Shadows and Light

Chapter Twenty-eight

“So,” Adolfo said heavily after hearing Ubel’s report. “It is unfortunate that the men who went with you were lost.”

Stiff-backed, Ubel stared straight ahead. “It was a sound plan, Master, and the men should have been able to carry out their orders—”

“And still they were lost.”

You lost all the men you brought with you last summer, Ubel thought resentfully. But nothing would be said about that. “The Fae—” He pressed his lips together to keep the words back. The Master Inquisitor wasn’t interested in excuses.

“Yes. The Fae.” Adolfo drank deeply from the glass of wine that was never far from his hand. “We have dealt with the witches, as we dealt with them in Wolfram and Arktos. They are no match for our righteous anger against female power that keeps men chained, keeps men from being the masters of the own lives and the world that is rightfully theirs. But the Fae... The Fae are foul creatures that will devour good men and spit out the bones.” His hand shook a little as he raised the wineglass to his mouth. “Good men, turned into nothing more than meat for the maggots and the worms. Because of them. Because of her.”

Finally aware of how gray and ill Adolfo looked, Ubel wondered if it had been wise to imply a narrow escape with the Gatherer in pursuit. But he’d had enough time on the journey back to Durham to consider how Adolfo would react to the loss of the men, and he’d gambled that mentioning the Gatherer’s presence would soften whatever discipline the Witch’s Hammer might decide to inflict. He just hadn’t realized how deeply Adolfo’s fear of her went.

“I am glad that you were able to escape and return to me unharmed, Ubel,” Adolfo said.

Are you?

“Losing those men is a blow to all of us, but losing an Inquisitor with your abilities would have been a harder blow to recover from. Especially now, when we must stand against the vilest enemy we’ve ever faced.”

Adolfo gestured to the chair on the other side of the table. “Sit, Ubel. Sit. You have had a long, hard journey.”

The captain’s quarters in the borrowed yacht were small but held sufficient luxuries, including the gleaming wooden table where Adolfo usually took his meals alone. Ubel wondered who had been assigned to cut up the Master Inquisitor’s meat and butter the bread while he’d been absent. There weren’t many Adolfo trusted enough to let them see even that much weakness.

Or had there been some other reason for Adolfo having one of his best Inquisitors doing tasks that were suitable for a woman? Before he’d left on the journey to the west, he’d considered it an honor to help the Master Inquisitor do the things a man with one dead arm couldn’t easily do for himself. Now he wondered if it had been a subtle way of reminding him that he wasn’t, and never would be, the Master’s equal.

Silence thickened around them. Finally, Adolfo said, “You are sure of this? The Fae are actually living in the Old Places? They are always present in the world?”

“I am sure, Master,” Ubel replied.

Adolfo took a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh. “This is a cursed land, Ubel. The Fae were never so present in Wolfram or Arktos. That’s why we underestimated them as an enemy. Everything I had learned about them has proved false here. We’ve been able to eliminate many witches in the eastern part of Sylvalan in the past few weeks—and the Fae have disappeared from those places, as well. That much we have done. But that village of bitches choosing to die instead of submit to their proper place in the world has shaken too many of the barons. The news of what happened traveled too far, spread too fast. Subtlety will not win those men now. Even those who would be willing to do what was right are afraid of having the people they rule turn against them if they issue even the smallest decree. Bah. They are not men. They’re fools, cowards, little boys still sucking on the teat instead of men who know with certainty that they own the teat and it cannot be denied to them.”

Adolfo stared into his empty wineglass for a long time. “We cannot walk away, Ubel. We cannot leave this unfinished. The eastern barons are too weak to bring about the changes needed to make Sylvalan a good place for good men. If the other barons are allowed to continue to oppose the right way to live, there will be uprisings. The eastern barons will be overthrown. Even in Wolfram, there continue to be small uprisings. Magic springs up in a place, seducing the common people away, turning females into creatures that can’t be trusted. Not that they ever can be trusted. Here, if the other barons continue to defy the good we brought to their land, the eastern barons will fall.”

Ubel said nothing, just watched the Master Inquisitor’s hand tremble slightly as Adolfo refilled the wineglass.

“I have given it great thought,” Adolfo said softly. “Great thought. Witches are the vessels of magic. They are the key. When they are destroyed, magic dies, and the Small Folk and the Fae are driven away from the land. But here, in this accursed country, magic dies as is right and proper—and then it comes back. Pools of it have reappeared in Old Places that were cleansed of magic. Pockets of it have appeared in places where magic hadn’t been before. We keep cutting down the weed that blights the garden, but until we dig out the tap root, it will keep coming back. Keep coming back.”

Adolfo drank deeply, draining his glass. “I am convinced there is a great wellspring of magic in Sylvalan, a great, filthy nest of witches hidden somewhere in this land, and their power flows underground like hidden springs, rising to the surface when some thing or some place acts as a channel. We must find that nest. Find it... and destroy it. We must eliminate the barons who oppose our great work, and we must eliminate the Fae in the west.”

Ubel stared at Adolfo. “But... all the Inquisitors in Wolfram and Arktos combined wouldn’t be enough to do that. It would take an army.”

“Yes.” Adolfo nodded. “It will take an army. And we’ll have an army. From Arktos. From Wolfram. From the eastern barons here. A great army that will roll across this land and wipe out the stain of magic once and for all—everywhere. And you, Ubel. You will take the ships and men to the west, and you will exact a fitting punishment on all those who opposed us, who shed Inquisitors’ blood.”

“Thank you, Master. I will not fail you.”

“I know you will not fail me.” Again.

Ubel felt the sting of the unspoken word.

“Go now,” Adolfo said. “Get some rest. We’ll sail back to Wolfram in the morning. There is much to do.”

Ubel stood, bowed, and left the yacht.

As he walked to the hotel where he had taken a room, he suddenly wondered if being given command of the part of the army that would attack the west was a reward or a punishment.