Chapter 63
LXIII
Shall I describe, one final time, a great slaughter?
Shall I give the account of yet more bloodshed in this already blood-drenched story of the Beast of Gévaudan?
I find I haven’t the heart for it.
I will tell you first that there were almost none left living in the parlor of Chateau d’Ocerne afterward; be clear that there is no hope in what there is left to say.
I will tell you that the rebels had dragged prisoners with them from the chateau apartments, among them Jacques’s dear Eloise.
I will allow you to imagine for yourself the horror of Jacques, in his bestial form, devouring his family. His mother. His own wife. You can conjure your own picture of the starving villagers who assailed him with farming tools and antiquated weapons, and the awful wounds suffered on both sides.
And I will tell you that I fled, dragging Antoine with me to the back of the room while they were all distracted with the horror of it.
I thought only of getting him away while I could. Tendrils of anima were rippling up and away from him, starting always around his heart. Michael’s presence began to soften, now surrounding Antoine’s head with gentle white light. It was beginning.
Antoine was dying.
“Antoine,” I said, close to his ear. “Antoine, I need to get these chains off! I can help you, but you must release me! Please! What are the words?”
He looked at me bitterly, his breath coming shorter and shorter.
“Why, Sebastian? Do we not both deserve this?”
I looked into his eyes, despairing. “Antoine, please. We are going to die!”
“Do you believe I wish to survive after what I have done? This ruin I have brought on my own house? My own family?” He coughed, a dreadful, sticky sound.
“Antoine—” The room shook again with the roar of gunpowder and one of the doorways collapsed. Jacques roared; horrifyingly, I could recognize his voice in the sound.
Hurry up, Sebastian! That one is nearly out of villagers and this one is not going to last much longer!
Antoine gripped me suddenly by the shoulder. The radiance around his head was growing brighter and deeper.
“Promise me! If I release you, promise me you will find a way to cure Jacques!”
“I . . . I will, Antoine. If it takes me the rest of my life. I promise.”
And still he hesitated. “But how can I trust you again?” he rasped. “I feel I have placed my trust always in the wrong place. First in miracles and magic. Then the bishop and the Lord Almighty. Either way, a massacre.”
“Then one more time, I beg you. No magic. No Almighty. No bargains.” I placed my hand on his chest, feeling his heart like a frightened bird under my palm. “Just me. If you ever loved me, trust me now.”
He is going!
“I . . .” Antoine’s voice failed and his eyes began to close.
“No. No! Antoine, not like this!”
Mercy! I called to the Archangel above me. Mercy, Michael! I wish to treat with you!
Wh-what?! balked Sarmodel. He hissed in disdain. Oh, Sebastian, you are disgusting!
I ignored him and instead opened my heart to the Archangel’s implacable gaze, letting the Grand General see my pain and my shame and my fear—all of it. I hid nothing and allowed him inside the wordless desperation I felt.
I promise payment in kind, whatever you will, I pleaded. But I beg mercy. For Antoine. Keep him here, just a little while longer. Give this one thing to me, please.
There was no answer—there could be no answer in the Mundane world—but the Archangel’s Divine radiance brightened once more. Beneath my hands rose a sudden thrumming vibration in Antoine’s chest, as though a fire had been vigorously fanned, or a vessel filled with rushing water.
Antoine opened his eyes.
Thank you, Michael.
On my palm appeared a shining white sigil, traced in lines of Divine fire.
The Contract of Obligation. And at its center, the symbol of the lion.
The Archangel would claim his price when he was ready, it seemed.
“Sebastian,” said Antoine. He was lucid once more.
“The key, Antoine!” I held up my Shackles, and this time he did not refuse.
With a sluggish nod, he placed his hand on the Shackles. “Sim Sala Bim,” he said.
The chains fell away immediately and I threw them aside.
Finally!
The fist in my throat was gone. Sarmodel came forward in a rush and my veins were filled with molten silver.
I looked back only once.
