Crystal Courtesan

The Crystal Courtesan

Karen L. Abrahamson

Includes a preview of the Terra Incognita, Book 1 in the Terra Trilogy.

Front Matter

Electronic edition published by Twisted Root Publishing September 2014.

The Crystal Courtesan Copyright © 2014 by Karen L. Abrahamson.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Twisted Root Publishing

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©Nordroden|Shutterstock.com, ©Amuzica | Dreamstime.com

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Chapter 1 —The Night of Three Moons

It was the unluckiest of births, to come like this—mere hours before the blessed first night of Verda’s rising. Unlucky as well for Breca, wife of old Holmgrau, the village headman who thought only for the chance to have a son. Not to be, it seemed.

Red-haired Breca lay amidst stained linens, the whimpering baby girl at her breast, the candlelight staining mother and child with unnatural ruddy color; for in truth, the mother had lost too much blood and the child was sickly and had not fed.

The shutters were drawn over the windows and the room was close with the warming scents of mint and camphor and pine resin, barely masking the copper scent of blood and afterbirth. Though the room was on the second story of the only two-story house in Hensford, the rough-hewn, bare logs of the walls seemed to press in, more like a prison than the birthing chambers Nulla remembered from long years ago. But those were the chambers of another life, another woman. This was Hensford, forest village of a bare hundred souls, and Breca’s husband their headman. One shuttered window and one solid wood door to hold in the birthing screams of the mother so that, even now, those screams seemed to hover in the air. The barred door and window also held out the evil shades of the world and dimmed the shouts and raucous laughter of the townspeople, carousing beyond the thick walls on this, the rarest of nights, a night of three moons.

Breca’s serving women, Clithia and Marnen, hovered over her, their shadows placing darkness over her face, but there were none of the neighbor women, come as observers to the birth. They were too busy with the village celebrations of the rebirth of spring. The shadows, the lack of witnesses were evil omens, along with the grey motes that seemed to gather and float above mother and child for Nulla’s vision alone. As if Odisolander, the death bringer, hovered here, now.

Crossing her fingers against such an evil thought, Nulla shushed the women away and perched on the stool beside the mother. Breca’s hand was dry and burning. Fever then, as she’d suspected, and something more.

Darkness lingering. Old anger at her marriage. The beatings wreaked upon her servants and her own children. The nastiness of rumors spread about the other village women, including Nulla herself.

It all tingled through her fingers, not Odisolander, then, but Breca’s own darkness of spirit. Nulla could heal that, too, but for the danger it would place her in and the oath she had sworn to herself that she would not use her powers.

She squeezed Breca’s seemingly fragile fingers, and then released her. I know you are tired, but you must try suckling again. The babe needs more than the few drops you gave her. First, though, you must drink this. She held up the potion she’d concocted against just such an eventuality. The unstoppered stone flask gave off a whiff of green, like gardens, with the deep earthy scent of coriander leaves.

What is it? Suspicion flared in the dying woman’s gaze. Why should I care about the whelp? Another girl and one more mouth to feed, when I already have five.

She is your daughter. She is small and helpless and needs you. Herbs will make you strong and replenish your blood. Milk to make the child grow strong. We might save you both yet. Nulla gentled the woman’s head off the yellowed pillow and helped her drink. The room filled with the messy sounds of her slurping, but then she turned her head away.

You must drink it all, to be sure it will work, Nulla said.

Breca kept her head turned.

Nulla eased her back down and checked the flask. Barely a third gone. Not enough, and a dark flutter filled the air, full of Breca’s old screams. More darkness oozed off of her.

Help her settle the babe, Nulla said, standing and motioning the serving women forward, for with the darkness oozing from the woman, Nulla dared not touch her again.

The women eased the mewling babe down to Breca’s chest and uncovered her breast, settling the newborn next to the teat. The babe’s mouth worked and that was a good sign, showing this child had a will to live. But when they placed its lips against Breca’s nipple, the child turned its head away, even though the nipple leaked milk. As if the child would not drink of the mother’s evil. The babe began to howl.

