Chapter Five: Tacenda

Tacenda tested her bonds. They were slack, and she thought she could even get out of the ones wrapping her feet. But dared she run? What would that accomplish?

Once Miss Highwater returned from giving orders outside the room, the Man asked her if Verlasen Village was, “The one with that angry man who smelled of dishwater.” That might have meant Mayor Gurtlen of Hremeg’s Bridge? In any case, this Davriel pretended to be completely unaware of what had happened to her people, her family, her entire world.

What was the purpose of the subterfuge? Who knows what strange machinations inhabit the brain of such a creature? she thought. Perhaps he just wants to torture me with uncertainty.

She wiggled one foot, slipping it free of her ropes. Should she try attacking again? Foolishness. She obviously couldn’t harm Davriel with something as simple as an ice pick. Maybe she should try the Warding Song?

She decided to wait. Soon, another demon entered the bedroom. About her height, it was twisted and hunched over, and had features that vaguely reminded her of a hairless dog’s snout. Unlike the other two, it had black wings jutting out of its back, though they were gnarled and withered.

The demon slunk over to Davriel, carrying a bag in one hand, a cloth-wrapped object in the other.

“Finally,” Davriel said, rising and pulling over a small end table. “Right here, Brerig.”

The hunched-over demon set the object on the table, and the cloth slipped off it, revealing a large, squat mason jar with a glowing light pulsing inside.

“Excellent,” Davriel said.

“Riddle, master?” the demon—Brerig—asked, smiling a wide mouth full of too many teeth.

“Fine.”

“Was it a farmer?”

“Nope. Afraid not.”

“Ah. Oh well.” Brerig sighed and pulled something from the sack. A human man’s head, held by the hair. Tacenda immediately felt sick. The head was preserved with some kind of metal plate on the bottom. The skin was pale and bloodless, but not rotting.

She tasted bile, but forced herself to swallow and breathe deeply. Just another corpse. She’d seen...seen too many of those already today.

Davriel took the head and screwed it onto the glowing glass jar, affixing the two. Brerig shuffled over to the wall, where he shooed away a few of the red-skinned devils. Miss Highwater inspected the jar, her ledger under her arm, while Crunchgnar stood near the doorway and slid a knife from his belt, eyeing Tacenda.

Davriel fiddled with the jar, flipping something on the top while muttering something that sounded like an incantation. Then, when he set it down, the light from the jar faded—and the head on top quivered. The lips began moving, eyes lethargically opening and looking one way, then the next.

“You’re a stitcher?” Tacenda asked.

“Do not insult me, young woman,” Davriel said.

“A ghoulcaller, then? A...a necromancer?”

Davriel stood up and spun, pointing toward her. “I’ve been patient with you so far. Do not test me.”

Tacenda shrank back into the chair. Stabbing him had only seemed to annoy him, but this...this he actually found insulting.

“I am a diabolist,” Davriel said. “A demonologist—a scholar. My study takes skill, effort, and acumen. Necromancy is a fool’s art, practiced by failed butchers who think they’re being clever just because they—brilliantly—notice that sometimes corpses don’t stay dead.” He snapped his fingers in front of the head’s eyes, drawing its attention. He moved his finger back and forth, and the eyes tracked it.

“Have you ever taken note of the types of people who end up practicing necromancy?” Davriel continued. “The art attracts the unhinged, the unintelligent, and the unkempt. Far too many of them have overinflated opinions of their own ‘wicked schemes,’ believing that they’re rebellious and self-empowered simply because they’ve trained themselves to look at a dead body without getting sick. Never mind that corpses make for terrible servants. The up-front work is a nightmare, and then the maintenance! The stench! All for a servant who is even dumber than Crunchgnar!”

Crunchgnar growled softly at that. Tacenda slipped her other foot free. Davriel wasn’t watching; he was using a syringe from the bag to inject the head with some kind of green liquid.

“But...” Tacenda couldn’t help saying, “you are working with a corpse right now.”

“This?” Davriel said. “This is barely even magic. This is merely a means to an end.” He finished the injection, and the head focused on him more deliberately, then parted its lips.

“Do you remember your name?” Davriel asked the head.

“Jagreth,” the head said, its lips moving, though the sound seemed to come from the metal plate that connected it to the jar.

“Jagreth of Thraben,” Miss Highwater said, reading from her ledger. “Cathar, official church warrior, and self-styled ‘hunter of evil.’ He had quite the reputation for honor, by my sources.”

