Worlds Unseen - Rachel Starr Thomson (beach books .txt) 📗
- Author: Rachel Starr Thomson
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Virginia drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and Lord Robert saw her stand on her own. Evelyn stepped closer.
“Bow down before your master,” Evelyn commanded.
Virginia lifted her face and said, “I serve only one master: I serve the King.”
Lord Skraetock drew back his hand as though he would strike Virginia, but instead he brought his hand down lightly and ran his fingers along the side of her face. She shrank back from his touch, and he laughed, a low, rippling, mocking laugh.
“You kneel within the protection of the Covenant Flame,” he said. “Your exiled king has no power here. Here is only the power of fire and darkness, my power! I am the lord here, and no other.”
“The King will return from exile,” Virginia said. She seemed to be struggling to get the words out. “I have seen him, and I have seen the awakening of his army.” Quietly, terribly quietly, she whispered, “I remember.”
“You have seen lies and foolishness!” Skraetock hissed. “What good has trust in the king done you? Only a blind woman could fail to see that we have won.”
He stepped closer and cocked his head. “But you are not so blind, are you? If I wish to see I must sacrifice for the power. A power you were born with. Yes, you have seen many things. Tonight you will see for me.”
“I cannot control what I see,” Virginia said.
“I can,” Skraetock said. His eyes drank in the sight of the girl. “You have no idea what you are, do you? But I know. I know the power in you.”
“I will not help you,” Virginia said, pulling one arm away from the man who held her.
Skraetock’s voice grew thin. “We shall see,” he said. “Evelyn?”
Evelyn motioned the guard away and stood behind Virginia herself. She began to trace patterns in the air, and Virginia gasped for air. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, her breath trembling with pain.
“Evelyn brought you here to make atonement,” Skraetock said, speaking to the blind girl who lifted her face in defiance. Her unseeing eyes shone with the effort.
“You see, a few months back she misplaced something important to me,” Skraetock said. “I want to find it. You will find it for me.”
Virginia opened her mouth to speak and cried out in pain instead. She had raised herself to her knees, and now she fell again. Evelyn continued to trace patterns in the air behind her.
“More,” Skraetock said. “Zarras the Incompetent has been whining for my help. He thinks he is losing control of his lands. He is. So you will help us find the rebels and destroy them. Do you understand?”
He raised his hands swiftly, palms up, and iron bars formed of the dust of the ground and surrounded Virginia. In moments a cage surrounded her, and it rose until it hung above the fire.
Skraetock and Evelyn turned and faced the fire. As the heat beat on their upraised hands, the dark stain of a tattoo appeared on the palm of each one’s hand: a spider.
*
Maggie had brought the scroll with her. She sat with it spread out before her in the little room Pat had rented. Candlelight illuminated the ink scratchings in such a way as to make the writing seem alive, dancing with the motion of the flickering flame.
A movement in the shadows made Maggie jump. She laughed a little with embarrassment when Pat sat down beside her.
“I thought you were going to give that thing to the Ploughman,” Pat said.
“I meant to,” Maggie said. “It just… never was the right time.”
Pat reached out as if to touch the parchment, and drew her hand back just before she did. “The light makes those signatures on the bottom look new, somehow,” she said. “Still wet. As though it has just been signed.”
“It has never looked quite so evil before,” Maggie said. The signatures shone red-black and seemed to run on the parchment, spreading their stain.
“It’s not the parchment at all,” Pat said suddenly. “It’s the light… look!”
Maggie turned to see what Pat was talking about.
The candle flame had turned blue.
*
The Ploughman sat by the fire, his eyes scanning the heavens. The stars were shining brightly across the sky, ornamented by the sickle moon.
Who am I? he asked.
A man, his voice replied.
More than a man, a deeper voice inside him said. He felt a warmth brush past his face and heard the faintest echo of clanking armour. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to rid himself of the delusions. Childhood delusions. Something with me, he had said as a child. There is something with me. I am never alone.
He opened his eyes again and searched the stars more intently. A gold mist passed before him and disappeared.
“What are you looking for?” Libuse asked. She was dressed like a soldier, in tunic and trousers, with leather armour and a sword hanging from her hip. On her back was slung a spear.
“A sign,” the Ploughman said, turning to look on his love. Her hair was shimmering in the moonlight, and her eyes glowed as warmly as any star. She had braided a silver thread into her hair, and it seemed to shine in the darkness.
“Tell me,” he said. “Do you believe that the stars hear us, as some say they do? Is there help for us out there?”
Libuse looked to the sky. Her fingers played with the glowing thread in her hair. “I think there must be, my love. Surely the power that has given us courage for the fight will not abandon us in the middle of it.”
