Last Life

YVONNE LOOKED ON IN AMAZEMENT as her mother slowly stood up from her chair and fell to one knee before me in total silence.

I’ll be honest: when the nisse and I were first discussing our plan to bring in some new allies from among the true gifted, and the first people she mentioned were my old acquaintances from the herbalist’s shop, my first thought was that Madleyn would never swear loyalty to me. It didn’t matter how bad her problems with the other witching families might be.

I simply understood the psychology of these witches too well to fool myself into any wishful thinking where that was concerned. I had, after all, been raised by an Elder Witch in my previous life. So come on, I thought — an Elder Coven Mother, voluntarily swearing fealty to a man? And a spellsword, at that? It would take one hell of an emergency to move her to such a step. Normally, it would be something to do with saving herself and her family. Or with a debt of blood, as in Lada’s case. Which is actually a great example of my whole point: as soon as she had upheld her end of her bargain with me, Lada had gone back to settle old scores in her homeland.

Basically, the nisse turned out to be right: Madleyn had lost a lot of ground since our previous meeting. Apparently, she understood that she would probably end up dying if it came to a duel between her and Camille. My appearance and my offer, however, had made some fundamental changes to the gameboard. That was why the Elder Coven Mother was kneeling before me, staring straight into my eyes as she recited an oath of fealty in witching tongue.

When she finished, I stood up from my chair and strode over toward Madleyn. Yvonne, by the way, was still watching; it seemed that she still didn’t fully understand what was happening.

After scooping a big clot of mana out of my reservoir, I sent it carefully into my palm. A faint shiver ran across my fingers as the golden mana exited my body.

The clot of energy (which looked like a small, shining blob) appeared in midair between me and Madleyn. It was glowing with an irregular shimmer, changing color from a deep honey-gold to almost white. Yvonne jumped up out of her chair and walked over to stand behind her mother. Her eyes were still bulging, her mouth still open, as she watched the golden sparks swirl languidly through the air.

The fingers of my right hand touched Madleyn’s head, and I sent the golden clot into her energy system. As I did so, the Elder Witch’s face went pale. Her lips twitched, and she threw back her head. Madleyn was gritting her teeth, which made me realize that I had probably overestimated the quantity of mana a little bit.

Yvonne obviously wanted to say something, but all she could do was grit her own teeth and watch; she kept shooting us glances, with an expression that ranged between fear, uncertainty, and confusion. I laid my hand down on Madleyn’s forehead. I was controlling the flow of power through her energy channels and nodes. Finally, the golden threads reached the witch’s magical reservoir, where my mana slowly began to transform into witching mana. A second later, one of the runic tattoos on Madleyn’s neck burst into golden light.

Yvonne leaned forward, but then jumped back almost immediately. She seemed to be unable to bring herself to interrupt the ritual. The girl’s breathing was fast and irregular. Looking at her out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that her fingers were convulsively clenching and unclenching.

Meanwhile, Madleyn’s energy system began to change. This manifested externally, as well as internally. The clot of golden light that was moving up and down along her arms and shoulders slowly spread out to cover the witch’s entire body like a big, broad ribbon of energy.

The shawl slipped off of Madleyn’s head. Her hair was wreathed in golden light, and it started to let off golden sparks. It was ridding itself of any trace of gray. The deep wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes started flattening out, and her skin itself took on an even, healthy color. The thin muscles beneath the skin on her neck suddenly disappeared. Her shoulders had been hunched for ages, but suddenly they seemed to remember their former proud posture.

“Most Luminous...” Yvonne gasped in awe, pressing her hands against her chest.

Her eyes were bulging as she stared down at the rich, lush head of golden-blond hair on her mother’s head.

Madleyn shuddered, but I was holding her by the shoulder, giving her time to get used to her new power. Her eyes slowly opened, and when they did I could see that her pupils had widened. A golden spark flashed across her iris. For a little while, she just knelt there, breathing slowly in and out, as though she had just been born again.

“I accept your oath,” I said, speaking loudly and clearly as I removed my hand from her head (but continued maintaining the magical connection between us). “From this day forward, you are under my protection.”

The Elder Witch looked up. There was no longer any fear or confusion in her eyes. Only a strange mix of relief, gratitude, and... Anticipation. She took a deep breath in as she adjusted to her new sensations, then slowly stood up, leaning gently on my wrist as she did so.

When Madleyn straightened her back and looked up into my eyes, Yvonne let out another gasp. Her mother had looked like a seventy-year-old woman just a few minutes before; now, she looked like she was about thirty, full of life and health. In fact, I think she looked even younger than she had at our first meeting.

