Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (24 page)

Still hot, his left hand twisted and fought. His fingers tore at the skin which held him. All the strength of his body wrenched at her grasp. The tempest of horror blasted into his fingers, ripping at the other hand in a final attempt to be free.

The grip exploded, throwing Elisha to the ground, his body convulsed with fear, the scream tearing from his throat. The scream echoed through emptiness. He slammed onto his back, and the lashes carved into his flesh all over again as he writhed against the chill.

But pain grounded him. It snatched him back from the awful cold, flinging him into his body with terrible force. His head smacked the stone altar,
and he lurched back onto his side, knees curled toward his chest. Sobbing, he fought for breath. He shuddered with the effort. His fingers clenched into talons, ripping at the grass.

Heat hovered near his forehead, slowly seeping in as his breathing finally settled into a rhythm. The heat took the shape of fingers, a light touch at his brow, smoothing back the hair which had sprung free to tangle across his face. The racking sobs died back as well, his heartbeat slipping back from his ears and throat, back to his chest to calm itself more slowly.

“What,” he croaked, coughing, “what the hell did you do to me?” The words came out in a gasp, warring with breath.

“I’m sorry, oh, Elisha, I am so sorry. I thought to keep it under control. I thought I could guide you through, to give you a glimpse only.”

The door behind slammed open. “Who’s there?”

Elisha shook, biting his lip.

“Only me,” Brigit called out, her voice undisturbed. “Sorry about the noise, I stumbled in the darkness.”

“I’ll fetch you a light,” the speaker said gruffly, but Brigit called out, “Oh, no. I’m searching for night-glowing mushrooms, any light would spoil it.” She chuckled. “Foolish of me, I suppose.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “Just took a fright, that’s all.” She stood up and faced the door, waving a hand to prove it was true. The warmth withdrew from Elisha, and he feared the return of that cold.

“Very well. Be more careful.”

“I will. Sorry to have bothered you.”

The door thumped shut again behind the muttering guard.

When he was able to take a deep breath, Elisha felt the last of the shivers subside, and he managed to sit up. Something sticky dampened his knee and he discovered the remains of his egg.

Assured that the guard was gone, Brigit dropped down again beside him, her face a picture of concern. “Are you all right?”

“God’s Wounds, of course not!”

She flinched, and he almost regretted his harshness but instead gritted his teeth. She could at least have warned him, given him some idea of what he would feel.

“My God, I’m lucky to be alive after all that.” He shot her a furious look. “You seem just fine. What happened to me?”

A smile played about her lips. “That was the force of the talisman you thought might be too weak. What do you think now?”

“Can’t you speak plainly for once?” Elisha rubbed his hands together, hoping to gain some warmth by the friction.

Inclining her head, Brigit said, “I can’t tell you what you felt, for I did not feel it all. That talisman—whatever it is—is very powerful indeed. It’s death in a bottle, Elisha, it’s like having demons corked up ready to spring free upon the world. It’s what we call a Universal, a talisman with enough innate power to be used by any magus, rather than an object of solely personal significance. I felt it, that’s true, but not so strongly as you. For you, it is personal. If you can control that power”—she blew out a breath, the light dancing in her eyes—“there is little you could not do.”

“If.”

“Yes, Elisha,
if
. If you can overcome your terror and learn to use it.”

“How can I use a thing I can’t even touch? I cannot master that.”

Brigit regarded him with a gentle smile. She reached out and stroked one finger down the back of his arm, bringing it to rest upon his hand. “Oh, no? That talisman is death, Elisha. But every day, you hold the possibility of death in your very hands. This is what my mother was talking about, why she wanted me to find you. You defend the border of life and death, and your choice at any moment might tip the balance. If anyone could call upon that power, it would be you. But it is still death; of course you are afraid.”

Keeping still so as not to disturb her touch, he said, “You weren’t. You said it called you here.”

“For me, it is not personal. I fear death, I think everyone does. But I also accept that, for all of my skill, I have no power over it. Once in a while, I am reminded that I will die, and maybe soon, but it does not enter my life so very often. For you, it’s unrelenting. You fight death every minute of every day, with your bare hands, and your open heart.”

At this, he found her expression transformed from worry to wonder, her body leaning toward him, her breath held to hear what he would say. Elisha turned his hand and caught her fingers, drawing her into his arms. He tipped back her head, feeling the sweep of her hair as he kissed her.

Contact.

A heat as brilliant as the ice had been swept through him, until his body burned with the want of her. The kiss turned frantic, a search for the source of the fire. His lips pressed against hers, his tongue stroking them open. Her breath scorched his throat, and he drank her in to quench his thirst.

With a cry, she wrapped her arms around him, her hands strangely light and comforting upon his wounded shoulders. Their bodies arched together, desperate to share every inch of skin.

His hand cupped the back of her head, then smoothed down her neck, his fingers slipping beneath the lace at her throat. She felt so pure and the roughness of his battered hand pricked upon the silk.

Elisha rose to his knees, drawing her ever closer, the urgency of his desire threatening to overcome tenderness.

She broke away from the kiss, her face pressing hot along his throat. “Sweet earth and sky,” she whispered, her breath a gasp of wonder on his skin.

“Oh, my lady, Brigit,” he murmured, bringing his hand back up to her hair, nuzzling into its softness.

“I can’t,” she sighed, tingling the welt that leapt with his pulse. “I can’t, Elisha, not now, not yet.”

His eyes squeezed shut on this new torture. “You are spoken for.”

“Can’t you feel how much I want this?” She let out something like a laugh, or a cry. “Wait for me, Elisha, I swear to you the day will come.”