I met him, Tacenda realized. It wasn’t his head, but this man—this soul—had come through Verlasen a few days ago, after hearing of her parents’ deaths. His voice had been deep and confident; she’d imagined him as a tall, broad-chested man. Willia had been quite taken with him. That had been before...before she’d...

“I came to kill you,” the head said, fixing its gaze on Davriel. “Man of the Manor. What have you done to me?”

“Just a few improvements,” Davriel said. “How does it feel?”

“Cold,” the corpse whispered, “as if my soul had been frozen in the highest mountain ice, then locked in a darkness so deep, even the sun would be swallowed there.”

“Perfect,” Davriel said. “That’s the preservation liquid doing its work.” He tapped the head lightly on the cheek. “Thank you for the binding spell you let me leech from your brain. It proved helpful not half an hour ago.”

“You monster,” the head whispered. “What you have done to me is an abomination. A moral injustice.”

“Technically,” Davriel said, “I’m the legal authority in this region, and you did try to murder me in my sleep. So I’d say that what I’ve done to you is both moral and just. But let’s make a deal. Answer a few questions for me, and I’ll promise to let your spirit go.”

“I am not going to help you bring terror and pain to any others, fiend.”

“Ah, but look at the poor girl in that chair,” Davriel said, gesturing toward Tacenda. “Her entire village has been killed! Their souls stolen from their bodies in the night by some mysterious terror.”

“It was during the day,” Tacenda whispered. “And it’s not mysterious—you know what happened. You did it.”

The head fixated on her, and the features softened to sympathetic. “Ah, child,” the head with the voice of Jagreth, the Cathar, said to her. “I tried, and I failed. It is as I feared, then? A monster like this one is rarely sated with a few murders. Once he has the thirst for blood, he returns again and again...”

Tacenda shivered.

“I do get quite thirsty,” Davriel said. “Usually, I opt for a nice red wine—but after an extremely hard day, nothing hits the spot like a cup filled with the warm blood of an innocent.”

The head’s eyes turned, looking up at him.

“I bathe in it, you know,” Davriel said. “Just like the stories say. Never mind how impractical that sounds—the clotting, the staining—really, just go with it. But blast, you all keep finding out about my nefarious nocturnal necations. What I need to know is how. How did you find me out?”

“Those at the priory told me what you had been doing,” Jagreth said. “They explained about the souls you’d taken.”

“Who at the priory?” Davriel said.

“The prioress herself.”

This made Davriel harden for some reason, his lips drawing to a line.

“Everyone knows what you’ve been up to,” Jagreth said. “You left the bodies, the souls removed.”

“But how did you know it was me?” Davriel asked. “I’m not native to the locale, but even my few years here have taught me that you don’t lack for threats upon human lives. Why assume I was behind it?”

“I have already told you—”

“My sister saw you,” Tacenda said, drawing both of their attention. “She watched as you took my parents ten days ago. After that—when you took the souls of those merchants traveling between villages—a priest saw you. Then you claimed Willia in the fields, likely angry she’d escaped you before.”

“You cannot pretend innocence here, monster,” Jagreth said. “You are distinctive in your cloak and mask.”

“My...cloak and mask,” Davriel said.

“The ones you wear when visiting the village,” Tacenda said. “My sister saw you clearly.”

“She saw someone in my cloak and mask,” Davriel said. “The cloak and mask I specifically wear to obfuscate my features so that my real self is unrecognizable. Nobody saw my face. Correct?”

Well, technically, the mask and cloak were what Willia had said she’d seen. But everyone knew the Man of the Manor was a malevolent figure who consorted with demons. Everyone knew that...

She looked again at Davriel, with his fluffy shirt, thin mustache, and violet cravat—with his strange mix of arcane knowledge and remarkable obliviousness.

“Hellfire,” he muttered. “Someone’s been imitating me.”

“A difficult task,” Miss Highwater said. “Think of the sheer number of naps they’d have to take.”

Davriel eyed her.

“Admit it, Dav,” she said. “It would require a true master of imitation to impersonate you. Most people would accidentally do something relevant or useful, and that would destroy the entire illusion.”

“Go check for my cloak and mask,” he said.

“Release me,” the head said. “I have answered your questions.”

“I did not specify a date or time,” Davriel said. “I only said that I would release you. And I will. Eventually.”

“Technicalities!”

“As far as I’m concerned, technicalities are all that matter.”

