The Black Chalice

Forty-One

The mausoleum, the crude crosses planted in the dirt, and all the trappings of death that went along with them weren't there to honour the dead, he thought, seeing them. He walked unsteadily towards them. Just as the funeral rites themselves had nothing to do with the needs of the corpses left behind. They were there to prolong the grief of the living. The crosses were nothing more than spars of wound, bound together crudely with twine.

He sank to his knees in the freshly turned dirt, dusting away the soil that covered the base of the first cross to uncover the name engraved into the wood: Alma. He had heard that name before, but couldn't place it. The dirt had worked its way into the pulp of the wood, staining it black. He shuffled across to the second cross and scrabbled at the base of it desperately, knowing without really understanding why he knew the name that he uncovered: Gwen. Alma and Gwen. He closed his eyes, a low keening moan escaping him. There was nothing to indicate how they had died, but all he could think was that he'd never seen his friend with the baby girl after he had rescued her from the burning house, and that he had never seen Gwen in the company of others since his return.

He pushed himself to his feet.

He stared at the dirt on his hands, desperately wanting not to believe… and struggling to remember a single time where he had seen Gwen with other people around, just a single instance where he had seen her interact with another soul, but he couldn't. He felt a thrill of fear.

"Oh, my God," he breathed, backing away from the graves.

His feet left deep imprints in the dirt, dragged like scars across the freshly turned soil.

He couldn't bear to look at the graves; didn't know what they meant.

He was losing his mind. That was all he could think. He was losing his mind, root and branch. It was spinning away from him. Nothing made sense, from the world he thought he believed in to the mad depths of the underworld he found himself living in, so much deeper and closer to Hell than he had any right to travel. And every step he took seemed to take him further down. Alymere tore at his hair, tugging the roots from his temples, and screamed. It was a long harrowing cry that swelled out over all the land — or so it felt to him. For it to do justice to the agony in his soul it would have had to carry from coast to coast, and even then it couldn't match the pain inside. They deserved that much from him.

When he opened himself up to it, the grief was overwhelming.

He rubbed at his face. He was numb; hollow. Nothing made any sense to him.

The silence around Alymere was suddenly split by a single raucous caw. He spun around, scanning the trees for the crow, knowing even before he saw it that it would be the white-streaked bird that had been haunting him. He felt the bird's cry reverberate through his bones.

Each breath came fast and shallow. He looked up at the sky, the first fat drops of rain hitting his face. He opened his mouth, tasting the rain on his tongue. For a moment that was all that existed. This dark country that he found himself trapped in was reduced to the taste of the rain on the back of his throat. He felt his grip on the world unravelling. He wanted to cry out, to beg for help, but he was frightened what might answer him. What monsters would come to the aid of a murderer? None that he was prepared to face.

He felt the sudden chill in the air. It was more than just the rain. He wasn't alone.

Alymere forced himself to open his eyes.

He saw her standing, watching him, baby Alma in her arms. The child was crying silently. She looked so very sad standing there in the shadow of the lime tree that Alymere wanted to run to her, to hold her and thank God that it was all a huge mistake, that his mind had run away with itself, but there was something about the way the light didn't strike her and the rain didn't soak her that stopped him. He stared at her, realising that the sunlight filtering through the leaves left no shadow in her wake.

She beckoned for him, but he couldn't walk over to her, no matter how much he wanted to.

He felt betrayed once more, not grasping until long after she was gone and he was alone that she had saved him. Gwen's shade had denied itself the peace of the grave to repay him for everything he had done; saving Alma, giving her friends a home, avenging the men they had lost to the reivers; every good deed he had done had kept her here while he needed her. And without Gwen he would have been lost, there was no denying that. It didn't matter that he was blind to her sacrifice as he stood by her graveside in the pouring rain, that he had no comprehension of the pain it must have caused her to linger. So acute was his self-pity that all he could see was another abandonment. Someone else that he couldn't trust, someone else who wasn't they seemed.

And so, despite everything they had shared, the intimacy that went beyond simple friendship into spiritual healing, he turned his back on her.

He felt her pain then, but in denying Gwen, he effectively banished her shade, consigning her finally to the grave. Why should she linger if he had neither want nor need of her?

When he turned back to the avenue of lime trees leading to the house, she was gone. He stayed by her graveside for a while, and the rain washed away his guilt.

He looked around until he saw what he was looking for: a cluster of daffodils, their trumpets heavy with pollen. He snapped them off at the stem and laid them on Gwen's grave without a word. It was the closest he would ever come to admitting he had done wrong by her.

Alymere walked away from the dead house and the paupers' graves, the rain matting his hair flat to his scalp and soaking through his shirt. It clung coldly to his skin. Spirits whispered through the dragging branches of the lime trees as he passed beneath them, the leaves rustling in their wake. Somewhere between the mausoleum and the manor the Devil's book spoke to him, promising: I am your friend. I won't leave you. I won't fail you or lie to you. I am you and you are me. We are bound. Together we are mighty. Together we are Alymere. They will hear our name and know fear. Now come, I have such secrets to share with you.

And as that voice took hold, he was truly lost.