15. Orphium
Chapter 15
Orphium
A cold breeze whistled down the lane, hounding me, following me back to town, as if taunting me for fleeing. Not the first time I’d snuck away from a late night rendezvous, a satisfying evening game of hide the sausage.
But I wasn’t fleeing, for once. This wasn’t about flight, or escape, or skipping town before the good people of Barrowdeep awakened in time to take turns throttling me. This was a matter of curiosity. Experimentation.
I’d opened my eyes in the night with Leoric’s limbs tangled around me, his beautiful body a warm, reassuring presence underneath his blanket. In the soothing balm of all those sensations, I realized that something was missing.
The hunger. That feeling of emptiness that haunted me when I neglected to feed the etheric void that the Wyrding Queen had carved into my body. I’d skipped it at breakfast, too, the expected pain of the hollowness filled first by Jeromah’s generous gift of a meat pie, then by Pennifer’s apple.
And now, after Leoric had so thoroughly, so expertly filled me, the hunger, the emptiness felt so very far away. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. When was the last time that I’d gone even a single day without supping on someone’s dreams, their hopes, their memories?
I thought I’d live like a parasite, a leech until the end of my days. For the first time, I wasn’t so sure. For the first time, hope glowed like a bonfire in my heart. No bonfire back in Barrowdeep, though. Everything was quiet in the town square.
The fire had died down, nothing but a scattering of embers still glowing in the pit. The Gwerenese, true to Jeromah’s word, had abandoned their wagons for the night, taking full advantage of the luxuries that a tavern could afford. Total quiet, no sounds of snoring from any of the caravans gathered nearby.
With one exception. Poor Riggs, bless the armored fool, had fallen asleep by the ashes, his back against the wheel of a Gwerenese wagon. He slept with his nose to the sky, mouth open as he snored away in the growing cold. At least he’d picked a soft enough patch of grass to sit on.
Fae instinct told me to let sleeping guards lie, especially the human kind. Some newer, more compassionate part of me guided my feet toward the wagon, then my hands up toward a bright piece of overhanging fabric. Someone’s laundry hung to dry, or a loose bit of awning, or a Gwerenese banner.
Whatever it was, it would serve as a blanket. I draped it across Riggs’s snoring body. He cuddled the fabric close to his chest, mumbling something incoherent in his sleep. The night was cold, but something warm glimmered in my chest. I left the circle and hurried back to my own beloved Wagon.
I waved my hand, unlocking the rear door with a quick burst of simple magic. What was happening to me? I’d been among humans before. Slept with them, even. Leoric was far from my first. But what was so different about him? What was so different about them , these gullible, grounded people of this silly little town?
“Why do they care so much?” I muttered absently, running my hand along the shelves in the cabin. “That’s the difference, isn’t it, Wagon? For once, I’ve found people who actually give a damn about me.”
And how long since anyone had cared? My friends and family forgotten since my banishment from the Dawning Court, my mind purged of memory by the wickedness of the Wyrding Queen.
Still, even without the boon of remembrance, I understood from the hidden, most honest, most frightened side of me that I’d never met anyone quite like this Stonesguard boy. This somber little lordling with his hesitant laughter, his tired eyes. He smiled so rarely, and yet when he did, he could fill my insides with warmth, melt even the iciest, most frozen parts of me.
I would never again know the golden, glowing radiance of the Dawning Court, but when Leoric grinned, when Leoric laughed — truly laughed — I didn’t feel quite so lonely anymore. Not so hollow. He could ask anything of me — all right, most things — and I might give them.
And so here I was, in the most familiar of places, back in the cabin among the belongings of others, my bottled conquests. This was a matter of curiosity, an intellectual experiment. Leoric asked if I would surrender my spoils, return the memories of Barrowdeep.
In exchange for the coin, in truth? Gladly. I didn’t tell him that, but gladly, I would. There would always be other towns to travel, other minds to pillage. But what if the coin wasn’t part of the bargain? What if I were to give up the goods all for the sake of Leoric’s approval? For a glimpse of that stupid lordling’s smile?
With trembling hand I retrieved the closest of the phials. I peered into the glass, tilting it back and forth. Pennifer’s memory. Her being carried as a child, lovingly stroking the amber lump that dangled at her mother’s throat. Something so important I’d taken from her, from all these people.
And where was her mother now? Why did I have to steal all that was left of her? The Wyrding Queen had hurt me, taken far too much — but that gave me no cause to inflict the same pain on others. It didn’t matter that they forgot my thievery at all. The gaps in their minds, the bits I’d gouged out? Those scars would always remain.