“But—”

Davriel twisted something on the jar’s top, and the head went slack, jaw drooping, eyes rolling to the side. The jar underneath filled again with glowing light.

Miss Highwater ruffled through a wardrobe on the side of the room. She pulled out a deep black cloak, with a distinctive ghostly tattered bottom—like the frayed spirit of a haunting geist. The golden mask was in a demonic shape with large dark eyes, sinuous lines, and a gruesome mouth reminiscent of a jaw with the skin removed. It what the Man wore when he went in public.

“Well,” she said, “your outfit is still here. So the imitator fashioned their own copy.”

“But why?” Tacenda asked. “What reason would someone have to imitate you?”

“Miss Highwater,” Davriel said, “how many times did you say I’ve been assaulted in the last few weeks?”

“Four,” she said. “Five if you count the girl, I suppose.”

Davriel threw himself into his chair, rubbing his forehead. “What a pain. Someone is having fun out there, then pinning the blame on me. How am I supposed to get any work done?”

“Work?” Miss Highwater asked. “What work?”

“Mostly reminding you to do things,” he said. “I don’t want you slacking. I wrote myself a note about it the other day...” He patted his pocket, then reached over to his suit coat and removed a piece of paper—which was bloodied from his stab wound. He gave Tacenda a flat stare.

“You...really didn’t do it, did you?” Tacenda asked. “You didn’t kill my village.”

“Hellfire, no. Why would I ruin the village that provides my tea? Even if your harvest has been late this year.” He glared at Tacenda.

“We’ve been busy,” she said. “Being murdered.”

“What a mess,” Davriel said. “I can’t have someone imitating me. Miss Highwater, send Crunchgnar and, say, Verminal to look into who might have done this. And see if we can get more peasants. Maybe promise no whippings for the first two years, see if that attracts any settlers?”

“You’re going to send the demons?” Tacenda asked. “You’re not even going to go yourself?”

“Too busy,” he said.

“He has to take his evening nap,” Miss Highwater said. “Then a nightcap. Then sleep. Then his morning nap.”

Tacenda gaped at Davriel, who leaned back in his chair. Perhaps he hadn’t killed the people of her village, but someone had been leading the Whisperers when they attacked. She’d heard their footsteps, and someone had been seen wearing Davriel’s cloak and mask.

The murderer, and the geists that served them, was still at large. Verlasen wasn’t the only village in the region; there were two more, along with the people of the priory. Hundreds more souls were in danger. And Davriel wasn’t even going to leave his manor?

Tacenda felt her anger rising again. Maybe this man hadn’t killed her friends and family himself, but his incompetent and selfish rule shared equal blame for the deaths. Tacenda stood up, pulling herself from her ropes.

Crunchgnar—who had been watching for this—stepped in front of the doorway to cut off her escape. But Tacenda didn’t try to flee. She leaped forward and snatched the glowing jar off the table near Davriel, then—without a second thought—smashed it against the floor, breaking it and causing the head to roll away.

The brilliant light of the soul inside seeped free, and she heard a distinct sigh as the imprisoned cathar escaped his torment. The light floated up, forming vaguely into the shape of the man—just as she’d imagined him, with that square jaw and that noble air, swathed in the rugged coat of a hunter.

Admittedly, the collar was a little much.

Thank... Thank you... A voice—as if blown by the wind—moved through the room.

Davriel watched with an expression she couldn’t read. Surprise? Horror at what she’d done to his prize?

“Technicalities or not,” she said. “You should make good on your word. I’m sure a true necromancer would know to...”

Thank...thankgagnsk Thaaaaaaahhhhh...

Tacenda hesitated, then turned toward the spirit, which—instead of dissipating as she’d assumed—was growing brighter. Its eyes grew larger as they darkened to pits, distorting the face. Its fingers stretched longer, and it adopted a wicked, lopsided grin...

“Cathar Jagreth?” she asked.

The thing struck, slashing razor-sharp fingers through her forearm, causing her not to bleed, but to feel an intense frozen pain. She gasped and stumbled back. The thing—gone mad—lunged for Davriel.

Crunchgnar arrived first. The oversized demon blocked the spirit, touching it as if it were physical, and slammed it backward. The spirit let out an angry wail that made Tacenda’s ears hurt, and she clamped her hands on them, crying out.

The spirit seemed to be able to decide whether it was physical or not, for though Crunchgnar could touch it at first, the spirit faded and flowed away like fluttering curtains. It kept repeating a bastardized version of “thank you” over and over again, each somehow more wrong than the one before.