This was not working.

Breca rolled away and shoved at the woman holding the babe to push her and the child away, though her strength failed her.

Find it a nurse, if you can, Breca brought her hands to her ears. I cannot stand this noise, you hear? Get it away! Her fists flailed at the serving woman who held the squalling baby. I don’t want her near me—a child born at such an unfortunate hour—why would I want such a one in my family?

She collapsed back onto the pillows, the dark motes above her gone darker, but the child was free of them. That was something, her humors still unstained by darkness.

Take the child to her father and tell him we need a wet nurse—or an adoptive family. His wife refuses the child.

She returned to Breca’s bedside and offered the flask again. That was ill-done. She is blood of your blood, bone of your bone.

Breca shoved the flask aside. Until you have children of your own, girl, you have no right to council me. Now get out. I don’t want your help and I don’t need your reproofs. The child is mine to do with as I would.

But she is a child. A babe. She needs you to love her.

Breca turned bloodshot blue eyes on her. Her half-opened mouth was livid red, her small teeth like those of a ravenous beast. There is no love in the world, only duty. Now get out, you Cur’zan whore. Yes, I know what you are. I always have, even when you suddenly appeared as a child, hiding among Mistress Garten’s skirts as she worked. Filthy white hair and pasty face. Get out before I call the guard.

Nulla froze where she was. Surely this was the rambling of a fever-wracked mind. Breca, you’ve no idea what you’re saying. I’m here to help you and the child. Didn’t I help you through the birthing?

Get out.

Nulla shook her head.

Get out, get out, get out!

The woman’s shrieks reverberated off the walls and seemed to loose the memory of her birthing screams until Nulla was forced to cover her ears. The dark motes formed a thickening cloud of ill above the woman and the noise from outside seemed to dim.

But I can help you, she tried one last time, offering the flask.

The woman tore the flask from Nulla’s grasp and heaved it at her. Dark, honeyed liquid splashed her face, herbs stung her eyes and stained the front of her skirt so she reeked of stewed herbs and mint.

Nulla went, catching up her cloth bag and closing the door softly behind her as honey-haired Clithia returned.

Holmgrau has turned the child out. He says he has no need of another daughter. Marnen has taken her to the wet nurse and will seek a new home for her after the festival.

Then you’d best see to your mistress. She wants none of me, I’m afraid. Try to feed her warm liquids and soft foods and perhaps she will recover. She pulled a second flask from the bag. Try to get her to drink this. It should help stop the bleeding.

Clithia’s large blue eyes considered the flask and then looked back at Nulla. She has already refused it, has she not?

Nulla nodded.

Then keep your flask for some other who will use it. If she dies, it is of her own choosing. She crossed her forehead against the evil eye. Just go. The revelries are already well underway. I—I know you do not like to be out amongst them.

With thanks, Nulla let herself out of the house, the few coin for her services passed to her by Clithia because the men never wanted to see the midwife come and go; nor did they wish to pay her, for that would make them responsible for whatever ill came to pass. Birthing was a women’s thing, taken care of by the household servants. The men’s role was to extol the virtues of their progeny—when it was a son.

Already, as dusk fell on the night of three moons, outside the house the stench of cordite bit the air and streamers of acrid smoke wound like snakes through the sky. Darkness crept from every filth-filled crook and corner and congealed in the narrow village streets so that the villagers were erased into formless shapes, shifting—ever shifting—like the earth could sometimes shift beneath your feet. But it was when the torches flared that it was the worst; the evil, red glare caught on massed sharp cheekbones, on open mouths, on wide eyes, and turned them dangerous, ravenous, and wild. Like Breca’s mouth had been, so perhaps it was the night, rather than the woman’s nature, that had turned her against Nulla.