Jacques . . .
The young man was a frenzied monster, bleeding from so many wounds that he seemed to wear a glistening red skin.
The remaining villagers were no match for him, but the creature was almost spent.
His shining, tarry black eyes met mine with flat hatred, and I know that if he had found the strength, he would certainly have taken me as his next victim.
By the Rift—move, Sebastian!
I collected Antoine in my arms and sprang through the shattered western window, out into the night.
And then I ran, fast enough and far enough that even the Beast would not find me.
I set him down by the stream as the sun was coming up.
It was the same stream where he had once caught a fine silver trout in his drawers; the stream where I can see him still, his body dripping water and shining like polished wood in the fading light.
Antoine’s anima was lifting off him in sheets now. But Michael’s gift was still strong enough to keep him breathing, and as he opened his eyes, he smiled.
“Sebastian,” he said. He seemed confused, but he finally saw me; I don’t know how else to describe it. For the first time since my return, he was there with me. “I feared I had lost you.”
“No, Antoine. I’m here,” I said. I took him in my arms and kissed the blood from his lips, heedless. “I’m here, at your service, always.”
“It’s a strange thing . . . at the Bow and Brace .
. . did you know I wanted to go with you, when you went after the Beast?
I have always thought it might have been different.
” He looked at me with wonder, as he had that time under the bridge at Saint-Julienby-the-Stream, as though he were seeing the face of the world for the first time. “How did I let you go alone?”
“You’re here now,” I said, choking. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here.” I rubbed my face against his, feeling the warmth of his breath, the rough tickle of his stubble, and the soft pressure of his lips on my temple. I whispered the words over and over into the hollow of his shoulder.
You’re here. You’re here. You’re here.
“How? How are you still so young? Surely a lifetime has passed since I saw you.” He kissed me and touched his fingertips to my face. “Is it magic? There was always magic with you.” Tears rose in his eyes. “What happened? We were going to . . . together . . .”
“Antoine, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Please. I don’t want to talk. Rest now.”
“I am tired, in truth. Will you light the fire? I tried using the words after you left, but they never worked again. Sim Sala Bim. Another one of your tricks,” he said with that sardonic smile. He tried to pull me closer. “Please, Sebastian, stay with me. It’s cold.”
“I will say the words,” I said. “Do not worry, Antoine. Sleep. I won’t leave you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I am . . . glad of you. Did I ever tell you that?” Then he looked at me, smiling one last time. “Will you give me an answer, now at the last?”
“An answer to what?”
“Will you tell me who you are?”
“Antoine. No,” I said. I found I could not look at him. “I still don’t know, and I fear I never will. I have lived so long, and yet I feel I am still the child I once was. There have been too many years, too many lifetimes of mistakes; looking back I can barely see myself.”
“Then I will tell you what I see. You are the man who brought my son home safely, when he was already half a monster. You are the man who followed me to the riverbed, and the one I kissed under the maple. You are the man who came to find me in the dark when I was losing myself. You are the man who bargained with a monster—twice—to save my life. You are the man I wanted to rebuild Gévaudan with—sugarcane and cinnamon, remember?”
“Antoine, I . . .” I lied to you, and I ruined you, and you are dying because of me.
He was breathing in shallow gulps and he was suddenly confused again. Michael’s gift was fading. “There was a bargain with her—the Lady in the Water, wasn’t there? Did we do something wrong? I have felt that something . . . went wrong.”
“I know, Antoine. I’m sorry. It was my fault, all of it,” I said. “God, I’m so sorry.” I shared his last breath and sobbed, struggling to speak. “But I loved you, always, even when you wanted to kill me. That never changed. I loved you.”
But Antoine was gone. His body was warm, but the divine current of his anima was leaving, gathering all at once into a brilliant mist that began to rise . . . away. . . .
Michael was there waiting, building the Almighty’s light around Antoine like a rising flood.
I closed my eyes and, against all reason, followed him across the divide.