17. Orphium
Chapter 17
Orphium
T he gray woman took one step closer, the expression impossible to read on her shriveled mouth. Her lips pulled back to expose sharp teeth, old and hard as ivory. Was she sneering? Was she smiling?
“It’s not you,” I muttered, finding the courage to speak. “Not out here. Not this far from the Fae Wilds.”
And indeed it wasn’t. Even desiccated in death the Wyrding Queen wouldn’t be so shrunken. This creature’s hair, though gone white, was clearly of an entirely different style and texture.
Through instinct I knew that someone as powerful as herself, though still not quite as powerful as a monarch of the four true courts, wouldn’t be so susceptible to undead corruption, especially from something as lowly as the common ghoul.
And most telling of all, wicked as she was, the Wyrding Queen would never be caught dead wearing something so shabby .
I was most careful to bite my tongue as those last thoughts spun through my mind. Wouldn’t be the first time my mouth got me into trouble. But would this woman even understand me? The ghouls certainly had enough intelligence left to pick up on tone and vocal intent. Could this be their leader?
I held my breath, understanding dawning on me like the morning sun. Their shows of reverence, the way they cowered in her presence out of both respect and fear. This was no mere commander of an undead legion. This was their progenitor. Their maker.
“So you know,” the woman croaked, her rasping voice emanating from cracked lips, a withered throat. “You understand what I am.”
“You can speak,” I said, my fear subsiding for the first time since I was brought to this horrible place. This was good. This was a start. My mouth often got me into trouble, true enough, but it was often helpful for getting me out of it, too.
A horrible scratching sound accompanied the rustling of her veils. She was laughing. She parted her hands, spread out her arms, gesturing at the creatures crouched and scattered around the mausoleum.
“Unlike my children, I have been granted the gift of true speech. One of my privileges as a mother of ghouls, you see. One of many mothers.”
I swallowed, somehow never having considered the possibility that other ghoul colonies spread out across Aidun might be controlled by their own leaders — these ghoul mothers.
“And who was it that granted you this gift?” I nodded toward her, meaning it as a show of both curiosity and respect. “Your speech, your undeath.”
She clasped her hands together, a mockery of prayer. “I do not question my origins. I have embraced that I am, and so I must be. And like the other mothers, I know that my aim is to spread the gift of undeath throughout the land.”
Tunnels and networks, Father Whiston told us. These pockets of ghoul cults were all connected, possibly traveling between settlements of the living by burrowing beneath villages, towns, entire cities. Did the link of their decaying minds only loop back to the individual mothers, or did they all share this dark record of knowledge? Always evolving, ever learning, even in death.
“Shouldn’t you be looking beyond Barrowdeep?” I asked. “Surely you have more ambition than this little town. You’ll make more of a killing in a bigger city. Quite literally, in fact.”
Again her veils rustled, her chest heaved, a throaty chuckle. The ghoul mother wagged one spindly finger in my face.
“Very clever, your people. Quite cunning, trying to tempt me with a larger feast. Why is that? You’ve only been here some days, have you not? Have you learned to care for these humans so quickly?”
“They’ve treated me with kindness,” I replied. “It’s more than I can say for people back where I was from. You may not understand it, now that you’re long dead, but I mean to help these humans however I can. It was worth a try.”
A clod of dirt fell from the ceiling, barely grazing the ghoul mother’s shoulder. How bizarre. She didn’t even notice. An earthquake? Was something happening up in Barrowdeep? A pebble followed suit, then another, clattering politely to the floor. I licked my lips. Perhaps my luck had changed after all.
The ghoul mother shook her head and clucked her tongue. “You aren’t one of them, offspring of the Fae Wilds. Closer to us, you are, hungry for sustenance that common food cannot provide. Why not join us? A mother’s kiss is painless. A mother’s embrace is warm. It means that you will never need to know the cold torment of sleeping in the dirt, or an icy tomb.”
Immortality, or something like it. An endless life as a shambling undead monstrosity, always hunting, always preying on others. Always taking. Been there. Done that.
A larger bit of rock fell to the floor, followed by a puff of dirt. Again the ghoul mother paid the debris no attention, too interested in turning me for the sake of her cause.
“Thank you, madam, but I’m afraid I’ll have to turn down your kind offer. I’m enough of a parasite as it is. I’m a bit proud of it, really.”
