We Will All Go Down Together (12 page)

Saying:
Ye have sight, of course . . . enough tae know what comes, if ne’er tae escape it. You and Maccabee Roke likewise, where he squats in that Church of his, hid behind that One whose skirts we cannae approach. Oh, but my juniors are
such
clever children, all!

Ygerna looks down at her hands now, knucklebones glowing sick through pallid skin, lighting her downward way. And sees the future she wishes she could avoid hovering near enough to touch: Gaheris as an old man, living alone in town and poring through books for some key to turn back time; Ygerna dug deep into the well in their cottage’s basement, crying in the dark with only her cousin Ganconer for company, his raw-rubbed lids drawn fast over
twa eyes o’tree.
With nothing to eat but what she catches and nothing to wear but mud, unless she allows herself an occasional night or two at Lady Glauce’s sideboard—shine of glamer and reek of ointment, constant rotten apple-stink turned to cider-spice through drunkenness’s alchemy, a Devil’s purchase of temporary oblivion to pain with yet more pain.

A foregone conclusion or just another phantom? For even as she and Gaheris hug fast each to the other, trapped inside the circle—bent low together under Ashreel Maskim’s gaze, inescapable now its literal mark is upon them—Ygerna can already see the room around her flicker and blur, present changing to match past alteration, as Dolores Trench’s spirit swaps itself with her ancestress’s: a breathless instant’s betrayal cutting through three centuries to pin one moment queasily to the next, create a single fixed point in a flexing, spiralling, ruffling deck of potential universes.

Double exposure, quadruple, centuple. Everything around them goes unstable, and Ygerna feels her sense of self lurch, teetering on the verge of being overturned outright; she has no idea where she is, let alone where she
will
be. Worst of all is her certainty that Gaheris sees none of this,
feels
nothing—remains just as unwarned, as utterly ignorant, as any other human.

But here, the timeline re-sets once more with an almost audible click, solidifying all around them as a sound filters in, dissolving every other vision with a black rainbow shimmer. For some time, she realizes, the hand holding hers has been Gaheris’s, his head hunched to study where their palms’ lines cross and interconnect—but now, hearing these wavering steps outside approach, he looks up, eyes narrowing. For who is this who comes, mincing unsteadily, their wavering gait that of one unused to wearing shoes?

Not the same person who knocked at their front door earlier, Ygerna understands, long before those borrowed fingers find the knob. Before the door drifts slowly open to disclose a smallish woman in a dirndl skirt and peasant blouse, whose breast rises and falls raggedly, gulping the air as though she never expected to breathe again. As if to stop, even for a second, would be enough to catapult her back from whence she came.

There is a buzz attends her too, growing louder the closer she comes. Ygerna cannot track from whence it emanates, at first—not until she realizes that that thing which seemed from a distance like some paste-blue pin set to catch the light in her hair is actually the perching back of a fly so large its intermittently vibrant wings form a sort of gauze bow over one ear. It rubs its forefeet together and studies them, head cocked, faceted eyes gleaming.

“Y’are of
her
blood, Druir’s Lady,” the ghost-driven shell of not-Miss Trench observes, dim modern Scots burr gone thick enough to scrape through. “Aye, ’tis clear enow. I see her in ye both, e’en the boy, though he shall take nae harm by it, nor any guid.”

Without speaking, Gaheris reaches up to flip a switch. The lights come on. And Ygerna sees the woman’s shadow rear huge and black against the wall, gently moving of its own accord to stand behind her, dark hands resting softly—affectionately?—upon her shoulders.

Gaheris, bless him, stands ready to run, or fight; Ygerna shrinks back, sick to her bones, or whatever within her now serves that function. Because, in the end, she knows that to do either would be equally useless.

“Ashreel,” Gaheris names it. Then frowns: “Or—are you?”

The skin-suited
thing
throws back her head and laughs, belly-deep. “Aye,” she says, “and nay, ye great fool.”
Foo-ill
, it comes out, spiky as heather. Then holds up one hand, once-smooth palm re-scarred with a twist of black keloiding that matches the scrap he copied her Black Man’s sigil from, and adds: “Though here be my mark, my pledge, in his sweet name—which should, in its turn, tell ye mine.”

“Euwphaim Glouwer?”

“Nane other.”