“Oh, Ancient Gods!” Madleyn groaned in a deep voice as she reached up to touch her neck — right at the spot where my fingers had left a bruise just a minute before. “I’ve never felt like this before... Even when we burned the heart of that Elder Warlock in the hearth.”

“We don’t have time,” I said.

Madleyn turned to look at me in a whole new way. Apparently, the Elder Mother had finally realized that she and her daughters had really been a hair’s breadth away from death the entire time.

“I want to warn you right off the bat: my power in the coven has taken a beating as of late,” she said, her tone suddenly businesslike. “Not all my daughters will take kindly to your leadership.”

“Gather those who are truly devoted to you, and lead me to the coven hearth,” I replied.

“Mom!” Yvonne shouted. “This violates all our laws!”

Madleyn’s eyes widened a little bit. She turned around, and in an iron voice, she replied:

“Send birds to your sisters. We’ll be waiting for them at the hearth. And hurry.”

* * *

Madleyn’s house was located several blocks away from the herbalist’s shop. The coven mother and I made our way there in a closed carriage. As we rode, she stared me straight in the face and asked bluntly:

“I presume you won’t stop at subjugating one single coven?”

There was no reason for me to conceal the truth any more. We were in the same boat now.

“This world is on the brink of devastating changes,” I replied. “While everybody’s been busy with their wars and schisms, the Frost Demons have been hard at work establishing mastery over the continent. They’ve created whole orders of fanatics, who’ve now spent decades taking down the best and brightest of the Shadow mages. Their priests have been methodically exterminating the true gifted, bringing the strong ones in for sacrifice.”

Madleyn listened to me without interrupting. Her eyes were wide; muscles kept tensing on her cheekbones.

“And that’s not all. As far as I understand, the land beyond the Barrier — in the Shadow — is going through approximately the same thing. Although the situation there is probably even worse.”

From there, I spent the next several minutes telling the witch all about Shadow Pass, the underground temple, the ghosts, and Lord Khaldrekar. If the expression on her face was any indication, all this news shook her to the core.

“I’ll be totally frank with you: several months ago, I wouldn’t have even considered the idea of coming here. But what I saw out there, beyond the Barrier, made me rethink my attitude about what’s going on. I watched an Elder Demon draw energy from a place of power with such force that it actually caused full-scale earthquakes. More importantly, it also caused more frequent flows in the Shadow.”

My words caused Madleyn to shudder involuntarily.

“My senses are telling me that the coming war with the Hrimthurs is going to be radically different from the last one,” I continued. “And make no mistake: a war is definitely coming. I no longer have any doubt about that. I still don’t know what exactly the demons have thought up here, but I’m afraid that sitting on the sidelines while others fight it out is simply not going to be an option. So the earlier we can join forces, the better we can prepare for the battles to come.”

“Why did your choice fall on a dying coven like mine?” The witch asked. “You could have subjugated someone stronger than us first.”

“I could have,” I nodded. “But that would have taken a lot of time, which I don’t have. I have no intention of running all over the continent, chasing down every Elder Mother out there. I have more important things to focus on. Uniting the covens is going to be YOUR job.”

Madleyn’s eyebrows shot upward.

“Believe me,” I chuckled. “These other witches may have written you off, but when they see you take down Camille, they’re going to be beating a path to your door, hoping to get even a small portion of this ancient power.”

The carriage finally stopped, and the coachman jumped off his goats to help a pensive Madleyn step down onto the ground. After emerging from the bowels of the carriage behind the witch, I stopped for a second and looked around.

We were standing opposite a big, two-story stone house, which was surrounded by a tall fence. Actually, it wasn’t a home so much as a small fortress.

The gates closed behind us, and a gangly-looking man jumped out of an outbuilding in the backyard and came running to meet us. He bowed to Madleyn, then hurried to deal with the horses.

In my mind, I had to laugh. Clean courtyard, well-kept house, courteous servant... The old witch had a pretty nice setup. And judging by the fact that none of them reacted to the change in their mistress’ appearance, they must have been pretty used to such changes.

The doors of the house opened, and a young, golden-haired woman appeared on the porch. She, unlike the servants, froze in open-mouthed shock when she saw Madleyn.

“Get ready,” Madleyn said to her as she climbed the steps to the porch. “Your sisters will be arriving soon. Send them all downstairs as soon as they get here.”

And then, turning to me, she said:

“We’ll have a bite to eat while we wait. I think I could eat an entire bull.”

* * *

As I descended the creaky old stone staircase, I felt the air in the basement getting thicker and heavier with every step. It was filled with the smell of various herbs.

In the darkness, I could just barely make out the silhouettes of a tall vaulted ceiling, as well as the rows of massive columns that held it aloft. The walls were pockmarked with big bands of witching runes that kept crawling along the stone surfaces like living snakes.