When the ghoul mother’s mouth twisted, this time I could tell it was a disappointed pout.
“A most unfortunate state of affairs,” she sighed. “You would have been a fine addition to our family. But you seem to believe that you have a choice in the matter. We may feast upon your flesh and what remains of your corpse will still reanimate under my power. Like it or not, you will belong to me, in body, mind, and whatever remains of your wretched spirit. ”
She might not have been the Wyrding Queen herself, but she was definitely just as nasty. I folded my arms and smirked right in her flabbergasted undead face.
“I think I’ll take my chances with the living, thanks very much.”
The ghoul mother’s mouth crackled like old parchment as she drew back her lips, baring her bone-yellow teeth. “I’ll make sure that your death is painful. Did you truly believe you could talk your way out of this? Pah! Fool that you are, as delusional as all the rest of the fae. There is no escape. The only way is up. Were you planning to fly your way out of here?”
I pointed at the rapidly disintegrating ceiling. “It looks like I won’t have to.”
The ghoul mother looked up. Her veils fell aside as she parted her lips to scream, just in time for her to receive an entire mouthful of dirt. No, a face full. No, more.
I sprang away, my back against the wall as more and more of the ceiling caved in. Truly cathartic to see the ghoul mother buried alive — unalive, rather, in a shower of dirt and bone fragments. And just when I thought that the mound of soil and rubble before me had been enough of a present from the heavens, another gift fell onto the pile.
“Leoric?” I shouted, incredulous.
He yelped as he landed on loose soil, limbs splayed, back arching in agony. A moment later, his shovel slipped from the ceiling as well, its blade swerving in its descent at the very last moment. That thing could have speared him right in the crotch. Incredibly lucky, supernaturally so, and several times over. I told him that the coin was worth it, didn’t I? I was right. The damned thing was blessed all along.
The ghouls — those that still remained standing — snarled and slavered, talons extended as they snapped their jaws at the air. Understandable. We’d killed their mother, after all.
“My hero,” I said, meaning it with all my heart, except my mouth and my throat couldn’t help twisting the words to add a sprinkle of sarcasm.
“Shut up,” Leoric said through clenched teeth. He pressed his hand to his lower back, sweating and grunting. He would look so lovely if I didn’t know he was in pain. “Shut up, shut up. And help me up already.”
“One moment,” I said, lifting a finger. And then I lifted all the others, casting my hand out at the frothing, gibbering horde. “Explodia!”
Birds, blossoms, butterflies — a flurry of blinding multicolored chaos detonated in the mausoleum, bounding from wall to wall. The ghouls fell to the ground, yowling and covering their heads.
The first time I’d tried this trick it had only dazzled them. The link of their decaying minds must have taught them that the bursts of bright magic couldn’t hurt them up on the surface, out in the open air of Barrowdeep.
But in an enclosed space, every corporeal undead creature knew the importance of avoiding fire. The flickering lights and colors of my spell came close enough.
Amusing, then, that their ghoul mother had chosen to make her presence known through the lighting of torches. Was that display meant to intimidate me, revealing their numbers? Did she think it would convince me to join them?
Either way, she was crushed under a pile of dirt and rubble — and I had fire within reach. I sprang toward the closest sconce, ripping a torch out of the wall, waving it menacingly before me. Excellent. At least now I was armed.
“Leoric,” I shouted. “Get up. We have to fight our way out of here.”
One hand still clasping his lower back, he finally removed himself from the pile, wincing and groaning as if he’d suddenly grown as old as Redginald himself. He patted around in the dirt for his shovel, then hobbled to my side.
“You’d think you’d help me up,” he grunted.
“I was too busy saving your sore and sorry bottom with that spell of mine that you like so much.” I nudged him with my elbow and grinned. “And besides, you looked like you were doing just fine.”
Leoric harrumphed, streaks of dirt like warpaint across his cheeks, roots and twigs decorating his hair. My sweaty, soil encrusted hero. What a pair we made, a gravekeeper with back problems and a flaming fae man. Like an old married couple, really, with particular emphasis on “old” in Stonesguard’s case. I found that I didn’t mind the imagery.
Flames crackled from the end of my torch. Metal clanged ominously throughout the catacombs as Leoric struck his shovel against stone. A warning, and an invitation for battle as well. Snarling, howling, the ghouls surged forward .
