A grey haired woman, her back to me, peeked inside the oven, mumbled something, and closed the massive iron door.
“I so seldom cook, I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten how.” She turned.
I’d thought maid or cook or other servant, but it was Hisvin herself.
She had flour on her hands and a dishrag tossed over her right shoulder. Her clothes were simple street clothes, none too stylish. She wore slippers. One was showing a hole at the toe.
“I don’t allow my servants in the kitchen,” she added, smiling. “My sole concession to any lingering vestige of domesticity. Sit.”
I made for the table. A plain wooden chair slid from somewhere in the shadows and came to rest beneath the massive dining table.
I took the nearest and sat. I could have seated fifty of my closest friends around me.
Instead, the Corpsemaster ambled over, pulled back the chair and seated herself.
“Oh, for Angel’s sake, Captain. If I had any intention of killing you I certainly wouldn’t do it here. This is my kitchen, after all.”
I licked my lips. “Sorry. Officers make me nervous.”
She laughed. “Must I remind you that you yourself are an officer, these days?”
“You see my dilemma, sir.”
She shook her head. A silver coffee service appeared, without muss or fuss, at my right hand.
“I take two sugars,” she said.
I fumbled with the spoon.
“Is this better?”
I looked up, and the Corpsemaster had changed.
She was now clad in a black hooded robe. Her hands and face were covered.
“Or this?”
She was a golden-haired, smiling young woman, a bit on the buxom side, dressed in a barmaid’s garb.
“Or perhaps you would prefer this?”
She was Darla, complete with pencil behind her right ear.
I took a deep breath and measured out two spoonfuls of sugar and then poured the coffee in on it.
“This, then.” She was once again the grey-haired lady with the plain face and the weary grey eyes. “Do you know I have not shown my true face in well over a century, Captain?”
“I’m honored,” I replied. “Might I ask why you’ve chosen to do so now?”
“It amuses me. And I believe you can be trusted. And frankly I’m far too tired to keep up a pretense and make breakfast at the same time.”
I found myself chuckling as I stirred. Her cup pulled itself gently away from my hand and glided across the table to hers.
I made myself a cup while she sipped.
“I’ve had some trouble,” I said, after tasting mine. It was army coffee, bitter and strong. “It started in a little farming village. A place called Pot Lockney.”
“I know of it.”
“Mama Hog got involved. She ended it by sticking a former army sorcerer’s head on a pole. Called himself the Creeper.”
Hisvin nodded. “I know the name. One of many whose ambition outpaced their ability in the last days of the War. Why does this Creeper concern you?”
“It’s what Mama found in their possession. Maps. Maps of Rannit. With places on the walls marked.”
“Recent maps?”
“Mama thinks so. She’s bringing the maps back to Rannit. But that will take a couple of days, or longer. And there’s more. Mama also thinks this Creeper character had ties to Prince.”
Hisvin stared into her cup.
“Troubling. Pot Lockney is close, relatively speaking. If this Creeper employed agents, they may have been observing the work along the walls.”
“Could be. Mama can’t read the notations. I didn’t think you’d want to wait.”
“Indeed. I do not. It is good that you came, Captain. I am pleased.”
I nodded. “Oh. I also have word from Evis, who asked me to convey to you his thanks. The
Regency
is ahead of schedule.”
“Excellent.” She rose, her face grim. “I need those maps, Captain. And the body of the Creeper.”
“I’m afraid Mama removed the head. She has some unique tastes in lawn decorations.” I hesitated. “The whole body?”
“The head will suffice. I have questions. This Creeper may hold some of the answers.”
“I did mention the part about him being dead.”
“You did. A small impediment. I require the maps as well.”
“They’re too big for pigeons to carry, sir. I was hoping you’d have a way to, um, expedite their arrival here.”
“Oh, I do. I do indeed.”
I never saw her speak a word, never saw her so much as wiggle a finger in a mystical fashion.
But she did something.
And she did it to me.
“I dare not leave Rannit myself,” I heard her say, though her words seemed hollow and soft, as though carried across a great distance. “And my servants, though tireless, lack the speed I require. But you, Captain—you still retain the huldra, deep inside. You were quite right. I did give it to Mama, that night. Before you told it your name.”
