Death of a Darklord (30 page)

Jonathan turned. Elaine was ascending. He felt his own mouth drop open with surprise. She looked as she always looked. Clothes covered in dirt and blood, but it was her.

She was a few steps from the top when Konrad broke and ran for her. He lifted her bodily up the last steps, whirling her around in the narrow hallway. He put her down, and they were both laughing. Konrad was laughing. It was the first joy Jonathan had seen in him since his wife died.

Konrad set her on the floor and hugged her again. “Elaine, Elaine, Elaine.” He seemed unwilling to let her go.

Jonathan stood there with tears running down his face, mingling
with his beard. Her blue eyes glanced at him. He held his arms wide, and she ran to him. He hugged her to his chest, burying his face in the top of her hair. Her arms held him as if she would never let him go.

“I am so sorry for all I said, Elaine.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed away from him, enough to look up into his face. There was something in her eyes, some knowledge that left Jonathan frightened. He was suddenly cold all over as if he’d been dropped in icy water.

“Where’s Blaine?” His voice was choked and soft. He knew the answer. It was there in her eyes.

“Gone,” she said. One word, not even the right word. Gone, not dead. Mustn’t say that word aloud. Gone.

“Are you sure?” Konrad was with them, hand on Elaine’s back. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, burying her face against Jonathan’s chest. She did not cry, as dry inside as a seashell left on a high shelf to gather dust and dream of lost paradises.

He had believed them both dead, or said he did, but Jonathan realized now it was a lie. He hadn’t really believed. It was true for one of them, and he couldn’t think. One question came to his mind. “How?” he asked. Somehow that seemed important.

She took a deep shuddering breath and stepped away from him. She stood in the center of the hallway, hands close against her body, tight as if afraid to touch anything. “He was trying to save me. He died saving me.” She raised her face and looked at them. The hatred in her eyes pierced him to his soul. Self-hatred was the hardest wound to heal.

“We were trying to climb onto a roof to get away from the dead. He fell.” She held out her hands to the empty air. “I tried
to save him. I offered him my hand, but he wouldn’t take it. Why wouldn’t he take it?”

Konrad stepped toward her, gently, as he would approach a wounded animal. “If he had taken your hand, would you both have fallen?”

She looked at him, eyes stricken. She nodded, then hid her face in her hands and said, muffled, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Konrad touched her shoulder. She flinched, but did not step away. He encircled her in his arms, and she let him.

“Tereza needs to see you, Elaine,” Jonathan said. His voice still sounded distant, as if someone else were speaking.

She looked at him, pain so plain in her face that it was like a physical force. “Must I keep telling it over and over again?”

“Let her see you are safe, then I will tell her.”

Elaine took a deep breath, leaning into Konrad’s body, seeming to take strength from his touch. Even through his numbness, Jonathan looked at the two of them and saw something he hadn’t before—a couple. He shook his head. Time enough for that.

He opened the door, forcing a smile on his lips. “Tereza, Elaine is safe.”

Konrad led her through the door, arm still protectively around her shoulders. Tereza’s cry of, “Elaine” and her reaching hand were pure joy.

Jonathan stood back and let his wife have her reunion, her moment of relief and happiness, before it occurred to her that someone was missing. He watched the happy tears and waited.

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one to utter that most final of all words. Jonathan had been thinking them, probably everyone had, but it was Tereza who had the courage to speak.

“Why would the creature carry off his body?” Konrad asked. “And why didn’t it kill Elaine?”

Elaine was sitting in the room’s only chair. Jonathan sat on the edge of the bed. Konrad leaned against the wall. He was frowning. After the initial surprise at finding Elaine alive, he had gone back to his more typical behavior: frowns, suspicion.

“I don’t know why I’m alive,” Elaine said. “It could have killed me or let the others do it.”

“You’re sure the other dead obey some of the better-preserved zombies,” Jonathan asked.

She nodded. “I saw it three times, with three different undead. The normal zombies obey the others.”

“Why did the female zombie take Elaine to see the cemetery?” Tereza asked.

Jonathan stood and paced to the far wall. He turned and looked at them all.

“You know something,” Tereza said.

“Why? Why would anyone raise the dead, kill off a third of a village? Why?”

“Whoever it is is mad,” Konrad said.

Jonathan shook his head. “Even madness has a logic, just a peculiar logic.”

“Do you know why?” Elaine asked.

“Perhaps.”

“Jonathan, no games, just tell us,” Tereza said.

He nodded. “What if he is trying to make a better zombie?”

Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Tereza gave a snort of laughter. “Jonathan, why would anyone kill so many people just for that?”

“Remember what Konrad said, that it is madness. Perhaps to a madman, perfecting his undead is worth the cost.”

Elaine shook her head. “No, there has to be more to it than that.”

“Why, Elaine?” Jonathan asked.

She looked up at him, face solemn. “Because Blaine died. It has to be more than making a better zombie. That’s …” She stopped, then said, “A ridiculous thing to die over.”

“It is the blackest of arts to raise the undead, Elaine. Blaine died to save this village. He died to save you. Those are good reasons.”