I stepped out onto the street. Taking a deep breath, I upended the bottle. Wisps of golden smoke emanated from its mouth, tumbling down onto the cobblestones. It dissipated into the ether, retracing its steps in the maze of Pennifer’s mind. She was asleep somewhere in Barrowdeep. I wished her the kindest, the loveliest of dreams.
Something tinkled and clinked among the shelves back in the cabin. I peered in, drawn by the commotion. It was coming from the inside of the old pickle jar, the one that held the keepsakes of Barrowdeep. A jar for every town I visited, a vessel for my ill-gotten goods.
Pennifer’s necklace slid up against the glass, its fine chain pouring like liquid over the rim of the jar. Then it took flight, slithering through the air like a snake, the nugget of amber leading like its head.
I took a deep breath, then exhaled, watching the air and anxiety swirl out of me in clouds of fading fog. I’d done it. And I didn’t feel so horrible for doing it, either. In fact, it might have felt a little freeing. Gratifying. I gazed at the empty bottle in my hand, then back into the cabin.
One memory returned. Could I manage another?
Another bottle uncorked, then poured out onto the cobblestones. Again the golden mists swirled and vanished into the shadows. A leather thong only long enough to fit around a man’s wrist drifted out of the cabin, a single clay bead weighing down its center. Ah. The priest. The bracelet rode the wind home to its master.
One more memory, perhaps? A third bottle. The mists fell in a slow, lazy spiral. I watched the cabin door with mild amusement, squinting at the little wooden disc that flew through the air. Ah, an old button. Yes. Hertrude’s dolly.
With some bittersweetness I bid a wordless goodbye to each of these things, worthless in total to me, but priceless to the ones who’d kept them for so long. Whether through a crack in a window or a gap under a door, these trinkets would find their way home.
I paused, blinking at the middle distance, assessing the state of my soul. Nothing. No pangs of hunger, only the itching discomfort of a gambler losing his undeserved winnings. Maybe one more bottle before I returned to Leoric’s cabin for a few more hours of sleep.
In the morning, I could prove to him that I wasn’t the worst person in the world. I could stay in Barrowdeep a little bit longer, figure out what it was about these people that didn’t make me feel so hollow and unwhole. And then I would have the coin in my possession.
With any luck, I might even have temporary ownership of Leoric’s cock, too. I turned back toward the caravan, hands laden with empty bottles. Glass clinked with my every careful step. At the bonfire circle, Riggs kept on snoring.
And from somewhere behind me, something groaned.
Fear fell down my spine, my skin prickling with gooseflesh as the familiar, horrible noise was joined by others of its kind, a grotesque, rasping chorus. The shuffling of nonhuman feet. The scrabbling of nails as they clicked against the cobblestones. My heart pounded, a thunderstorm in my chest.
Ghouls. In the plaza. But how? Seven of them in a loose half circle — how did I not hear them coming? I backed slowly toward my caravan, watching the ghouls as intently as they watched me. A few more feet and I’d be safely inside, ready to engage Wagon and crush these undead monsters under its treads.
And then I bumped into something else.
My skin could have wriggled right off my body, feeling the eighth ghoul’s icy breath blowing down the back of my neck, the ragged, scratching rasp of its throat. It was laughing, gloating over how I hadn’t seen it coming. The others closed in.
Wagon was so close by. With a single command, it would rumble on its wheels and crush the ghouls in one fell swoop — but the impact would surely kill me as well. I hurled the empty bottles to the ground and opened my mouth to scream, anything to alert Riggs and everyone else within earshot.
A hand covered my mouth, its skin mottled and gray, its yellowed nails like talons. My own hands shaking, I somehow unclasped my dagger, slashing out with it wildly. Impact, pressure, then a horrible squelching sound. The ghoul screamed. I must have cut something off, not that it was enough to save me. The smell of death brought me close to retching, but that was when they threw the bag over my head.
My screams came muffled, my lungs filling with the fetid stench of this ancient, moldering sack. Did they scavenge this from one of the graves? Something from the refuse heap? Several pairs of hands grabbed at my clothes, my body, but instead of tearing me apart on the spot, they pulled me in the same direction.
The ghouls were abducting me, and they were cooperating in the effort, too. Father Whiston’s words came rushing back. These things learned from each other without language, retaining knowledge even from their own dead.
Unholy magic bound their minds together, links in an undead chain. Where did it end? Where did it begin?
All the stories from Barrowdeep whizzed through my brain, all the little warnings, even as I screamed and kicked at the air. The ghouling plague could spread, they said. That was how they made more of their kind. And while they preferred corpses, in desperation, they would also feed on the living.
They hoisted me up, tired of dragging me along, carrying me instead like a roasted hunk of flesh, a stuck pig. Why weren’t they eating me? Where were they taking me? I couldn’t fathom the concept, being turned into one of these creatures myself, spending my unlife scrabbling in graves for decaying flesh.