Ill-content to simply accept this, however, Gaheris flicks out a hidden saltshaker, scattering crystals that sizzle as they land. The witch lunges back, swatting smoking scores closed with a sudden-flaring handful of nacreous, stuttering light; a stink rises, acrid, burnt garbage drowned in ozone.

“Have ye no respect for yuir elders?” she asks, softly.

“Not much, no. Do have quite a lot of salt, though: it’s easily available these days, and
unbelievably
cheap, by your standards. Just to say.”

The woman nods, slowly. “It does have great virtue, as yuir circle proves, for that I canna cross it, nae more than he who rides me. And given my laird tells me ye seek a common vengeance, I
might
ha’ helped ye and that sister o’ yours, had ye failed tae offer me such insult. Yet shall ye ne’er know for sure one way or t’other, now.”

Gaheris stares at her, baffled. “But . . . I
had
to test, you must see that,” he complains, at last. “To find out if you were . . . you.”

“And who else would I be, little wizard? That girl ye sent Hell-wards, in my place?” She shakes her head. “Nay. Ye wanted tae show me yuir puissance, so ye did; ’tis naught but a deck of tricks, paid for wi’ others’ blood. I could crush ye in one hand.”

Ygerna swallows. “What about me?” she inquires, if only to remind them she’s still present—which does draw the witch’s eyes her way, examining her assessingly, before replying:

“Y’have power, or the bones of it, but no craft and little likelihood tae learn any. This change that grips ye is in its earliest stage, so ye will alter ever further, ’til there be not ane thing left in ye recognizable to yuir own-self. As for yuir brother, meanwhile . . . long as he lives, and he’ll live long, he will remain as he is now, useless for all but the most minor magicks. Neither of ye pose much threat tae me, no more than to
her
, the Lady. Or any or the rest.”

“Might be I could melt you inside-out, if nothing else,” Ygerna reminds the former Euwphaim Glouwer, who nods once more, in turn. Agreeing, as she does—

“Oh, cert. But only if I let ye catch hold of me . . . and to do so, ye
would
have tae break that circle o’ yuirs, beyond doubt. Which puts us at cross-purpose yet, wi’ nae end in sight.”

A pause ensues, and Ygerna shivers as the almost unseen angel’s black amusement-ripple breaks across her, pricking her all over. The witch studies Gaheris with muddy eyes, and smiles, secretly, pricking him in turn, sharp as any witchfinder’s needle.

“You do owe us
something
, though, I’d think,” he maintains. “For saving you from the Fire.”

“Mmm. And did ye do so all on yuir own, little man, or had ye help?” Raising her voice: “What say you, my laird? Have these two a claim tae my good-will?”

:One might believe so, given what they have sacrificed to make your escape come true.:

“Aye, one might. Yet will ye make me honour it, all the same?”

:No. You will do only as you please, Euwphaim, as always—my lovely one, best of all supplicants. You will do as you see fit, and I will watch, happily.:

Trust no angels,
Ygerna thinks,
neither inside heaven, nor out-.
She can’t remember if it’s something she was taught, or just an instinct, a connection made under duress. Perhaps something Ganconer might have told her, back when she still listened to him—when she was young enough to want to marry him when she grew up, but not yet old enough to understand his handsome face would stay always the same no matter what, while she simply withered away. . . .

Which
won’t happen, now. Not that it makes facing the alternative any easier.

Beside her, Gaheris still argues with Ashreel Maskim, for all the good
that
will do. “We took your
mark,
though, didn’t we? That gives us some rights! Now make her—”

But before he can continue—from one in-breath to the next—Ygerna sees him stiffen, jerked upright puppet-style, suddenly
filled
. Hears the Terrible Seventh’s voice answer, from out of his own mouth.

:Do what, Gaheris Sidderstane? I have said already what will happen: she will take her revenge,
hers,
at what time and place she chooses. As I will wear you at my own convenience, taking that for my payment—your sister too, when I choose to. You cannot prevent it.:

“Then you lied.”

:Not entirely.:

“But . . . angels
can’t
. They’re not capable. All the texts I’ve ever studied, they all agreed—”

:Why would they tell you otherwise? Yet even the Elohim do not speak the
whole
truth, always, if He instructs them differently.:

Such a painful force of presence, grating on all Ygerna’s exposed nerves at once—and she only feels it from the outside, not the in-; Gaheris must be close to fainting. Yet he drags himself upright, nonetheless, and spits out: “You’ve cheated me, then. The both of you.”