Sweat trickled down the back of my ear. I licked my lips, my heart pounding. A dagger wasn’t the best weapon to wield against the undead, but at least I knew how to use one. A torch, on the other hand? I was in over my head.
I thought frantically through what was left of my memories. Why, in all my time at the Dawning Court, did I not study to make the magic of fire? Difficult to master, yet so iconic to our kind. What was a fireball if not a miniature summer sun?
Nails scratched on stone as the ghouls sped forth. One of them came so close I could find the fury in its eyes. It locked its gaze on me, fixing me with undead hunger and hatred. Spittle sprayed from its ragged lips, its crooked talons poised to sink into my flesh.
The blade of Leoric’s shovel sang through the air, slicing cleanly through the ghoul’s neck like an executioner’s axe. I should have guessed it was enchanted all along. I heaved a sigh of relief, torch still clenched firmly in front of me.
“Some spell you cast,” Leoric muttered. “You only made them angrier.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. I bought us time to regroup. I bought you time to pick yourself up and put your spine back together.”
Leoric slashed out with the shovel once more, his grip shifting, this time wielding it like a halberd. It bit deep into another ghoul’s neck, sending its head flying across the room.
“I still think ‘Explodia’ is a stupid spell word. But enough sweet talk. We need to get out of here. ”
“Stairs,” I shouted, pointing at the far end of the room, steeling myself against the creeping sensation of despair. How many more of these things stood between us and freedom? More were pouring out of the alcoves by the minute.
Another ghoul came too close for comfort. I beat my torch against its face, lighting its hair on fire. The flames spread down to its tattered clothing. It disengaged, shrieking and blindly clawing at its face, a walking ball of fire.
And then it bumped into another ghoul, setting that one aflame, and another, the initial blaze spreading through the room like wildfire. A single smack from a torch to take down so many ghouls.
I pursed my lips and nodded at my torch in approval. I could tell Leoric was trying his very hardest not to look impressed. More importantly, the surviving ghouls were now regarding me with something close to fear. Much better.
“Still not enough to kill all of them.” I swept the torch in a semicircle of flame as we advanced. Progress, slowly but surely. “With any luck we’ll make it to the stairs before more of them arrive. Hah. What luck, eh, Leoric? Good thing you brought the coin with you.”
The shovel gripped in both hands, he thrust it forward like a spear, severing a ghoul’s head from its shoulders. “I misplaced it, actually,” he huffed. “When the ground above us caved in. The coin fell with me.”
“What?” I yelped, taking a step back. “We have to retrieve it.”
“No! We fight our way out, join forces with the Gwerenese and the townsfolk. Then if it’s so important to you, we come back and clean this place out.”
I bashed the torch against a ghoul’s chest, setting its robes alight. “With fire, if we have to,” I said through clenched teeth. “The flames will leave the coin untouched.”
Of course Leoric had to go and lose the blessed coin. An object of fae legend, its power very much responsible, no doubt, for causing Leoric’s extremely convenient cave-in.
In fairness, I should have been grateful for the accidental and incredibly fortuitous rescue. If we survived this bloody affair, I could make it up to him, thank him in a myriad of very pleasurable ways.
And perhaps the people of Barrowdeep would forgive me when I offered them everything I’d learned from the ghoul mother. Blasphemous progenitor of the Barrowdeep cult, responsible for turning new corpses and the living alike into carrion-starved monsters. Not merely their mother and master, but their queen bee.
My muscles ached as I slashed with the torch again and again, drawing great arcs of fire, leaving trails of dark smoke. She was their queen bee. These were the workers, the drones, all the ghouls she’d turned. Beekeepers used smoke to disorient their bees, didn’t they? To make them more docile, to make it safer to gather their honey. And when their queen died, sooner or later, the colony would collapse.
Wasn’t it supposed to be the same with these creatures?
The ghoul mothers ruled the cells and colonies of ghouls all over Aidun, or so this dead one had explained to me. The fear and reverence her children had shown her, the collective consciousness that linked them all — shouldn’t destroying her have severed those bonds, broken the minds of the very ghouls in this necropolis?