In the depths of the hall, surrounded by a thick, squat ring of stone, was the Hearth: the heart of the coven, which had kept its daughters supplied with magic for generations on end.

By the time I saw it, however, it was more like a half-dead campfire that hadn’t been fed for hours. That said, I could sense that there was still a spark of magic in this little place of power, waiting for somebody to throw it a little more fuel.

Roughly twenty witches — ranging in age from young, wide-eyed girls to full-grown women with anxious expressions on their faces — were frozen in place around the Hearth. A mix of suspicion, curiosity, and respectful fear had settled across the hall in anticipation of what was about to happen. Rustles and whispers were echoing out from all over the room, but the noise ceased abruptly the second Madleyn stepped forward to approach the hearth.

The coven mother stepped out in front of her daughters and looked around at them all. As Madleyn herself had told me before we made our way into the basement, not a single one of her daughters had ignored her summons.

The faint golden glow emanating from the Elder Witch’s hair in the gloomy hall had the eyes of every single witch riveted firmly on their mother. There was a steely decisiveness in Madleyn’s eyes — a determination to continue what she had started, and to preserve her coven at any price.

“My lord,” said Madleyn, addressing me in such a way that everyone in the hall could hear. “You are permitted to touch the Hearth.”

A synchronized gasp of amazement rippled down the ranks of the witches, then slowly grew into a murmur of confusion. The fact that a foreigner was present in the coven’s holy place at all (and not as a victim for sacrifice) was already a unique event. But being allowed to touch the Hearth itself? That was absolutely unheard of.

“Silence!” Madleyn growled angrily. The hall obeyed without question.

I stepped into the center of the hall, spread my arms slightly to the side, and reached down into my reservoir.

“It’s time to awaken your Hearth.” My voice echoed dully off the vault of the basement ceiling.

Bending over, I laid my palms on the stone floor next to the Hearth and let golden mana flow out to fill up the runes that were engraved across the stone (they were obviously very old).

The runes flashed into life, so brightly that they almost seemed to be burning. Sensing the Hearth’s response, I formed a large glob of energy and sent it through my hands, directing it further into the central stone slab and the chains of runes that snaked out from it into the hall.

In some ways, it was like trying to smash one’s way through a thin layer of ice. The stones beneath my hands began to tremble slightly, and a bright light appeared in the depths of the Hearth.

I could hear a frightened shout from someone behind me. Several witches had already covered their eyes with their hands and stepped back. Madleyn, however, did the opposite: she took a step forward with feverish excitement in her eyes. Meanwhile, the golden glow reached its peak. I let out a sudden, abrupt exhalation and cut my connection with the runes.

Silence swooped out across the hall once again, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing and the faint crackling of torches. Everybody in the room was watching in awe as a strange, flickering light appeared in the middle of the Hearth. It looked like a swarm of fireflies, trying to escape from within the flames.

Slowly, the coven mother approached the Hearth. She sank to her knees. Carefully, as if afraid of being burned, she laid both her palms on the edge of the stone ring around the fire.

“Oh, Most Luminous Mother!” Madleyn cried with a happy smile. “My daughters, I can feel his Reborn Flame!”

There were tears of joy in her eyes. After she spoke, all the other witches stepped forward. None of them uttered a word the entire time. I spotted Yvonne out of the corner of my eye. There were big, wet streaks running down her face from her eyes.

I stood back up, wiped off my hands, then addressed the coven in a loud voice:

“I’m not quite done yet. There’s still the final step.”

Madleyn was still on her knees; she turned to look at me expectantly. Everybody else in the hall followed suit.

“Before your daughters swear loyalty to me,” I said as I turned to face Madleyn. “I’m going to make sure no dark spirit will ever be able to enter your home again.”

Saying that, I reached into the inner pocket of my vest and pulled out a claw from the Giant Chimera that had almost killed Georg von Linz.

* * *

When I finally returned, exhausted and hungry, to my temporary base of operations, I found the entire Brisot family in the inner courtyard of the apartment building. They were sitting at a long table beneath a canopy, eating dinner. The gloomy looks on their faces made it pretty clear that something had happened in my absence.

I walked over to the table and greeted them. I looked around at their faces and noticed that Bridget had been crying, and that one of Étienne’s ears was as swollen and red as a toadstool. Clare’s eldest son was digging in his plate without any apparent appetite; from time to time, Jean would shoot him a frowning glance. It was pretty clear who had given the boy a slap.

When I arrived, Étienne turned and looked up at me. For just a second, I noticed a look full of hope and pleading in his eyes, which was soon driven away by his mother giving him a jab in the side. He turned his eyes down to his plate again and kept fidgeting with his cold food.