The spirit flowed toward Davriel, darkening and becoming less transparent. Crunchgnar whipped a sword from its sheath, and the weapon’s faint glow of power made the spirit hesitate.

Then Davriel—red smoke filling his eyes and turning them crimson—stood and released a jet of flame from his hands, the heat so intense that Tacenda screamed. The spirit screeched in kind from the center of the immolation, then pulled in on itself, shriveling before burning away.

It left a singed and blackened scar on the rug and the bookcase behind. Tacenda gawked, cradling her arm, which still felt icy where she’d been slashed.

The red smoke faded from Davriel’s eyes. He winced, as if using the magic had caused him pain. He rubbed his temples, then shook his head. “Well, that was exciting. Thank you, Crunchgnar, for the timely intervention.”

“I will have your soul, diabolist,” Crunchgnar snapped. “I have not forgotten our terms.”

Davriel stepped over and kicked at the burned rug. “Did the rug makers live in your village?”

“Master Gritich and her family,” Tacenda said. “Yes.”

“Damn,” Davriel said. “I’ll have you know, girl, that I leeched that fire spell from the mind of a particularly dangerous pyromancer. I’d been saving it for an emergency.”

“The cathar...” Tacenda blinked. “He attacked me...”

“Loose spirits—geists, as you call them—can be dangerous and unpredictable. Most forget themselves when separated from their bodies, retaining only the faintest hints of memory. What you did was both foolish and reckless.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked away from the scarred rug, tucking her arm against her chest.

“Great. Glad to hear it.” Davriel nodded his head toward her. “Miss Highwater, see what the girl can tell you about this impostor, then toss her out into the forest. Tell the devils they can have her if she tries to sneak in again.”

“You’re not going to check her mind for talents you can leech?” Miss Highwater said.

“The Bog’s stench is all over her,” Davriel said. “No thank you. I have enough headaches at the moment.”

One of the demons—the hunched-over one they’d called Brerig—took Tacenda by the arm and began to lead her from the room. His skin was surprisingly soft.

Tacenda resisted, trying to pull out of the demon’s grip. “Wait,” she said. “My viol!”

Behind them, a devil was plucking at the instrument. Davriel waved with an offhand gesture, so the devil scrambled over and delivered him the viol.

“I...” Tacenda said. “Please. It is all I have left.”

“It’s a fine instrument,” Davriel said. “Might sell for enough to buy a new rug. But cooperate with Miss Highwater—tell her everything you know of this impostor—and I’ll let you keep it. Did you see this cloak and mask yourself?”

“No,” Tacenda said, deflating. “I am...blind during the days. The Bog’s blessing has also left me cursed, payment for the songs it gives...”

Davriel sighed, then made a shooing motion.

Brerig towed Tacenda by the arm toward the doorway. “Come,” the demon said. “Come. Come, and I will tell you a riddle. They are fun. Come.”

She resisted a moment longer, then—as Miss Highwater joined them—finally relented to Brerig’s surprisingly gentle prodding. What...what was her fate now? She had escaped death three times over tonight. The Whisperers. The Bog. The Man of the Manor.

“You didn’t see the impostor,” Miss Highwater said, a dark pen poised above her ledger as she walked. “What did you see?”

“Just bodies,” Tacenda said. “So many bodies. I should live among them. I belong in a grave...”

“Did they lose the color from their skin?” Davriel asked from his seat, still toying with her viol. “After they were taken, did they go pale, or ashen?”

Tacenda paused beside the doorway, and the demons didn’t force her to continue.

“They looked just like they did in life,” Tacenda said back to him. “Only blue around the lips. Their limbs went rigid, and they stayed stiff for a few hours—strangely stiff—before finally going limp.”

“Suspended animation following a direct soul siphon,” Davriel said absently. “Probably the result of some aspiring necromancer harvesting souls. Well, it could be worse. If Miss Highwater can find the souls, I suppose we could restore them before the bodies rot. Then I wouldn’t have to mail-order a new village.”

Tacenda felt a jolt go through her. Had he just said...

“Restore them?” Tacenda asked. “As in bring them back to life?”

“Possibly,” he said. “I’d have to see the bodies to be certain. But from the description, this state might be reversible—and that would certainly be easier than growing new peasants the traditional way.”

“Though admittedly not as much fun,” Miss Highwater noted. “Come, let’s stop bothering Lord Cane.”

The demon Brerig pulled Tacenda’s arm, but something deep within her—something that she had assumed shriveled and lifeless—stirred.