She stared at her lap and said softly, “There are no good reasons to die.”

He knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. Her skin was cold to the touch. “Elaine, you know what we are, what we strive for. It is a worthy goal to destroy evil. It is worth dying for.”

The look she gave him was so bleak he flinched. “Blaine was
worth more to me than this cursed village. I beat on a door. I screamed for help, and no one helped me. Not a single door opened. They don’t deserve our help.”

“Elaine, Elaine, we do not help them for their sakes. We help them because it is the right thing to do. We do the right thing, even when others do not.”

“I say, let them die.”

He was so astonished at the cold hate in her voice that he didn’t know what to say.

“I say we find out who is raising this army and kill him instead,” Konrad said. He knelt on the other side of Elaine. His face softened, almost the old Konrad looking up at her, a gentleness in his eyes that surprised Jonathan.

Elaine stared into his face. Jonathan wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, but it seemed to satisfy her. “Yes, we’ll find who did this, all of it, and kill him.”

“We are agents of justice, not mere revenge,” Jonathan said.

Elaine and Konrad looked at him, and their expressions were almost identical. They said quite clearly that he was a fool. He had become accustomed to the bitterness in Konrad, but it was chilling in Elaine’s lovely face.

“We have the same goals,” Tereza said suddenly. Her voice startled Jonathan; why, he wasn’t sure. “We all want this evil to end. We all want the person or persons behind it stopped.”

“We are not vigilantes,” Jonathan said. “If we can bring the sorcerer to prison for trial, we will do so.”

Konrad and Elaine exchanged glances. Jonathan knew in that instant that they would kill the sorcerer if they had the chance. He did not find it surprising, coming from Konrad. He believed the fighter could kill in cold blood, but Elaine, little
Elaine—could she kill for the sake of vengeance?

He looked at her bleak, pain-filled eyes and believed she could. Some piece of her heart had died when Blaine died.

If Jonathan allowed her to kill in cold blood, that piece would never live again. He would stop her, if he could. But he hadn’t been doing a good job keeping his people safe of late.

There was a soft knock at the door, but it opened before anyone could speak. Gersalius stood in the doorway. “I felt your thoughts, your grief. I am so sorry.” From the wizard the empty words seemed to mean something.

Elaine nodded. “Thank you.”

“If you are well enough, I would show you a spell I have found.”

She looked up at that. “What do you mean, found?”

“There is a spell on almost everything in this village. It is subtle, like a trip spell, but it is there. I thought Jonathan might trust my news better if you saw it and explained it to him.” The wizard didn’t seem offended by that bit of truth.

Elaine glanced at Jonathan, either for permission or confirmation.

Jonathan nodded. “Go with him. Learn what you can and report back.”

She touched his face, fingers gentle. “So there is room in the brotherhood for a wizard, after all?”

He glanced back at Gersalius, startled that she had spoken in front of him. “He can read my thoughts, Jonathan. It’s hard to keep secrets that way.”

“My word of honor that all secrets accidently overheard are safe with me,” the wizard said.

Jonathan looked back at Elaine. Her face was calm. She had
faith in the wizard. Jonathan had faith in Elaine. “Very well, go with him. Report back as soon as you can.”

“Night will be falling in a few hours,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “and we must have answers before then.”

Elaine looked down at her lap. “I can heal Tereza’s arm.” She looked up at him, glancing toward Tereza.

Jonathan exchanged a look with Tereza. He loved Elaine, but he would not let her heal again. It was magic, and it was evil. He believed that. He still believed that. But it was Tereza’s arm.

“Thank you, Elaine, but no,” Tereza said. She made her voice gentle, as inoffensive as possible.

Elaine took a deep breath. “I am not evil.”

“Child, I know that,” Tereza said.

“Let us agree to disagree on this one matter,” Jonathan said. With his eyes he tried to ask her, please, please let this not stand between us. He had thought her lost for all time. She was back, and he did not want to lose her again, not so soon.

Elaine nodded. “Very well, I think you are both being foolish, but it is your right.” She leaned forward and kissed Tereza on the cheek. She brushed her lips on Jonathan’s beard, giving it a tug as she had as a child.

“We will not let this stand between us,” she said.

Jonathan smiled. “No, we will not.”

She gave her hand to Konrad, and he raised it to his cheek, not kissing it, but it was an intimate gesture.

Elaine stood and followed the wizard from the room. Jonathan watched her go, watched Konrad watch her. In the midst of every disaster were the seeds of hope. He knew that, but it was good to be reminded.

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had found her another cloak. It was brown and stiff, but warm enough. It wasn’t until she was outside that she realized she hadn’t taken time to clean off the blood. Gersalius had offered her breakfast, but she had refused; though she felt light and empty, it wasn’t food she needed. What she needed was to see Blaine’s face, hear his voice, feel the touch of his hand. She needed his death to not be true.

Konrad had hugged her. The softness in his face that she had always longed to see was finally there. What would Blaine have thought? Would he have been happy for her? Or would he have been jealous? She would have given up Konrad’s newfound love, if that was what it was, to have Blaine back.