P
ulling away from him,
Brigit tightened her sash with a savage tug and stood up, her pale hands trembling in the moonlight. She turned back to him and smiled. “Do you have another talisman? One more innocent, perhaps more pleasant?”

Wetting his lips, Elisha let out his breath, and nodded, thinking of the little cloth pennant, the one he had flown on the day of the angel. “I have something I can try.” He sank back upon his heels, brushing escaped hair away from his face.

“Good,” she murmured. “That’s good. You’ll want more than one anyhow.” After a moment, she ventured, “Elisha? May I ask you something?”

“Of course—anything.” He looked up at her, her silhouette blocking the stars, her face a shadow with glinting eyes.

“That—” she searched for a word, but did not need to find one. “—that. It’s related to the letter you got, isn’t it?”

He shoved the hair from his face again, cursing softly. She knew that much. If she knew the truth, she’d turn from him. He did not deserve to have her, and he could not bear the thought of losing her so soon. “Yes, but I’d rather not—”

She cut him off, “I know. I won’t ask more.”

For a long time they stayed that way, Brigit standing over him as he knelt there, the chill of the earth creeping up through Elisha’s clothes.

“Well,” said Brigit at last, drawing Elisha’s gaze back to her shadowed face. “Well, I should go. Come to the river tomorrow? After supper.”

“Aye,” he whispered, “I will.”

Teeth flashed in a brief smile. “I should be able to make an excuse.” She tilted her head to study him. “Perhaps it’s time to wash clothes, or something.”

Elisha frowned, running his fingers over the sturdy cloth of his britches. “Something,” he echoed.

She took a few steps backward. “I’ll see you then. Or speak to you, at least. We need to show the others what we have in you.” Then she turned and left him, the church door shutting softly behind her.

Her absence dimmed the stars and sapped the sense of magic in the air around him, as if the world itself diminished. Elisha longed to run after her, to catch her up again in his arms, kissing the pale neck her shimmering hair concealed and the long fingers which could summon wonder from water and sky. He willed himself to stillness long after she had gone.

Left alone with the talisman, Elisha watched it from the corner of his eye. Silent and solid, it looked no more powerful than the egg he had crushed. He reached a finger toward it, jerking away when he saw the trembling of his hand. By God, he would not fear death, not in the form of that poor child’s head. Thrusting out his hand, he snatched it up, letting out a pent-up breath when he felt its smooth surface, neither warm nor cold. He held it before him, his triumph giving way to doubt. The memory of his terror sent shivers through him.

Clutching it in both hands, Elisha felt himself once more close to tears, not in fear this time, but in failure. What had he thought when he had chosen it? Dazzled by Brigit’s beauty, by her willingness to teach him, he had taken the most powerful thing he could imagine. He had taken his brother’s child, his last hope of redeeming himself for Nathaniel’s sake, and Helena’s. And for what? To make eggs. Eggs he could get from any farmer, or any field as Lisbet had done.

Shutting his eyes, Elisha hugged the container close to him. His ambition twisted this child’s un-life for his own ends. He wanted to bring it back, to prove himself in Helena’s eyes, taking back the honor he had lost two years ago. But what of the child? Gone incomplete to its grave, unable ever to enter Heaven thanks to his selfish desire to win back a brother who could not ever forgive him. And if he did bring it back, its own mother would revile it for
the unnatural thing it would be. He had never even thought of the child until now, so obsessed had he been with what he might accomplish, so fascinated by the fabled Bone of Luz and sure that, if anyone could raise the dead, it would be he.

Shaken now by both his terror, and his passion, Elisha couldn’t move, the hardness of the child’s entrapment pressed against his chest where so recently he had held the woman he loved. Caught indeed between life and death.

Brigit’s words hinted at the power he might hold, at the work which could be made from such a talisman as this, and yet what would he be if he used it? The worst of all that witches were supposed to be. Not magus, not wise-man, but necromancer, building an empire for himself on the loss of a child. Shame enflamed the lashes on his back—punishment for a crime none knew he had committed.

At last, he raised his face to the sky, the final tears running toward his tangled hair. “I am sorry,” he said softly. To God, or to the child, or to Nathaniel gone untimely to his rest.

When he could trust his legs to carry him, he got up and walked down the rise to kneel before the altar. Then he dug his fingers into the grass, pushing aside the roots and scooping out handfuls of dark earth. He settled the pot into its tiny grave and bowed his head.

“I don’t know the words to say. Prayer has never been my strength,” he confided to his nephew. “God keep you safe and hold you close, and tell your father that his brother is a fool. It’s not likely we shall ever meet again.” He caught his lip between his teeth, the tears now stinging at his eyes. “I wish I’d had the chance to know you.” He pressed the back of a dirty hand to his forehead, trying to master himself.

“Amen,” he whispered, piling the earth over the lid, replacing the grass roughly with unsteady hands. This time, he had not even a cross.

Elisha rose and fled. Covered with the dirt of the grave and the blood of the soldiers, he ran to the river, plunging in fully clothed.

The cold bit into him at once, but he barely felt it as he ducked beneath the water in the pool hard beside the bridge. He held his breath as long as he could, remembering the way it had been taken from him by icy power.

Cold soothed the welts, dulling the pain as he burst to the surface again. He let his feet settle into the mud, keeping his knees bent so that his shoulders
remained submerged, his arms drawn out by the current like a drowned man’s.

As he kneeled there, the water swirling around him as if startled by this remarkable fish, he felt a sense of warmth within it, like the touch of a hand.

“Who’s there?
”

The warmth held a chuckle. “
Sage
,” the other replied. “
Oh, very good
.”

“What’s good?” Elisha muttered, more to himself than to Sage.

“
Bittersweet indeed. Good, I mean, that you knew I was here, when I have just this moment arrived. You shall be magus yet
.”