Bring them back. She could bring them back?

“How long?” she said. “How long do we have?”

“Are you still here?” Davriel asked.

“How long?”

Crunchgnar stepped forward, pushing aside Miss Highwater, sword out and leveled toward Tacenda.

So Tacenda began singing.

Though she intended to start small, that hope—that warmth—exploded from her in a pure, solitary, forceful note. Like the peal of a morning bell, it was the first note of the Warding Song.

The demons and devils in the room cried out in pain, a sharp and garish harmony. Brerig whimpered, and Miss Highwater backed away, hands to her ears. Even Crunchgnar—seven feet tall with terrible horns—stumbled and wavered. The devils scattered with collective screams of agony.

Her viol, still in Davriel’s hands, played the same note: a demanding, relentless tone. Davriel let go of the instrument, then cocked his head as it hovered in front of him. That happened sometimes. Her drums had done the same.

She continued the song, each note louder than the one before. The three demons cowered down, groaning in agony, holding their heads. Davriel, however, just pushed the floating instrument aside with one finger, then stood up with a deliberate motion.

The song didn’t affect Davriel. He...he really was human. As with many protection magics, people were immune.

Davriel strode up to Tacenda, who let her song die off. Her viol floated down to the ground before Davriel’s chair, and the three demons slumped to the floor. The cries of the devils still echoed in the other rooms.

“The Bog’s ward,” Davriel said. “A nice demonstration. Whatever took the people of your village was obviously frightened of you, which is why you’re still alive.”

“How long?” she asked. “How long will my people last? If I could find their souls...”

“Depends,” Davriel said. “Most violent soul harvesting leaves the subject dead immediately, often with physical wounds. Exploding chests and all that drama. But what you described sounds more like the aftermath of involuntary projection, where the soul is coaxed away from the body. That often sends the body into a brief catatonic hibernation.”

“How—”

“Two days, perhaps three,” Davriel said. “After that, the soul won’t recognize the body as its own—and the body will have begun to decompose regardless.”

So her parents...her parents were truly gone. Dead ten days ago and reclaimed by the Bog. But her sister, Willia, lay on a slab at the priory. She hadn’t been returned to the Bog, because she worshiped the Angel. Could she be saved? And Joan, the woodcutter. Little Ahren and Victre...

“You have to help them,” she said. “You are their lord.”

Davriel shrugged.

“If you don’t,” Tacenda said. “I will...I...”

“I’m amused to hear this threat.”

“I will see that you never get to take another nap.”

“You’ll find that I...” He trailed off. “What?”

“I’ll travel to Thraben,” Tacenda said. “I’ll go into every church and I’ll sing to them of the ‘necromancer of the Approaches.’ I can sing more than the Warding Song. I have other songs, with other emotions. I’ll make them hate you. Terrible Lord Davriel Cane, the man who took the souls of an entire village.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’ll break down in tears,” she threatened, “before every would-be knight, questing hero, and hunter wanting to make a name for themselves. I’ll send an endless stream of self-righteous champions to the Approaches, until they clog the bridges in their eagerness to come and bother you.”

“I could just kill you, you realize.”

“And my soul will continue!” Tacenda said. “As a mournful ghost. The girl of the forests, whose entire family was taken by Davriel of the Approaches! I’ll sing ballads! Dead or alive, I’ll send them to annoy you! And...and I’ll draw them maps. And pictures of your face. And—”

“Enough, girl,” Davriel said. “I doubt you would have the willpower to continue this silly endeavor as a geist.”

Tacenda bit her lip. In defiance of his words, Davriel looked worried. Annoyed, really, but it seemed—with this man—that was basically the best she could hope for.

“You know they’ll come for you,” Tacenda said. “Even if you kill me. An entire village? Rumors will spread. Decades from now, people will still be trying to slay you. You’re probably right that I couldn’t do much to inspire more—but I doubt I’d need to. Think about the inconvenience this will cause. Yet, one evening of mild work could prevent all of that. Not much effort. Just come look at the bodies of the fallen, and try to figure out what might have taken their souls.”

“You make a strangely persuasive argument, child.” He sighed. “Miss Highwater? Are you well?”

The female demon had pulled herself up off the ground and was shaking her head, still seeming stunned by the effects of the Warding Curse. “Well enough, I guess,” she said.

“Then...prepare my carriage. Let us visit this village. Perhaps we can find some tea they neglected to deliver.”