Sunday, September 28, 2008

Heart's Desire, part 29


Chapter 14

Inattention had been the death of many a hiker in the woods, and Malachi knew better than most to keep his mind on the path and not on other things. But when he stepped out of the forest and into a clearing--a clearing that should have been Sennet's stone cottage--he knew that something was very wrong, because the house in the clearing was most definitely not Sennet's house.

For a moment, he thought that he might have lost his way and doubled back on his own trail, but the house that sat in the clearing was not on fire. In fact, as he studied it from the shelter of the forest, it looked--whole.

It was the house he had just seen in ruin. The shape of the chimney and the porches could not belong to its twin. Surely not.

My lord, something-- He opened the bond automatically, or tried to, but nothing happened. His Master's presence did not appear. The bond had vanished from his mind, leaving a strange, aching emptiness behind.

But it was not broken. No one had died. Malachi doubted he would have been able to miss that kind of pain.

So that meant a spell of some sort, blocking the bond, perhaps the same way Josiah's kidnappers had blocked--

Malachi's thoughts stopped cold. Perhaps it was the same way Josiah's kidnappers had blocked the bond! He wished he knew more about magic so he could study it, and try to find a way to combat the spell. Even now, his mind struggled to contact his Master, even without the bond's familiar presence in the back of his mind.

With narrowed eyes, he studied the house.

There were no outward signs of habitation. No lights shone from the windows; there were no cars in the curving driveway and no furniture on the porches to show that the house was occupied. The flowers in the beds along the driveway were strange, though; gold and silver and shining in the sunlight.

Had he somehow slipped past the Veil into Faerie? But how would the house exist in two places at once?

Malachi tested the bond again, out of habit more than any hope that his Master would reply. What if--and this was a plausible thought, in truth--what if Jordan had somehow slipped into Faerie as well? And what if he waited in that house, not realizing the danger?

He had taken two steps into the clearing before he realized he had moved. And as he crept across the clearing--there was no real cover for him to hide behind--he wondered what would happen if his Master tried to open the bond and found him gone.

Malachi froze with his foot on the bottom step of the front porch, imagining his Master's rage. Should he risk his Master's anger to double check that Jordan was not inside the house? He could do a quick search and leave as quickly as possible. If he found Jordan, then perhaps his Master would overlook the dampening spell's effects.

The front door swung open at his touch, and Malachi stepped inside. What had been warped floorboards now shone in the sunlight, and the Oriental rugs that protected the floor were of fine quality and weave. There were trinkets on dark, polished tables and a glass-fronted bookcase along one wall.

And in the parlor, the eviscerated body of an elf lying in the middle of one of the rugs, his empty eye sockets turned towards the windows, his mouth gaping in a silent scream. Bloody gobbets of flesh glistened in the sunlight, as if whatever had--whatever had eaten him had been interrupted in its feast.

Suddenly wary, Malachi took a step backwards.

"Leaving so soon?"

The voice was female, cold and calm, but with an undercurrent of anger that reminded Malachi of his Master's fury.

Before Malachi could flee, someone grabbed his arms and wrenched them backwards. A black Hound appeared out of nowhere, snapping at his feet; Malachi tried to kick it, but a knife pressed across his throat soon disabused him of that notion.

"It would not be a good idea for you to move," his captor whispered, his breath reeking of blood.
The dead elf's body vanished in an instant. Malachi blinked, and a woman stood in its place--a woman dressed in red who seemed both familiar and strange. He stared at her, hardly daring to breathe.

What would his Master say now?

There were more of the black Hounds now--three more, all growling at him. Someone else stood on the other side of the room with her arms folded; Malachi did not realize who she was until she spoke.

"He is a Hound? Are you certain, Stefan?"

"I am as certain as I am certain that your hair is not naturally that yellow," Stefan snapped. "He is a Hound."

Malachi closed his eyes. What was Althea doing here? She was a member of the Council. This was worse than anything he could have imagined. Much, much worse. It would be best to die now at their hands instead of waiting for his Master to kill him later, if he managed to escape.

The knife vanished. Stefan shoved him forward, and he tripped over the edge of a rug and fell at the woman's feet.

He had to swallow twice before he found enough courage to speak. "I don't know what he's talking about. I'm sorry, but you have the wrong person."

The woman laughed. "Oh, no. Stefan wouldn't lie to me. How long has your Master allowed you to shift shape? I was under the impression that the Hounds were just that--Hounds."

"As was I," Althea said darkly. "Does Lucas know this little tidbit?"

"I'm sorry," Malachi said again, his throat dry. "I--"

"Stefan." It was an order, but Malachi didn't realize what it meant until a black Hound attacked, sinking its teeth into his arm before he could even think to defend himself. He cried out and twisted sideways as another one snapped only inches from his face, and another one sank its teeth into his shoulder and pulled him down. He kicked and fought them, but when the fourth one's teeth closed over his throat, he lay still and closed his eyes, waiting for death.

