The shaman paused, as a wave of weakness came over him. Just a few more lines and Jagiellon himself would arrive here. He could rest then. He started to scratch symbols again. He shook himself, trying to focus his tired old eyes.
And then it came to him. He did not ever feel tired. Not in this body. And as for the ill-effects of age . . . the curse that had been laid on the yellow wolf-jackal had stopped the creature knowing those.
At last the shaman understood the nature of Mindaug's trap, and Mindaug's treachery. The shimmering half-materialized form of the master felt it too. Now the shaman knew why he had found the stink of magic everywhere. This place was a fertility temple. A mumi-place. The whole damned island was that. And the shaman, who was old past the reckoning of most men, knew that new life was a cyclic thing. It needed death. Life and death were one big wheel. The very soil here was sucking him dry, rotting him away like decomposing leaves in winter, to fuel new birth. The more magic he used in trying to fight it, the faster it was happening. It was swallowing him, and it would have swallowed the master . . . because their own magic was the fuel used.
A trap! He could sense his master's shriek, and his own thoughts shrieked in answer. All of it—a trap. Laid by the traitor Mindaug to supplant Jagiellon, working with his ally the Hungarian witch-countess.
But Chernobog had not yet fully materialized. The demon could still—barely—withdraw from the closing jaws. The shaman felt him fading away, leaving his servant behind. Behind, and alone, and sucked nearly dry of magic.
The arthritic, near-toothless, rheumy old wolf-jackal dragged and swayed his way to the cave mouth. It was a long way down, and the sight of the hagfish had brought people, and knights in armor and on horseback.
The wolf-jackal didn't care. Even pain was better than death. By the time it had dragged itself to the water, hounded over the wall and attacked afresh by the Croat horses, it was yowling and shrieking with agony.
The curse assured that the wolf-jackal wouldn't die, although the pain was not ameliorated. The magic of Corfu meant that each time his body repaired itself he was closer to the real death. Every spell, every twist of enchantment he controlled was drawing it out of him. He abandoned what magics he could. The shaman knew Jagiellon would not help. He must have suffered too, and wouldn't dare use magic to help the shaman.
Falling into the water and assuming the shape of the hagfish kept the shaman alive, but did nothing for the pain. And it was not the great beast it had been, oh no—it was a little, little thing, a wraith of the monster it had been, struggling feebly toward the deeper water—
—and two hawks hit the hagfish in the shallows, gouging at it beak and claw in their new-freed fury. Had they been creatures of the earth, not sky, the island of Corfu would have freed them long ago.
They were goshawks, torn from their native forests, forced to fly over water, stranded here. Their fury knew no bounds.
But behind that fury was Another, who lent speed to their wings and strength to their talons and beaks and when the shaman tried to strike them, knocked it back into the water, yet would not let it escape. The hawks savaged the hagfish with rage—the rage of goshawks protecting their young, for that Other told them, deep in their half-made hearts, that this thing—this outrage—had menaced young, had eaten young. They were going to avenge every young thing it had ever taken in its long, long life.
And so they did, as the Other hauled it back from the depths and protected them from its ever-more-feeble assaults. They tore at it and tore at it, until there was nothing left to tear. Nothing, but blood slicking the water like oil, and shreds of flesh, and the taste of its vileness in their mouths.
Then, that Other gave them some strength as their own began to fail. Lifted them, lofted them back to the land. And showed them a place—forest. Not like theirs, but like enough. And it soothed them with the promise of game to hunt and sweet water to drink and no one to disturb them, ever again.
Go. Build a nest. Raise young, and prosper.
And so they went, flapping heavily away through the hot, heavy air, bird-wise, and with the wisdom of birds, letting go of their rage and forgetting the thing that had bound them. Except not quite; keeping enough that they would never allow themselves, or their young, to be bound, ever again.
Maria took a deep breath, and flexed her hands, and the Lord of the Shadows now turned and pointed to a shadow that nearly made her sick. "There is the thing that is causing the Mother much pain."