The wind that ran down the muddy streets was from the northwest, out of the mountains of Noralla, and carried with it a mountain chill and the scent of pine. It stirred the fledgling bonfire in the center of the town and exploded sparks up into the sky to illuminate the squalid thatched houses and the one tavern that had spilled its service into the commons for the night.

Nulla looked up at the angry sparks that swarmed like hornets against the deep blue sky and hurried through the threatening crowd. Every night of three moons it was like this, for the two-week period of the third moon’s appearance, and since her first year in the insignificant village of Hensford, she had hidden herself away from the noise and boisterous partying that could be mistaken for something much darker. But this night, Breca’s birthing had taken both longer than expected and not long enough. The unhappy birth had sent her directly out into the dreaded celebration.

Not for her, the wild music of fiddle and drums, nor the revelry of welcoming spring back into the world and chasing winter away with the explosions of fireworks. Not for her, as well, the blood-warm sweet wine that shopkeepers gave to passersby. Not ever for her, the warmth of a husband and the weight of her newborn child in her arms. How Breca could turn the child out….

Her heart raced at the village’s scents and sounds. Her breath caught at the glimpse of eyes that caught the flare of firelight and turned her way through the gathering gloom. She ignored the jostling of her shoulders, the offer of the traditional twist of fried bread out of the darkness, and kept going, shawl pulled tight around her shoulders and head, shoving through the crowds that congealed around the braziers of roasted lamb, wild pig, and rooster.

At the edge of the village, she checked over her shoulder. With the over-swilling of wine and ale, it was not safe to be a woman abroad alone; but her small cottage rested in the forest a short way away, where she could have some peace and the villagers were not confronted by one such as she, living in their midst.

Hensford seemed to dance behind her, the light from the bonfire, the torches rippling across the wood and mud houses and glinting off the waves of the stream that ran swift with spring runoff, just east of the town. In the glare, shadows cavorted wildly, as if they danced around a pyre. But all attention seemed to be turned inward to the fire, her escape from the madness unmarked. She drew in a quavering breath and hurried along the path, worn well and smooth by the villagers who buried their fear and secretly came to visit her. With their small gifts in exchange for her charms and potions, she was afforded a life.

The forest closed around her, soothing, balm-scented of pine and juniper and the first small stands of early clover. She paused. Something wasn’t right. A faint, musky, sweet-salt scent suggested horses were nearby, and few in the village could afford such an animal. Traders passing through on the old King’s Highway beyond the thick wood? Bandits? Or something worse?

The thick boles of the elm and oak had just fledged their first leaves, but in the darkness they pressed ragged skeletal limbs against the fire-stained heavens. Still, the first of the moons, tiny Picet, had risen and now coasted, like a child gliding down a hillside on a silver shield. Her breath steadied. Picet was the patron of compassion and all things innocent, and though Nulla had seen and survived many unspeakable things, she was still innocent in the ways of men and determined to remain that way. Picet would see her safely home before the red moon of war raised its misshapen face into the sky. The scent was surely her imagination.

The path sped her through the greenwood forest and spat her out at the dell where her small stone cottage and chicken coop sat at the eaves of the trees, its thatched roof replaced only last fall by her hand and still redolent with the scent of sunshine on hay. The dell itself was filled with moonlit garden—vegetables mostly, though the town rumors said she grew many fantastical things. In truth the content of her potions were gathered freely from the wildwood around the village, but no one in the village wanted to know that wondrous things could be begotten from the ordinary. The chickens roused and clucked at her approach, and she clucked comfortingly back at them.

She reached her door just as the first explosion rocked the village. The chickens went mad and she cowered against the solid wood and glanced over her shoulder at the brilliance of blue-gold fire against the now-velvet night sky. Fireworks, she knew, but her pounding heart would not listen, nor would the cold sweat that stood out on her brow. Such noises brought back too many memories and too much fear. She fumbled the door open and plunged inside, slamming the door behind her. The last few embers in her fireplace provided the only light. Just breathe. Just breathe. It will be all right, just as it has been these long seven years. There are no soldiers, nor any sign of evil-bringers.