My breathing quickened as I glanced over my shoulder toward the great dirt mound behind us. It had saved Leoric from breaking his spine in the same instant that it had supposedly destroyed the ghoul mother.
A gnarled gray hand erupted from the mound.
“She’s still alive,” I shouted.
“ Who is alive?” Leoric shouted back. “I thought they were all undead.”
“Don’t argue with me, Stonesguard. The ghoul mother. Their leader. Look! She has the blasted coin.”
And sure enough, clutched between her fingers was the gleaming gold of the fae coin. Now this was true blasphemy, besmirching the majesty of the fae relic with her undead blight. Another hand broke through the soil, and then a head, the ghoul mother leering ferociously as she dragged her way out of the mound.
“This bauble calls to me,” she rasped, bones creaking as she stood. “There is old magic in this little trinket. I hear its arcane hum. I feel its baleful power.”
We didn’t need to exchange a single word. Leoric and I broke into a run, sprinting forward to stop her. He swung his shovel in a huge, decisive arc — decapitation was imminent. Instead the shovel’s head clanged against thin air.
I hurled the torch at the ghoul mother, aiming for her highly flammable veils, her hair, her burial dress. The flames exploded as if they’d struck something concrete, except nothing was there. I banged my fist at the air. The air resisted, thudding with every strike. A magical barrier. But how?
The ghoul mother lifted her hand to the ceiling, the coin floating within the birdcage of her fingers, spinning lazily. I’d seen the devices of those who studied the stars, their strange brass machines and astrolabes that they used to measure the movement of celestial bodies, to divine their secrets.
How had this wizened, wicked creature so quickly divined the secret of the coin? Even now I could sense its power flooding the catacombs, reaching beyond its earthly limits, piercing outward, ever outward.
The coin could dispense good luck or ill fortune on a whim, flipping between its two faces. Somehow she was siphoning its blessings all for herself, transmitting the dominance of her ghoulish will across vast distances, leaving all the bad luck for me and Leoric.
“I can’t break through,” Leoric grunted, charging forward by the shoulder, never making any headway. The invisible barrier held, unyielding, unbreakable. Was it erected by the coin, or the ghoul mother’s will? Would we live long enough to find out?
The ceiling rumbled, the walls trembled, the sound of talons digging and scraping audible through dense earth, through even thicker stone. More of the ghoul mother’s children were coming, answering her silent call. The drones and the workers had come to protect their queen.
From above, silt and soil dropped in ever larger clumps. I must have only imagined the sweet smell of fresh air trickling toward us. Now the walls were closing in — and so were the ghouls.
I remembered Whiston’s words, how the priest said that the ghouls would remember me. How vexing, knowing that the ghoul mother and her undead brood could make their own memories. How cruel to be reminded that I’d been robbed of my own.
And then I knew.
“A wager,” I shouted, the only trick I had left up my sleeve.
“Orphium,” Leoric hissed. “What are you doing?”
The trembling stopped. The ghoul mother tilted her head. Through her veils she watched me with narrowed eyes.
“Let’s play a game. If we win, you must leave this place forever and take your ghouls with you. If you win, all of Barrowdeep is yours to do with as you please.”
She scoffed. “Fae fool. Pitiful creature. My victory is close at hand. What could you possibly offer me now? My entire bloodline — all of my children — they await my word. When I give the command, every living thing in Barrowdeep will be slaughtered.”
“My body,” I said. “I can offer you my body, my mind, my soul. You said so yourself. You can reanimate what’s left of me once your children have finished feeding on my corpse. There won’t be much of my magic left. But if I surrender myself while I am still whole, I’ll have all my fae power to contribute to the undead cause.”
“You can’t do this,” Leoric whispered, reaching for my arm. “Please. ”
I nudged him away, afraid to meet his face, afraid that all the courage and stupidity and bravado would drain out of me if the same sadness in his voice appeared in his eyes.
Never falter. Never flinch.
“A fae servant,” I continued. “A magical being to call your own, a member of your family.”
The ghoul mother lowered her hand, the coin still spinning in the space above her palm. “You would wager the well-being of this entire human settlement?”
I shrugged. “What have I got to lose? You will, however, have to wager something yourself. It’s tradition. Just the way things work with my people.”
She bared her teeth, holding both hands close to her chest. “Very clever. No. You can’t have this coin.”