He had almost shifted. But that was what they wanted: proof that he was a Hound.

"Wait." The woman's voice spared him, at least for the moment. "There is an easier way to do this. Stefan, pick him up."

Malachi's legs buckled when Stefan hauled him to his feet. "I am no Hound," he whispered, barely able to force the words past the panic that had lodged in his throat. He felt blood slip down his arm--no doubt dripping on the floor where the elf's blood had been.

"I saw you shift a century ago," Stefan whispered in his ear. "I saw it."

Malachi closed his eyes. He remembered Stefan now, and remembered his doom; the accident that would now be his death. "I'm only nineteen," he whispered without much hope. "Surely if I were that old--"

"Silence!" The woman approached him now, her voice cold. "I can truthspell you, Hound. And I will do it if you don't stop lying to me."

"Do it anyway," Althea snapped, and spoke the words of the spell. "No. I'll do it. As a member of the Council, I'm entitled to know these things. Does Lucas know you can shift shape?"

Malachi fought against the spell, but it fastened its teeth in his mind as effectively as the absent bond. He bit through his lip in the effort to stay silent, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

"Does Lucas know you can shift shape?" Althea asked again.

The spell drove daggers of pain inside Malachi's mind. It was almost akin to the pain when his Master had torn his memories out of his mind, but this pain held an almost--familiar flavor.
As if Althea was using someone else's power to do this. Or was it the Council's shared power? Was the familiarity Lucas Lane?

"Answer me!" Althea shouted, and backed her words with power.

Malachi sagged in Stefan's grasp. "Yes."

"You fought well," the woman said, almost purring now. "But it's really hopeless. Are you one of Gabriel's Hounds?"

"Yes." The word slipped past his lips without a single effort on his part.

"How long has he allowed you to shift?"

He could have explained. About Josiah, and what had happened when he disappeared. He could have spent the next ten minutes telling them everything, but he realized after a moment that he didn't have to explain. The truthspell only wanted the truth. A simple answer. Nothing complicated.

"Since this morning."

Stefan shook him. "That's a lie! I saw you shift before!"

Malachi remained silent. The truthspell prodded him to defend himself, but Stefan's words had not been formed into a question.

"It is quite obvious that Gabriel did not allow him to shift when you saw him," Althea said, and Malachi heard some sort of triumph in her tone of voice.

"How long will it take for your Master to find you gone from the bond you share?" the woman asked.

Malachi stared at her. She knew about the bond as well? A part of his mind laughed at his surprise. Of course she knew. Why else create the dampening spell?

"I don't know," he whispered, which was the truth. "It could be minutes. It could be hours."

"Then we will not keep you," the woman said, ignoring Althea's shout of surprise. "Return here in two days. And remember nothing of this. Nothing."

"What?" Althea had left her spot by the wall now, her face suffused with rage. "Magdalen, you can't just let him go!"

The name Magdalen seemed familiar, but Malachi could not think through the fog that spread through his mind. He stared at the woman who stood in front of him, his eyes wide.

"Who--Who are you?"

"Impressive," Stefan murmured behind him.

"He won't remember a thing," Magdalen said. "And he will return here in two days. We don't want Gabriel to get suspicious--not yet, at least. We have two weeks to ferret out the Hunt's secrets."

"But you told me to kill one Hound and kidnap another. What about that?"

"Silence!" Magdalen's voice rose. "We have time, Althea. Plenty of time. This will work out better than I had ever hoped."

Darkness swam in front of Malachi's gaze now. He blinked and tried to clear his sight, but the darkness persisted. He couldn't see Magdalen anymore--or Althea. He couldn't hear their voices.

Whose voices?

"What about his wounds?"

Desperately, Malachi tried to fix something of this in his mind--in the hope that his Master would discover its presence and tear away the fog. But he couldn't seem to grasp it--any of it--and the darkness swirled around him, dulling his hearing as well.

"Hounds heal fast. And he won't know what happened. Even Gabriel cannot pierce my spells."
"You sound very certain of that."

"I am."




Chapter 15


"I regret that I have to contact you in urgency," Lucas had said when he called. "But there was a child living in the house, and I'm worried that he still might be inside. Can you come?"

And of course, Sennet had come. Only later did she find out that Jordan was living in the burning house with the Council's blessing--and that he was only ten years old.

Her presence, of course, had been useless. She's sensed no sign of Jordan earlier when she met Malachi and Emle at the very same house, and yet Malachi had claimed he was there. That meant Jordan had probably developed a talent the Council did not know about, and that also meant he might be very hard to find.

Even Gabriel's Hounds might have difficulty tracking him down--if he were still alive.

She had stayed with Lucas until the sun had risen, and then she had walked back home with an invitation to join Lucas at the house the next day--to see if they could find Jordan's body.