Shawl still around her shoulders, she barred the door, pulled tight the two window shutters, and stood there, fighting to slow her breathing. Her clothing reeked of mint and herbs.

A cup of tea would stop the shaking in her bones. Probably. A good night’s sleep would help even more, but she doubted that would happen, not when every part of her was on guard. Breca’s knowledge of Nulla’s bloodline released the old fear of Odisolander and the others who might search out her kind. But that was the past, and Odisolander was miles and years away from Hensford, so first things first: find normalcy again. At least as much as she’d ever have. She stirred the fire to life and set the kettle to boiling, then cut down chamomile and mint from her store of drying herbs hanging from the rafters and set them in a clay cup. Gradually, the familiar actions steadied her breathing and the herbal scent was calming. How many times had she dosed her patients similarly when they came to her full of nerves? How many times had this room seen the anxious and grieving come for secret solace?

For she was not the original owner of the cottage in the woods. Once Mistress Garten had lived here alone, but seven years ago the old woman had found eleven-year-old Nulla, who had miraculously appeared in the woods. No one except Nulla knew exactly how miraculous, and she would not talk about it. Mistress Garten had taken her in and taught her skills she would need to survive, and when the old woman died last year in the deeps of the winter cold, it had been Nulla who had chopped through the frozen earth to lay the wizened old woman to rest. None of the villagers had even asked where she had gone.

She pulled five tallow candles from a box on her shelf and placed them on the mantle, the tightness of old sorrow like a band around her chest.

Mother. She lit the first as she had done each year she had rested in the cottage’s safety. Razza. Harl. Mithani. Mistress Garten. She lit each of the flames as she named her dead, though Mistress Garten had not died on the night of three moons. In the warm yellow light, she stepped back and bowed her head, her hands clasped to her breast to hold in the old grief that had never lessened and never would. May the Great Gods keep you safe and the Goddess of Compassion protect your shades.

A Cur’zan breeze stirred her hair and seemed to blow the scent of wildflowers through the cottage. Her mother had always loved wildflowers and Nulla had picked them for her whenever she could. Smiling at the memory, she opened her eyes and the small flames guttered and smoked and then steadied.

I will love and honor you always. I promise, she whispered, then put the candles out with damp fingers because the tallow was too precious. The cabin dimmed to only the red light of the fire, but she left the candles where they were as symbols of her losses and her promise. Then she busied herself, going about her chores: sweeping the floor, wiping the table. Anything to prove that life truly went on.

Soon the snug stone-sided room was warm from the fire. It was a good room, with one wall of cubbies filled with the precious dried herbs and roots and tree barks of her work, a deep hearth, and a lone plank table and two stools in the center of the room. Mistress Garten’s cot lay vacant against the wall, the straw mattress rolled, for Nulla still preferred to pull her blanket around her shoulders and sleep next to the fire’s warmth. The water boiled and she poured her cup of tea and settled on a stool, waiting for it to steep. Just focus on the gradually changing water color. The booms from outside cannot get you here, though they might set the door, the clay bowls, and your blood shaking.

When the water was the color of pale wine, she drank, savoring the mild grass-and-mint flavor that always reminded her of her long-lost mother’s scent. It was fitting, on a night such as this.

Once she had lived a very different life and once she had thought the world was a kind place. Both of those fantasies were well behind her. But there was still love in the world, regardless of what Breca had said. She, for one, had felt it once.

Another sip of the tea, but outside, her chickens began to cluck wildly even though the fireworks explosions had died away. She set the cup down. They only acted this way if someone or something disturbed the quiet of the dell. A fox, perhaps? Go out and check?

Caution kept her where she was. On a night like this, she would not leave these sturdy walls. Of course, if someone was intent on attack, they could set her thatched roof alight. The stout walls could not save her, then, but she did not think she had affronted any of the village enough to do so. Not even Holmgrau—unless Breca had told...