Euwphaim laughs, sketching a mocking little curtsey. “Aye, wi’out doubt. I stand unbound now, freed from time’s tethers by yuir gullibility; my recompense on the Lady shall proceed at my ane convenience, for the which I thank ye and yuir good sister, both.”

“But we could still help you, surely. . . .”

“Oh, that I doubt. Nay, ’twill be my Two Betrayed I turn to, from now on. For we maun keep tae our own in future, as the Druirs do, if we hope tae dance on their grave.”

Behind her, as though summoned by their own mention, Ygerna dimly perceives two more figures taking shape, recognizable mainly in context. One, perhaps Alizoun Rusk, is all over blood, naked as a butcher’s shop and far more rude; a single pulled breast hangs by a flap of meat, the other torn away entirely, her crippled hands crossed high over a swollen belly. The other, presumably Jonet Devize, wavers like a peeling grey doll made from ash, threatening to shiver apart at the slightest touch. Her remaining grey eye beams dull as boiled lead, its matching empty socket rimmed in gore.

And:
Welcome, sisters,
Ygerna hears Euwphaim greet them, in her mind.
I ha’ missed ye, grieving I could not save you yuir pain. Yet we will make our mark upon this world nonetheless, if in far smaller scope than originally intended.

Behind them, more phantoms stand, not so easily identified. A woman in spectacles, unsuitable clothes layered black on black on black, with a girl’s quizzical face and Jonet Devize’s lost wealth of moonlit hair hung massed to her waist, along whose bared arms words crawl like worms. Another woman with hair cut short as a soldier’s, strong-set and shadowed beneath the eyes, the bones of her face echoing Dolores Trench’s; around her, a halo of gleaming, ghostly fragments forms a cage within which one particular red-headed shade floats caught, smoking a cigarette. A gorgeous mulatto in a nun’s wimple, arms crossed and frowning. A dark-browed, saturnine man with Cousin Saracen’s peacock eyes, hair prematurely grey, hands dug deep in his cardigan’s pockets.

Do you know them?
Ygerna can’t restrain herself from asking. Euwphaim shakes her head.

Not yet,
she answers.
But I will, in time.

(For:
ye see it too, do ye not, Druir’s gillie-girl? All such
shall
come tae pass once these four be brought together, the very vengeance ye and he do seek—though ne’er before, nor ever but at
my
will.
)

:I take my leave of you, Euwphaim,:
Ashreel Maskim tells her, through Gaheris’s unwilling lips.
:You know it must be so, do you not?:

“I do, my good laird. Yet tell me true, if ye can—might I see ye one time more?”

:All things are possible, in the dark backward, the great abyss.:

“Then I must count myself satisfied.”

They bow to each other then, Gaheris’s head bobbing sharply, as if slapped. And then he is released at last, as the angel takes its leave—gutters over everything, tainting it all. Ygerna lunges to break her brother’s fall, and does, though not quite in time to keep one foot from kicking out like a hanged man’s, scattering salt in all directions.

They both freeze, paralyzed, in the movement’s wake. Staring up at Euwphaim Glouwer wearing Dolores Trench’s stolen skin, hands clenched as if in contemplation of attack and beaming down, drinking in their fear like wine.

“So, stane’s son,” she says, at last. “No boundaries stand between us, for that ye ha’ broke yuir own circle. What would
ye
do, I wonder, in my place?”

Ygerna knows as well as Gaheris, though neither of them want to say it. For you must never trust an angel, or one of the Fae, or a witch; trust none whose blood bears a closer touch of God than that He gave to Adam’s sons and Eve’s daughters. They are monsters, in the end,
all
of them, even to those they love . . . to those, most of all. But to everyone else, just as surely.

A breathless pause, one great squeeze of two shared hearts—then Euwphaim’s hands flutter outwards, fingers emptying of flame. She shakes her head a final time, amusement dimming.

“Nay,” she tells the Sidderstane twins, with a fine contempt. “Y’are no’ worth my while. Yet I will see ye both again, ne’er fear, in future times. We will have our meeting, be it merry or sad, tae wait, and whistle, and dance all us three together.”

’Til then, children.

Gone, after that. Slipped sidelong through time, whether bodily or by simple misdirection, a trance sown to cover her tracks, as she steers her new flesh back downstairs.