I shook my head. “No, no. It has to be something old, something that you might have loved once. That’s where the magic comes in, you see? That’s how we seal the pact. Consider it your entry fee at a carnival stall. Pay before you play.”
The ghoul mother tilted her head. “You fae are a queer kind of folk.”
Again I shrugged. “More than you can possibly imagine.”
Leoric shook his head, lips pursed as if to contain his anger, his protest. I stepped forward to meet the ghoul mother halfway. He didn’t try to stop me.
The ghoul mother tore the veil from her face, the ancient material ripping as easily as flimsy parchment. She stretched out her fingers. It flitted toward me like a ghost, penetrating her magical barrier. In my hand, the veil was whisper soft, like cobwebs.
“And the nature of your game?” she asked.
“Simple. Heads or tails. You flip the coin. That’s it.”
The ghoul mother grinned. “I pick heads.”
“Very well. Tails it is, then.”
With her thumb, she flicked the coin into the air. The mausoleum went deathly quiet as we watched it glimmer and spin. It landed in the palm of her hand, making a horrible squelching indentation in her decayed skin.
All three of us leaned in to inspect the coin. The ghoul mother grinned so widely that her mouth could have split at the seams.
“I win,” she said, cackling.
Saying nothing, I focused on the feel of the veil in my fingers. I gasped as the most cherished of her memories came rushing through my skin. This woman was a priestess once, a holy woman of a civilization older than Barrowdeep, older than these catacombs.
And in those times, among great pillars, in a gleaming temple with its roaring braziers, the woman who became the ghoul mother had pledged herself to her gods. Older than even those that Father Whiston worshipped, names and entities long forgotten by the people of Aidun.
And as her sisters completed the ritual that inducted her into this sacred order, as they robed her in the holy vestments of their religion, the priestess made her vow. She would always remain chaste, never to know the warmth of a lover’s touch, and especially never to bear children of her own.
That was the veil’s purpose, to separate her from common flesh, to mark her as a bride of the divine. Receiving the ghoulish embrace had been a blessing, a fulfillment of her greatest, most secret, most forbidden wish: to become a mother. A progenitor of her own family, her own colony, her own legion.
“Did you hear me, fae?” the ghoul mother snapped. “I win.”
I held the ceremonial veil close to my lips, inhaling the death and dust, consuming the sweetness of her memories. Within my body, the golden light of her consciousness dimmed, digested by my own hollow hunger.
A final repast. My very last meal.
The ghoul mother exploded in a cloud of ashes, robes, and dust. Around us, in every corner of the mausoleum, whether crouched in terror or clawing through the walls, every last ghoul collapsed into a desiccated heap. Dry, decayed, and truly, finally dead at last.
Leoric spun in a circle, eyes huge as he took in the destruction. “Orphium, you did it! What? Why? How?”
“I’m the hero of Barrowdeep,” I told him, hands on my hips. “Say it.”
He shook his head, metal clanging as he struck the floor with his shovel. “I don’t know what you did, or how you did this, but — well, Barrowdeep owes you a debt of gratitude. At least enough to forgive you for stealing their memories. ”
I scratched at my forearm. “I was planning to give them back. Really. Honest.”
Leoric conceded with a small smile. “The broken bottles back in the plaza, next to your wagon. So you do have a heart, after all. But I still don’t understand. That ghoul woman was their leader, wasn’t she? I thought she won your game.”
I wagged my finger in his face, earning myself another scowl. “You should have known. The game itself doesn’t matter. When I take the keepsake, I take the memories, too. I guess there wasn’t much holding her together to begin with. But it worked out in the end, did it not? Also, it’s very sweet that you’re so afraid to lose me.”
Leoric bristled. He rose to his full height, his cheeks bright red. “I — afraid? What? I said no such thing. Afraid to — hah. Please.”
He was handsome, to be sure, but so adorable when he stammered.
“Whatever you say, Stonesguard. But now, to claim my prize.”
I retrieved the torch that I’d hurled at the ghoul mother, its flames completely died out. Like a stick I used it to poke at her remains, searching through her disintegrating garments. Nothing.
Leoric protested when I ripped his shovel out of his hands, then watched in silence as I dug through the pile that was once the ghoul mother, as I kicked in frustration at her ashes.
“It’s not here,” I wailed.
The coin was gone.