She silently went to the door and placed her ear against the wood. Was that the jingle of harness, men’s voices, and the stomp of horses?

She backed up against the hearth and swallowed. It had to be her imagination. No one would listen to the ravings of a woman dying in childbirth.

But the chickens clucked and shrieked just outside her door in proof that something was wrong.

Quick little gasps left her faint as she clutched the fire-warmed stone behind her. She might have trapped herself inside these walls, but she would not just stand here like a cornered animal and let them take her. She hurried to the cubby where she kept her knife for herb chopping and reached beyond the small cache of precious metal instruments and into a narrow chink in the stone wall. Her fingers closed on bone, smoothed by many hands, and pulled her precious weapon loose.

Dagger. Long, and deadly sharp. A thin, woman’s blade, with decorated handle meant for stabbing meat at table in a noble house, but also good for defending oneself as her survival testified. Its weight in her hands gave her courage and she turned back to the door, the knife at her side, just as something struck her door with enough force that the protective bar rattled.

The air in the stone-walled room was too warm and too close, the sweet scent of wood smoke too cloying so it was just as much a prison as Breca’s birthing room had been. Nulla’d been a fool to rekindle the fire in her hearth; how better to let someone know she was home and settled? She’d been more foolish to think that chamomile-and-mint tea was balm for this night, to think these old walls could bring safety.

She clutched her old friend the dagger to her side, let the thick folds of her woolen skirt hide it, for there was no doubt that whoever was outside her door had enough strength to break down the slim barrier that protected her. All safety was an illusion and the faith she’d put in these walls was that of a fool.

Another booming blow at the door sent dust settling down from the rafters, and her dried herbs rustled like half-heard whispers. Still no voice came from the other side of the door, and that was worst of all, for who broke down a door without announcing themselves first? She could think of only one answer and it came from her past.

After all these years they had found her.

Chapter 2 —Old Stone, Old Enemies

She scrambled to slide the heavy table in front of the door. Looked wildly around the stone-walled room for something more. The cot. It had a wooden frame latticed with rope. She struggled to drag it across the floor, wrestled it upright to lean against the table.

Another boom, and the door’s wood splintered and Nulla clutched her dagger. At least she would not let them take her easily. She would sting them a little before her end.

When faced with the inevitable, you must draw on the strength harbored during all the years you dreaded what was coming. That was something Mistress Garten had said—one of her many homilies—quoted this time when she was near death, but it also echoed the ancient stories of Nulla’s people’s doomed battles with Odisolander. Fitting, for the ancient tales said her people had fought on, even though foretelling had said no one of her kind could defeat that ancient evil.

But surely, after all these years, any searchers must believe her dead. What was one girl’s body amongst all the others who had been killed on that long-ago night? After all these years, there was no one left who could possibly recognize her. Everything of her old life had been scoured away by the years, save one token—everything except who and what she really was.

Nulla wavered between collapsing in tears and screaming her defiance as the third blow fell against the door.

It exploded inward, sending the table and bedstead back a few inches. Nulla skittered away to the corner of the room as an arm reached in, covered in a blackened-metal gauntlet and blackened armor. It slid the wooden bar from its braces and caught the edge of the table and—shoved.

The table slammed back against the stone hearth, collapsing her carefully built fire so that burning brands slid out onto the dirt floor. A flare of sparks showered the underside of the table and a billow of smoke filled the room. The door slammed open against the wall and a huge figure filled the doorway. A night-clad cloak fell from broad shoulders; the gleam of dark mail came from his chest. His face and head were covered by a metal-and-leather helmet with a horrible, silver serpent-ridge that ran over his skull and down over his nose so only his eyes and his beard-stubbled mouth and chin were visible. Dark hair fell around his shoulders, and in his gauntleted hands he held a black-bladed sword. Not Odisolander, then, but still her worst fears realized.

After all these years, the king’s soldiers had found her. Seven years of borrowed time had run out.

He took one long stride