“Leoric,” I heard myself mutter, tasting the salt of my own tears. I’d never felt so helpless, never quite this pathetic. Why didn’t I wait until morning to try this stupid experiment with the bottles?
And then I understood. These things were drawn to me, the priest had said, curious about the quality of fae flesh. But in some corrupt mockery of humanoid intelligence, they also adapted, evolved.
They formed memories, even as they agonized for the light of humanity that they’d lost. Did the ghouls eat human flesh to fill the same hollow I once felt within, a space to selfishly fill with the essence of life, the succulence of conscious thought?
It was the emptied bottles. The ghouls couldn’t sense their contents when they were stoppered, protected by corks and waxen seals. But I’d released enough to draw them to the plaza, the sweetness of human dreams and memories drifting to the graves upon the wind. I’d baited them with a taste of the human soul.
I fell onto the ground. I cried out, the impact thudding against my bones. My skin stung in places, grazed and scraped. This wasn’t the soft earth of the graves, and definitely not the smooth cobblestones of Barrowdeep’s streets. The ground here was harder. Stony. Far, far colder.
Someone yanked the bag off my head. No improvement on the odor or quality of the air I breathed. It smelled like earth and damp and mildew. It smelled like death. I blinked hard, my eyes adjusting to the low light.
The rush of my own blood rang in my ears as I studied my surroundings. Carved stone: ruined statues, immovable crypts, notches in the walls for stacking bodies. Splintered wood from old coffins, broken from the inside out.
And everywhere, the stark ivory of human bone.
Beneath. I was somewhere beneath Barrowdeep, far down in the earth, trapped within a mausoleum. A catacomb. Was there a difference? Did it matter? I glanced around as my panic mounted, searching for an exit, finding them blocked by yet more of these horrible creatures.
For a moment I considered asking why they hadn’t devoured me. Something in their dead eyes still reflected the spark of human intelligence. They would understand, I knew. If their throats weren’t too ruined, they might even reply. But I couldn’t decide which of the potential answers would be worse.
I’d be ripped to shreds if I tried to fight my way out. But did I truly have any choice? I reached for my hip, but my dagger wasn’t there. These monsters knew. They remembered what weaponry was, disarming me in the struggle. My magic couldn’t save me now. What use were colors and lights, pretty birds and blossoms? Leoric was right.
Even the trick I’d used to penetrate the walls of his cabin wouldn’t help. From the Dawning Court, that last, most useful spell. I’d remembered how to filter my form through little cracks between doorways, through glass windows — places where the glow of a summer sun could penetrate. The sun had never shined its light in this cursed place.
I opened my mouth, readying a scream, any way to alert someone to my presence. But a torch flickered at the far end of the room, and then another. Fire. They remembered fire. Illumination spread slowly throughout this awful place. I didn’t think I could be more afraid, and somehow, surely, things got even worse.
The musty air, the dull shades of stone — and most of all, the oppressive cold. I knew I was far from the Fae Wilds, somewhere beneath a town called Barrowdeep, but all I could remember was that graying place.
The Glooming Court, they called it, a barren and colorless hideaway for those who’d been spurned by the four corners, the true fae courts. It was the Wyrding Queen’s sanctuary, where she lured the outcasts and the unwanted, promising them safety, family, a home .
I shivered, the cold studding my skin with gooseflesh, seeping into my bones. I knew I was in Barrowdeep. Only moments ago I stood on the surface, upon its streets. But as much as the Wyrding Queen had taken of my memory, my brain couldn’t seem to forget its cautious fear.
That and the fact that I was still surrounded by these grotesque creatures, my nostrils filled with the stench of rot. They stirred suddenly, gnarled toenails clicking against the stone floor, shambling and shuffling toward the walls. The ghouls were making way for something, crouching on the ground, kneeling.
Reverence. They remembered authority. They remembered fear. Among them stood a figure so starkly different, most prominently for the fact that it stood at all. Where the ghouls crouched low to the ground, huddled like feral beasts, this one stood tall, garbed in old, moth-eaten robes.
Not robes, but a dress of some design, a funereal garment, something beautiful to be buried in. A gown for ghouls. The fear in my heart swelled as it approached — no, as she approached, her narrow waist, her spindly limbs. Coarse white hair fell past her shoulders, a lace veil as fine and delicate as ruined cobwebs hanging over her face.
Imperious, empowered by cold, quiet rage, the withered woman stared through her tattered veils with dead gray eyes. Upon her head, a crown of bones, fashioned, no doubt, by her rotting subjects. A matriarch.
A queen.
“No,” I sobbed, my throat thick with tears. “It’s impossible. It can’t be you.”