

She leaned down, set the stone on
the floor. Rising, she said, “I used to love the wolves. There were real wolves
here, once. And you drove them away. I made a promise, and I keep my promises,
even if you do not.” She looked over the table at her right, found a fist-sized
rock being used as a paperweight, and picked it up.

Promises.

She crouched close to the floor and
raised her arm. The man let out a wail.

“Spare me!”

Faylle’s deep brown eyes met his
clear blue. “My father asked that of you. What was your answer?”

Her arm came down.

The man cried out as his lifestone
shattered into a hundred pieces, scattered across the floor as his body fell.
She watched as the flesh pulled back from his face, and his eyes grew milky
white. His body lay thin and wan, blotchy skin pulled taut over rickety bones.
Wisps of white hair fell from his skull and face, surrounded him in snowy
puffs.

Faylle stood, went to his corpse.
She kicked it with one foot, listened to the dull thump. Outside, in the hall,
she heard something crumbling, thudding to the floor. She spent no time lingering
around the body, as she always thought she would.