I greeted him with a smile and sat down. Michaela set a bowl of steaming, tasty-smelling ragout in front of me, along with a thick slice of fresh bread.

I took the bread in my hands and broke off a chunk, then dipped it into the bowl and tossed it into my mouth. Mmm, I thought... Delicious... Heh... If Bertrand could see me now. The sight probably would’ve given him a seizure. Back at the Fox Den, by the way, I had managed to find a few minutes to observe my butler. The old man was in rare form, as always. The only thing that seemed off was the look in his eyes — he seemed somewhat dejected. The nisse had told me that since the moment of my departure, Bertrand had been paying regular visits to the shrine of his favorite goddess — Adelaide, the Goddess of Balance — and tossing coins onto the Great Scales. The old man was longing for us to come home.

“And the stormy clouds rolled in to block the distant shore!” I shouted out a line from Philippe Baudin’s play “The Ghost King,” of which Bridget was quite a fan.

“That basically sums it up,” Maître Brisot sighed, shooting a quick glance at Bridget’s beet-red face. “I don’t even know where this is going to end.”

“What happened?” I asked, still chewing.

“Well, two members of our troupe got it into their heads to wander through the city without any of their elders to guide them.” Maître Brisot nodded at Bridget and Étienne (who was sitting next to her).

The young man’s face gradually reddened until it was about the same color as his ear.

I stopped eating and turned to look at the pair. I might have expected just about anything from Bridget, but Étienne was rational beyond his years, and this really didn’t seem like something he would do.

Maître Brisot interpreted my expression correctly, and continued:

“Yes, Jack — you picked them out.”

“Uncle!” Bridget exclaimed. “I know you would have done the same thing if you were me! Étienne wouldn’t let me lie... Those gossipy people were terrible actors, and even worse liars. They were deliberately spreading lies and stories about Margrave de Valier!”

I frowned and interjected:

“Who are “they?”“

“Supposedly, they survived an attack by a group of scoundrels who said they were Margrave de Valier’s people,” replied Bridget, who was obviously a little thrown off by my question. “They said they got attacked on the Imperial track.”

“The timing doesn’t match,” Étienne grumbled. “The bandits couldn’t have attacked them, because they were already dead by that point. That’s why we think they were agitators. They were trying to blacken His Lordship’s name.”

“And?” My mood had already darkened.

“We couldn’t just stay silent!” Bridget replied with fire in her eyes as she thrust her chin up into the air.

“Don’t worry, Jack!” Étienne hurriedly assured me. “We didn’t say anything about what happened in the village at all. I just asked the fat bastard a couple questions, and he didn’t have any answers for them at all. I remember you saying that all His Lordship’s units have shapeshifters in them. And the fatty said he somehow managed to escape by hiding in the woods.”

“You should have seen the bloater!” Bridget added, smiling widely as she looked around at our glum faces. “He had to stop to catch his breath after every other step! And yet somehow, HE escaped from a bunch of shapeshifters just by running away from them? Through the WOODS?”

“I also said that he couldn’t run away — they would have had to let him escape on purpose,” continued Étienne. “In that case, I said, why would His Lordship’s soldiers leave a bunch of witnesses alive to tell the tale? After all, everybody knows what the Margrave de Valier does with marauders and robbers.”

“You should have heard the crowd laughing when the slandering dummy left Moneychangers’ Square,” said Bridget, breaking into a cheery laugh. “You could see his red face from a mile away!”

“So this all happened at Moneychangers’ Square?” I asked, staring intently at these two would-be defenders of my honor. “In front of a huge crowd of people?”

“Yep,” they nodded almost simultaneously.

“People liked the way we rubbed the liar’s nose in his own lies,” Bridget added. “I even invited everybody present to come see our performance at the upcoming festivities.”

I sighed heavily, then turned to address Maître Brisot.

“We need to leave this place as quickly as we possibly can.”

“Is it really that serious?” He asked anxiously. “I mean, all they did was have a little fun at some liar’s expense.”

The whole Brisot family was on tenterhooks by that point.

“It’s more serious than you can possibly imagine,” I said as I stood up from the table. “I think these two lovers of truth and honesty probably brought a tail back with them when they returned. I think we should start packing right now.”

“Oh, Most Luminous Mother... But what about — “ The source of this content ɪs Novᴇl_Fire(.)net

Maître Brisot didn’t have time to finish. A noise suddenly burst out from the direction of the main gates leading into the alleyway between apartment buildings. Everybody turned to see what was happening. There on the threshold stood several big thugs, all dressed in rags and carrying short clubs in their hands. A short, wiry, brown-haired young man (who appeared to be the leader of the group) stepped forward and took a big look at us. A big smile crept across his stubbly mouth:

“And here they are — our friends, the masters of the stage! How lucky that we found you!”