I tried to speak. My throat was tight as stone.
“I shall awaken it, Captain. Only for tonight. It will trouble you no more, on the sunrise. But tonight, you will walk, and you will seek out these maps, and the Creeper’s remains, and you will hasten to bring them all here to me. That is, I’m afraid, an order. Do you understand me?”
“I do.” It was my voice, but the words were not mine.
The huldra stirred, waking, restless, eager to walk again after sleeping for so long.
I tried to fight it. I did. But I might as well have fought a thunderstorm or wrestled a cloud.
The Corpsemaster smiled, and spoke a long strange word, and the huldra cried out in triumph. I rose, up and up, towering above roof and limb and sky, though never losing sight of the Corpsemaster’s tired old eyes.
I turned, clouds in my face, and I stepped over the crooked house and began my night walk to Pot Lockney.
Chapter Nineteen
Rannit lay wide beneath me. Here and there, lights shone. Here and there, fires burned. Soldiers scurried like beetles. Halfdead crept, thinking themselves hidden in the dark. From my vantage, they shone like scuttling fireflies.
I took a step, moved a mile. My footfalls shook the earth, but caused no damage to the structures upon which I trod. The huldra whispered to me, telling me how I might crush them, and I heard words, but did not speak them.
I walked. Halfdead flickered beneath me. Their lights lit up the Hill, giving it the appearance of a busy bed of ants.
I saw other lights too. Brief, faint glimmers of radiance that fled from my path. The huldra named them as they vanished—Ricoth, the Storm, Nellie Witch-hands. Rivals of Hisvin, fleeing my path, though they could neither see me nor sense my form.
Rannit was filled with sorcerers that night.
I chuckled at their scampering. A sound like thunder filled the sky. I raised my hand, and lightning met my fingertips, and on a whim I cast it down, wheeling and roaring, right into the muddy face of the Brown.
I laughed. The huldra urged me on. My stride took me across whole neighborhoods with each step. Cambrit passed beneath me, tiny and dirty and dark.
I crossed the Brown. Bridge clowns gripped the rails in fear, their wary painted faces turned upturned at the empty sky. The Hill was down there, and Avalante, but I had no time to tarry.
I left the city, skirted the west wall, turned north. The huldra whispered, telling me to avoid stepping in the Brown, to keep to the forests on either side.
I gazed toward Price, felt my sight extend. I could see all the way there, if I wished, but the huldra warned me against it, as other eyes were even now peering south, toward Rannit.
I reduced my stature, pulled in the fog of power that rose off me like steam. Maps, I remembered. Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
The words ran singsong through my mind. They seemed to amuse the ghost of the huldra, and before I knew it, I was whistling a melody I’d never heard and singing the song in my head.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head…
I sang it all the way to Pot Lockney.
Rain stung the back of my neck and washed like ice water down my face.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head…
Plegg House. It stood before me, warped timbers and moss-covered roof lit only by flashes of lightning.
And there, near the house, was a long straight pole, and atop it was the Creeper’s head.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
I grew until I could pluck the head from the pole, as if I were out picking grim fruit from the garden of nightmares. The rain had washed all the blood away, but the Creeper’s eyes and mouth were open. Closer inspection revealed that Mama, always one for drama, had propped them open with twigs.
I held the Creeper’s dead face close to mine. The huldra showed me the last vestiges of the dead man’s magic, which still shone weakly in the backs of his eyes.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
I laughed. Thunder rolled.
Mama came stomping onto her porch, cleaver in her right hand, dried owl in her left.
“Boy, what’s been done to you?”
“Good evening, Mama. I’m here for the maps. And this.” I hefted the head. “The Corpsemaster sends his regards.”
“I knowed you’d never be rid of that damned thing. I’m sorry, boy. Well and truly sorry.”
“Yours was not the fault,” I said, the words strange on my lips. “But no matter. It is done.”
“Aye. It is done.” Mama lowered her cleaver. “Maps are in here. I’ll fetch them. You’re a mite too tall to go indoors.”
I nodded. Mama shuffled away, leaving me whistling in the rain.
