“How . . . How go your efforts, Lord Ađalbrandr?”
The knight accepted the cup and allowed Forbes to pour ale. “Oh,” it said, and the word rang in her head. It wasn’t speaking, yet she heard its voice clearly. “We have every expectation that Thomas Rimor”—it faced Janet and all but leered—“Tàmhas Lynn, will prevail and we shall lose four of our own in the bargain. A great loss to our sempiternal multitude,” it added, yet the notion did not seem to bother it in the least.
This close, Janet observed four perforations down the side of its armor, which flexed open and closed. They reminded her of a salmon’s gills laboring to keep it alive out of water.
Forbes clearly didn’t know how to react to his “guest.”
How had he bound himself to these creatures? Everything he’d told her disagreed with the implicit threat that pervaded even the thoughts of the thing. Forbes tried a smile but lost hold of it, his expression clouding. “Believe you he’ll prevail against so many?”
The knight continued to stare at Janet. “Your husband is, let us say, gifted in evading capture.”
“But you caught him before,” Forbes interjected.
“Indeed we did. And we assured you never would you see him again. We placed him in our inescapable prison. And impossibly he escaped, and did significant damage to our realm in the process. He is resourceful.” Its one eye fixed on her. “He sent you, mistress, away to this place of safety. Unfortunately for him it was not safe, which he couldn’t know. As you didn’t. All of what we know suggests he has planned and prepared for this night, and for that reason, we do not expect our knights to best him. Four more eternals gone. Four more against his name.”
By now Forbes was watching Janet, too, and with a worried expression. “Janet?” he asked. She tried but could not respond. He turned to the smug creature. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing of much consequence. I need for her to be still now until the way is opened.” It reached over and placed something on the table between her arms. She strained to glance down, to see a strange object, an inverted pyramidal box, four-sided, balancing impossibly upon its point.
“What is that?” Forbes asked.
Ađalbrandr faced him. “You want her to stay here with you when we take her husband, don’t you?”
“Of course.” His eyes darted back and forth between the knight, the queer object, and Janet.
“Then do not interfere.”
“What is it you’re waiting for?” Forbes asked, but the elf addressed his response to Janet.
“Yvagvoja. Your husband has once more slain our paragons, those who walk in human guise to watch over and guide our interests. In so doing he has killed those human hosts in which they dwell. We now await word of new volunteers who will make the sacrifice for our continued working of this world. It used to be that none had cause to fear this undertaking in the service of our race, but your husband has changed all that, killing Yvagvoja as they lie helpless. Imagine if we cruelly murdered you in your linens as you slept the sleep of the dead. They were out of body, all of them, guiding their hosts for our benefit.” The elf sipped its beer as if pausing in telling a common tale.
“We’re certain you do not appreciate how difficult it is for us to exist in your atmosphere, your air. If we are to emigrate—and we will emigrate—we must change it to suit us. This will take a thousand or more of your years, whereas we will hardly notice the time passing. Your lives are small and inconsequential. I say this not to diminish you. It is simple fact. The universe will miss none of you when we reestablish our homeworld here for the next five billion years.”
She wanted to spit her reply: “Except Tàm will stop you,” but no words would come, her lips wouldn’t part.
Forbes looked more and more distressed, and she guessed that he had never until now appreciated the undertaking in which he was assisting. Maybe he had simply preferred not to know. Various rich landlords and officials had benefitted him personally and that had been enough.
A quiet intermittent humming broke the silence, emanating from the Yvag. It slid a hand into a hidden seam in its armor and drew out a black stone covered in glittering blue gems, very slightly larger than the one Tàm had showed her. A strange pressure invaded her head. Forbes was reacting as well.
“Ah,” said the Yvag. “We’ve arrived at the abbey. Two new volunteers are come through.” It then passed a hand over the inverted pyramid and the little trinket began to spin, throwing off a mild green light.
Two. Her helpless horror swelled.
“Shortly, conveyance will take place and all shall be well again.” The pupils of the Yvag’s one eye enlarged and joined into a black ring. The creature smiled and removed its jeweled patch. Its left eye, though slightly cloudy in regenerating, seemed to see well enough. The ringed pupils focused on her. “That’s better.”
Some understanding of what was about to happen must finally have penetrated Forbes’s willful ignorance—more than he could bear. He shouted, “I won’t let you destroy her! You promised me!” and tackled the knight. The ördstone flipped across the table and rolled across the floor until it struck the steps up to the grain storage loft and the grindstones. Janet wanted to get up and run after it, but couldn’t move.
Forbes got both hands around the Yvag’s throat. As casually as shoving aside a branch, the creature brought one arm up between them and thrust him away. He stumbled wildly back against the stairs and nearly tumbled over the side of the milled-grain bin. Barely righted himself.
The Yvag stood to retrieve the ördstone. “It will all be over in a minute, Forbes,” it said. “You’ll still have her with you. But she will also be with us. And if you interfere further, we can easily add another volunteer. And then you’ll be the closest of friends with her and her husband, though you won’t of course be you any longer. Now, step away.”