It was hideous. Anger and pain radiated out from the little fetal-creature. It had wings, crumpled and twisted and deformed. It would never fly. But the small wings beat furiously, thrashing away the mere pressure of their gaze, that hurt, that burned it like acid. It was trapped by the magical confines of this place. It floated above the earth, a creature without weight—but still pinioned here, above Corfu. Pinioned with chains of blood—the nonhuman blood of its parents.
Her first reaction had been horror. Now she felt simply pity.
"It's just a baby!" she objected.
"Of sorts, yes." He waited—perhaps to see what she would do.
Not destroy it—blessed Jesu, it didn't know what it was doing! No, she had to—heal it? Help it? "What can I do for it? It's not on the earth of Corfu."
The Lord of the Underworld shrugged. "It's somewhere between death and life. That puts it in both of our realms. We can see it, and it can see us."
The anger, hurt and bitterness flowing from it were almost too much to bear. "Whoever did this must be a monster," said Maria, recognizing the unborn fetal thing for what it was.
"Elizabeth Bartholdy." There was a brief shadow moment of a beautiful woman. Plainly the twisted, warped creature saw it, too, because it howled in frustrated rage.
"How do we help the poor creature?" she cried, feeling its pain deep inside herself. It was a baby—only a baby—forced to do what it was doing.
"Remove its bonds. Remove just one of the sigils in its parents' blood. Wash them away." In the shadow now she could see the spidery tracings on the rocks of a blood that had never been red.
"With what? There is no rain or water because of the poor thing. If it would let it rain . . ." Maria sniffed. Swallowed. "I won't cry," she choked. "This is no time to cry!" She had to do something, not dissolve in tears! Crying wouldn't help—
"Why not?" the Shadow Lord asked, quietly. "Tears will wash as well as rain. It won't live, you know. It only survives in this sort of half existence because of the magics worked on it."
"I won't cry because it's soft to cry." She paused, feeling a strange stillness come over her. Like that blanket of understanding that had settled over her, letting her understand what she needed to do, a new understanding stole quietly over her in the stillness. "Maybe it needs something soft."
"Yes?" the Shadow Lord said, a hint, just a hint, of encouragement in His voice.
"I don't think it's ever had care or any love." She thought of Alessia, how even so loved a baby as she had nearly driven her mother mad a time or two.
"This isn't its fault. It's just a baby. A baby doesn't mean to make you miserable when it's hurting. It just doesn't know how to do anything else. And it's hurting, it's hurting so much, from what that awful woman has done to it!"
This time, it was rage that followed the words, it was despair, for all the children that had died because of those horrible people out there, for this poor little thing that had suffered the tortures of the damned, been forced into birth. No baby ever asked to be born, but this one had been tormented into existence, and nothing would make it better except to be ushered out of life—
Maria wept for it, a mother's tears. The tears fell down and into the shadow.
And the silvery blood-writing boiled. There was a brief moment of movement, of wind and of fire.
And then there was a surcease of pain.
The rain began. The clouds, so long held back, swept in, swept over the hawks in their new forest, so that they held up their heads to the falling rain and drank in the sweet water that washed away the foulness on their tongues. It swept over the peasant women who set out jars and bowls to catch it. It soaked into the earth, that drank it with a million thirsty throats, and sent it down into the streams, into the unseen crevices of the rocks, with the sound of life renewing, at last.
"It is in my kingdom now," said her new husband. "I have put it where it belongs."
"What else must we do?" asked Maria tiredly.
He shrugged. "The Mother's place has rain at last, and will heal. It has got its people again, and they love it. It is in a magical place with those that perished giving birth to it. They blame it no more than you, and now they can cherish it. With that, it will heal."
"What about the siege?"
"Ah." Tall already, he seemed to grow taller. And grimmer. "War is death's kingdom. Mine, not Hers."
"Hah," Maria replied, feeling anger giving her back her strength. "Maybe so. But I'm going to help."