It had been years since she'd stayed up all night. And at first, when she saw Malachi sitting on her doorstep, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but when he stood, uncertainty and fear plain in his gaze, she wondered if something had happened to change his Master's mind.

"I am--" His tongue tripped over the words. "I am to tell you what I could not tell you before." He held himself stiffly, almost as if he were in pain.

"With your Master's leave?" Sennet had wondered, after meeting Gabriel, if Malachi was, somehow, his Hound. But she did not know enough about the Hunt to answer her own questions, and asking Lucas had not seemed the right thing to do.

Malachi nodded. "He said that if something happened to Emle, he would rather you know now."

It was a wise decision, considering how cautious they had been yesterday morning. "Then let's go inside, where my wards are the strongest." When he hesitated, she smiled at him. "I can make some tea, if you'd like."

"Thank you," Malachi whispered after a moment of indecision. "I--I would like that."

He followed her inside and stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at the inside of her house as if he had never seen such a sight before.

And she noticed that his clothing was torn in places, and that he favored his right leg a little. "Are you hurt?" She felt no pain from him, only confusion and--dread.

"No, I--" His leg buckled, and he lurched against the kitchen table. "I don't know."

Sennet slid a chair under him, and he collapsed, burying his head in his hands. That movement made his sleeve slide up, and she saw a puncture wound on his arm--still seeping blood. "What happened?"

"I don't know." He stared at his arm as if seeing the wound for the first time. "I don't remember this--"

"Let me heal you," Sennet said, offering him her hand.

He shrank away from her. "No. I should--I should tell you what I came for first."

Sennet sat down across from him. "Then tell me. But let me heal you afterwards. Please."

Malachi rubbed his throat. There were marks there as well, but fading fast. "If my Master--"

"You have to get permission to be healed?" Sennet's voice must have risen more than she wished, because he flinched a little at her tone.

"I--" He shivered. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. The last thing I recall is coming here, and I don't think I was attacked on the way." He tried to smile, but his smile did not reach his eyes. "I think I would have remembered that."

"Your Master didn't--" Sennet tried to fish around for words that would not anger him. "You weren't punished?"

Malachi shivered. "No." He stared at her, his eyes wide. "My Master--What would be the point of punishment if I forgot what I was punished for?"

"You're hurt elsewhere, aren't you?" Sennet prodded. "Your leg?"

"Hounds heal fast," Malachi whispered, and then froze.

"You are a Hound, then," Sennet said gently.

"Yes." He rubbed one hand across his face. "We all--We all have human forms."

"I see," Sennet tried to fit her mind around her impression of the Wild Hunt and the Hound sitting in front of her. "And Emle is--?"

"Emle is our Master's lady, of course," Malachi said, frowning. "Our Master saved her life, long ago, and she--well, she left for a while. But then she came back." He rubbed his arm again. "Can I--Can I use the same words Emle used?"

"You can try," Sennet said.

Malachi nodded. "Know nothing more than I would have you to know, then," he said, and extended his hand across the table.

When Sennet took his hand, she found that his wounds weren't nearly as bad as she feared. They were healing already, as he had said, Hounds healed fast. But she helped them along a bit, and by the time she was finished, Malachi's face had regained a little of its color.

He licked his lips. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sennet said. The phrase had worked again--she knew nothing other than what he had already told her. "Would you like some tea?"

"If--If it isn't a problem," Malachi whispered.

"Does Lucas know about this?" Sennet couldn't imagine such a secret being kept a secret for very long. She filled the teapot and turned on the stove, setting out two earthenware mugs in the process.

"Yes."

"But no one else knows? Why didn't he tell the rest of the Council?" Sennet returned to her seat to hear his reply.

Malachi waited a moment to answer, as if he were waiting for a prompt. Or a response from his Master. It was obvious that the Hunt had some sort of bond, after all; how else could Gabriel send his Hounds to search the forest and not keep them under some sort of control?

"Is your Master listening to us?" she asked.

"Not now," Malachi said. He seemed to be a bit more relaxed now, as if the initial telling and the healing of his mysterious wounds had loosened some of his tension. "I asked him why Lucas never shared his knowledge with the rest of the Council."

"And?" From what she knew of the Council, keeping secrets was not something the rest of its members would look kindly upon.

"He said because Lucas is an honorable man," Malachi said as if he didn't quite believe that explanation. "His uncle knew as well."

"And you've kept this a secret from everyone else for how long?" Sennet asked.

"Almost a century," Malachi whispered. "A century in less than two weeks, now."

"Midsummer's Eve," Sennet said. It made sense now--Emle's worry, Malachi's cryptic references.

"Yes." Malachi seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say for a moment, but Sennet didn't think he was arguing with his Master. There was no fear in his gaze at the moment. And surely Gabriel would not punish him for obeying his order. "We were not--permitted our human forms after Josiah disappeared ten years ago."