“We need more than courage now,” the Ploughman said. “We need victory.”
“And we shall have it,” Libuse said. “I do not think it is the stars themselves that help us,” she said. A smile began to play at her mouth. “Not the stars, but the One the stars themselves serve.”
“If there is such a One,” the Ploughman said, “I would give anything to have him riding beside me now.”
“Perhaps he is,” Libuse said.
The Ploughman reached out and took his lady’s hand. In the moonlight he kissed it gently. “If not,” he said, “it is enough for me that you are here. You are my courage, my heart.”
*
The smoke rising around Virginia drugged her senses. She heard cries as though they were very far away-men’s cries, death cries. The guards? She smelled blood and heard the hiss of liquid and fire, and beneath it chanting.
She heard rippling laughter inside her head. He was inside her head.
“Find the scroll!” Skraetock commanded, his voice ringing through her mind like the painful sound of a bell in a closed space. She clenched her fists and thought back.
No.
Pain washed through her, and she cried out. In a moment it was gone. It left her panting for breath. Still fighting.
“Find the scroll,” commanded the voice again.
I will not.
Once again pain coursed through her, wave after wave, unceasing. She curled up on the floor of the cage, trying to shut it out, to stop the agony. The pain sharpened in her eyes and she covered them with the heels of her hands, skin wet with tears of agony. She fought for control: the control to speak-to call out for help. She could not. Skraetock would not leave her alone long enough. The pain ceased suddenly and left her trembling. She tried again to form a word, but still she could not.
Something was happening inside her mind now. Her head was an instrument and someone was trying to play it. It was a warm feeling, warm and enveloping, and it called to her to let go: relax, release her control. She nearly gave in when a deeper part of her fought its way to the top.
No!
He was tearing her apart. Her eyes hurt so badly. It would never stop, she thought, until she was dead.
But something in her mind was letting go. She was losing control, no matter how hard she tried to hang on. Light played through her mind, stabbing her. The visions came, though tears ran down her face as she wished them away. Away where he could not see them.
She saw the auburn haired young woman she had seen before. She was sitting in a room in Pravik with a scroll opened before her. Pat was with her, looking over her shoulder. They seemed uneasy.
The room they were in was nondescript, a little rented flat just like a hundred others in the city, and yet Virginia knew exactly where they were. From the laughter in her head, she knew that he knew, too. In the same way, Virginia knew the young woman’s name and how she had come to have the scroll. Through the searing pain and the sound of chanting voices that dragged her down deeper into darkness, Virginia at last managed to cry out:
“Run, Maggie! They’re coming!”
Far back in her mind, amidst the tearing visions, she saw another face-a boy’s face. She sent the message to him as well, though it took more strength than she had and left her feeling as though something inside was shattering.
“Yes,” hissed the voice of Lord Skraetock. “We’re coming! They can’t run anymore!”
Virginia felt as though claws were digging into her neck. She choked for air. Laughter flowed all around her, mingling with the chanting and the smoke, and the claws released her.
“Now, where are the rebels?” Skraetock’s voice asked.
Virginia could not stop the visions. It was the future she saw. Men, brave men, golden men inside with tawny lion’s manes and true hearts, though outside they were common and plain. They stood up to the Empire and its black ways. They won.
Until the creatures came into Pravik, howling and shrieking and tearing and killing, and Skraetock was laughing.
Everything went black. The pain was gone. Virginia closed her eyes and tears slipped out as despair slowly overtook her. She had betrayed the people and the purposes of the King.
She let go, and slipped away into utter blackness.
*
Maggie rolled up the scroll abruptly and stuffed it back inside her coat. She laughed uneasily. “Funny how a piece of paper can make me so nervous.”
Pat was still staring at the candle. “It’s gone back to its normal colour now,” she said. “If you hadn’t seen it too, I would have said I’d imagined it.”
There was a sound outside like a door slamming, and Maggie jumped. “What was that?” she said.
“Just the neighbour’s dog, playing with the gate again,” Pat said. “Are you all right, Maggie?”
Maggie’s heart was pounding, but she nodded. “Just a little jumpy. I’m sorry.”
Pat stood up and stretched, yawning. “Never thought I’d say this, but since Mrs. Cook isn’t here to offer you some tea, how about I make some? It’s good for the nerves, you know.”
Maggie laughed and nodded. “I know. Thank you, Pat.”
*
Nicolas’s feet hit the cobblestones as he flew over the bridge. He was running blindly, following only instinct… and praying, praying to the stars that he was not too late. He had come back to look for her. Something within had driven him to look for her. Now urgency propelled him forward.
His fingers reached for the slender sword that hung from his waist. He skidded to a stop. The bridge was behind
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