I tossed the Creeper’s head up into the air, caught it as it fell, tossed it again, much higher this time.
Mama trundled back onto her porch, her arms full of rolled-up papers, each tied neatly with bits of yarn.
“You ought not to be doin’ that,” she said. “It ain’t right.”
I caught the head with a laugh. “As you wish.” Mama put the rolled maps down just inside the wall of water dripping off her roof. “Wait and I’ll get you a sack.”
“We’re in no hurry.” My voice came from the dead man’s head after the huldra showed me a word that would move his lips. Mama snorted and whirled.
The rain intensified. I could have stopped it. I could have sent it back into the sky, drop by drop, trickle by trickle.
Mama emerged again, a burlap sack in her hand. She trundled to the edge of her porch and held it open, out in the rain.
I dropped the Creeper’s head inside.
“The sooner you get back to Rannit the better,” Mama said. “You remember how long it took to get shed of that thing, the first time?”
“I do. And I won’t be so eager to be rid of it again, I think.”
I whispered a word, and the rain stopped.
Mama shouted something, and it started again.
I laughed. Mama put her back to me and slammed her door in my face.
I caught up the Corpsemaster’s precious maps, and took a pair of steps, and reflected on how lovely was the Moon, shining high above the tattered racing clouds.
I did not go immediately back to Rannit.
I knew the Corpsemaster would not be pleased. I knew, but the prospect of the Corpsemaster’s displeasure no longer troubled me. So I made for the Brown instead, and when the waters thereof washed about my knees, I turned my face north and walked, sending great sprays of muddy water far into the wilderness on either side.
The frantic huldra warned me against searching for the
Regency
. But I held fast to my fancy, and it had no choice but to follow. When it railed threats that it would remove itself from me I laughed, knowing them empty.
So we walked. I took on a new shape, one that rendered me invisible to any sorcerous persons watching.
Magic I might have tricked, but not nature. Birds flew as I passed. Deer bolted. Bears turned from their fishing and fled. A single bold owl refused to flee, following instead, and I chuckled as I recognized Mama Hog’s hand upon it.
I cast my vision north as I walked. The huldra reluctantly showed me how. Far, far up the Brown, I could see dim shapes in the darkness—square, graceless bulks that wallowed and bobbed in the water. Three shining figures moved among them, casting a harsh radiance that made it hard for me to see.
I withdrew my sight, lest I be caught out. Even though the rough-hewn barges I saw numbered in the hundreds, I was not daunted. Such fragile things. So easily broken.
At last, I caught sight of the
Regency
and its barges, churning their way steadily against the current, a wake of dark smoke trailing behind. Her decks were dark and her windows covered, but her smokestacks coughed sparks and I could see her easily in the lightning that flashed about her.
I hurried, sending waves over both banks. As I reached her, I dwindled, lest my approach raise alarms.
I barely rose above her stacks when a lantern flared on her deck and a trio of halfdead loosed glittering crossbow bolts at my face.
I chuckled and brushed them aside.
“Good evening,” I said. My voice echoed across the Brown, and I made it softer. “Evis. Come forth.”
I was much diminished, but even so I had to hurry to keep up with the
Regency
. It amused me to walk atop the frothing waters whipped up by the craft’s steadily churning paddle wheels.
The trio of halfdead kept their crossbows upon me. Ogres gathered in the shadows, readying their massive steel-tipped spears for throws I could easily swat aside.
Evis appeared, at a run, a strange thing of brass and steel gripped tightly in both his hands.
“I trust I have not disturbed you,” I said.
He regarded me with his dead white eyes for a moment. Then he relaxed, let the object in his hands drop to his waist, and ordered his men back to their posts.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you until we returned.”
“Come out, Miss,” I said. “I can see you.”
Gertriss appeared. She carried a long, plain blade around which a complex spell swirled and spun. I blew it out as one blows out a candle.
“No need for such things.” I felt myself smile. “The Corpsemaster sends her regards.”
Evis made a small bow. “I hope she is pleased with our progress.”
“She will be.” I hefted the sack I carried. “Miss, Mama has solved our little problem, in her usual straightforward fashion.”