"Josiah disappeared?" Ten years ago had been right around the time that she had found Emle in the forest, and subsequently delivered Eri, who was, of course, Gabriel's daughter. How could such a thing happen and no one be the wiser? "What happened?"

The teapot's whistle saved Malachi from replying, but only for a moment. As Sennet turned to pour hot water over the teabags, he continued the story.

"Josiah was a student at Darkbrook," he said. "He--He had a wonderful talent for magic, and our Master allowed him to attend classes for almost two years before he vanished. After that--" He had to take a deep breath to continue. "After that, we were not allowed to shift shape until last morning when Eri removed the constraints our Master placed on me, and Emle asked if she could visit you."

"You've only been human for a day?" Sennet asked, marveling that he had functioned so well. "And Eri did what?"

"It was a long day," Malachi whispered, and accepted the mug of tea when she handed it to him. He sipped it in silence for a minute, his eyes closed against the steam. "Eri wanted to know why I couldn't shift shape like she could. I tried to tell her, but she didn't listen."

Sennet studied him without speaking. He certainly seemed not to hold any animosity against his Master for forcing him to stay a Hound for the past ten years. "What did Lucas do when Josiah vanished?"

"Lucas--He--When Josiah vanished, our Master suspected the Council," Malachi said, opening his eyes. "I--I disobeyed him and went to Lucas' house in human form, hoping that Lucas would tell me the truth."

"Without your Master's permission?" Sennet asked, trying to imagine the cool, collected Gabriel she had met losing his temper. It was a horrifying thought. "What did he do?"

"He--" Malachi took a sip of tea, but his hand was shaking now, belying his reaction to her question. And then, stiffly, "It is enough that you know. I am not to tell you our entire history." He pushed his chair back and stood, carefully not meeting her gaze. "I should go."

"No, please," Sennet said, suddenly fearful that he would be punished for telling her too much. "That was my curiosity, nothing more. I have no need to know. Please ask your Master if you can stay a little longer."

Malachi bit his lip, but the news must have been promising, because he sat back down. "My Master says I can stay for a little while longer. They have found no sign of Jordan in the forest."
He picked up his mug again, and stared into its depths as if reading his fortune. "My Master was not--pleased--with me."

From his tone of voice, Sennet knew he was leaving far too much to speculation. But what could she do? He was not her responsibility, after all. And he was in no present danger as far as she could tell. His fear of his Master was not new.

"But you never found Josiah?" Would Jordan's disappearance end the same way? Did anyone care about him as much as they had obviously cared about Josiah?

"We found no sign of him," Malachi said. "No trail, no blood, no spells to mask his leaving. He just--vanished."

And the Hunt had retreated, Sennet thought. Gabriel had refused his Hounds their human form, and they had limped along for the past ten years, or, at least, until Emle wished to see a Healer. And then Gabriel had changed his mind. Eri had grown up in the midst of all this. What did Gabriel think of his precocious daughter?

And now Eri would have a sister.

"Can you tell me what Lucas said?" Sennet asked, hoping that this question would not anger Gabriel. "He must have convinced your Master that the Council was not involved."

"He swore to me that he knew nothing," Malachi whispered. "Josiah was to be his pupil. Lucas swore--" He stopped, then, and closed his eyes, listening to a voice only he could hear. "My Master says that of course he suspected the Council. Josiah had been chosen to study advanced magic, and my Master thought that Lucas might attempt to remove Josiah from my Master's influence. But Lucas denied any involvement, and my--my Master believed him, because Lucas has always been an honorable man."

Sennet hoped that his trust was in the right place. The Council would have been her first suspect in such a disappearance, but since Josiah had not been seen for a decade, she doubted they were involved. Still, she could ask Lucas about him and listen to his version of the story.

"Tell your Master that I will not betray his trust," she said.

"He says thank you," Malachi reported. He tipped up his mug to stare into the bottom, then set it down on the table again. "I should go."

This time, she thought he spoke for himself and not for his Master. "If you need anything, you'll let me know? If Emle needs anything?"

"I think I will be allowed to come," Malachi said, and pushed back his chair again. "Thank you for listening, Sennet."

"You're welcome," Sennet said. She wanted to smile at his serious tone of voice, but the Hunt's trust was a very serious thing.

And Gabriel had not impressed her at being a very trusting person.

She let Malachi out the front door, and watched as he slipped into the forest. Only after he had vanished did she realize just how tired she was.

But if she slept now, she would never manage to sleep at night. Sighing, she closed her front door and walked into the kitchen to drink the dregs of her tea and contemplate what she now knew about the Wild Hunt.




(Beginning October 1st, I will be posting daily until my birthday on October 14th, which will be the last chapter and the epilogue!)



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