Forbes defiantly raised his foot and brought it down to smash the stone. He winced and stomped again. When he lifted his foot, the stone remained unharmed, twinkling. He whimpered, then looked around for anything, his gaze lingering at the grindstones above. He reached down to grab the stone and the Yvag caught hold of him and tossed him past the wooden bin and against the low stone wall that supported the axle from the waterwheel outside. Bending down, Ađalbrandr swept up the ördstone. “You’re a fool,” it said, and started back toward Janet. Pressure swelled inside her head. She would have screamed if she’d been able. “Now, let us be—”
The door to the mill opened. Everyone stopped where they were. For a moment, Janet hoped Tàm had arrived to rescue her. That hope died as a figure stepped out of the darkness, and the candlelight portrayed a second Yvag knight, this one armed with a crossbow in one hand and a longbow in the other. She recognized that bow as Tàm’s. The thing had brought it along as a souvenir. Her hope died then. A tear flowed out of her right eye and down her cheek.
Ađalbrandr seemed more surprised by the arrival of the knight than anyone, but quickly flashed a triumphant grin. “Ah, Belamex, he has been defeated, then?” it said.
The knight kicked the door closed behind it and started forward. She saw that the creature was bleeding. Black blood dripped off its arm holding his bow. At least her husband had cost it that much.
“Defeated?” the knight said. “Oh, yes. All of them.”
Casually, it raised the crossbow and shot Ađalbrandr straight through the chest. The bolt pinned the Yvag to a loft post. The villain snarled, raged. Black blood dribbled onto the floor. Then Ađalbrandr took one hard step forward, forcing its way down the shaft of the bolt, roaring at the effort.
The wounded knight had thrown aside the crossbow and taken up the longbow. Three arrows hung from its fingers. Its shape shimmered, becoming Thomas, his left arm drenched in blood. It dripped from his wrist guard.
Ađalbrandr bellowed, “Too late, mayfly!” It held up, then closed its hand around the ördstone. “Let’s see how you enjoy murdering your own wife.” The little pyramid sped up; the light it cast intensified. The beam it threw off began playing over Janet’s upper torso, rising, tightening at her throat, spinning faster and faster.
Thomas aimed and fired the first arrow. It skewered Ađalbrandr through the throat, slamming the Yvag back against the same post. The iron tip sizzled in its neck.
“No!” screamed Forbes, and flung himself across the table, knocking aside the wooden cups. Janet sat frozen behind him. The green pyramid whirled ever faster. Forbes shoved Janet out of the way and she toppled like a stone.
Thomas raced to catch her, but Ađalbrandr snapped off the second arrow and charged him before he could reach her. The Yvag swatted him with one arm, then with the other fist punched him where he was wounded. He yelled in pain, rolled and fell back against the table; then, levering against it, he kicked with both feet, knocking Ađalbrandr away toward the door. The table tipped onto its side. Cups and food spilled across the floor. Still clinging to his bow, Thomas managed to get off a second shot. The arrow pierced Ađalbrandr’s thigh, and the Yvag dropped onto one knee. Black blood smeared the wooden floor. Clumsily, Thomas grabbed Janet and carried her into a corner farthest from the mill wheels. Barely able to move her lips, she whispered, “Help him.”
Forbes, fallen onto the stool Janet had occupied, sat spellbound. The spinning thing remained where it had been, hovering in the air, flickering over and over his body so fast that it became a continuous green radiance in his shape now, shrinking to his head, expanding out, shrinking again. His eyes had gone black and empty; his face seemed to come loose, the skin sagging as on a corpse. Lacking whatever paralyzing substance had anchored Janet, he began to shake and spasm where he sat. Foam leaked out of his mouth.
Thomas jumped forward and slapped at the green pyramid, but his hand passed through it like through a flame and he cried out as the leather fingertab and his palm scorched in a perfect triangle. The leather smoked. The intense pain caused him to lurch back from Forbes at the very moment that Ađalbrandr, with barbed dagger held high, leapt for him again. Thomas’s erratic stumbling confounded the attack; instead of stabbing him cleanly, the dagger slashed through the armor at his back and cut his right side. The Yvag sprawled against the upended table. Thomas, back bowed, face to the roof, howled and fell against the upright below where his two arrows hung, dripping Yvag blood. Ađalbrandr rose up, staggering, once again, and Thomas sprang away, ducked around the low stone wall supporting the mill wheel axle, and up the four steps to the grain loft and bin containing the grinding stones. By the time he turned back he’d nocked one more arrow and lifted the bow, but Ađalbrandr already had one foot up on the four steps below him, dagger raised.
Thomas shot the knight through its recovering eye. The arrow snapped Ađalbrandr’s head back and the Yvag’s feet tripped off the stairs; it reeled against the vertical mortise wheel, struck its forehead against the heavy cogs of the horizontal wheel above and, dropping the black dagger, slid across the axle, where it hung, finally lifeless, the head of the arrow protruding from the back of its skull.
