Dark Priestess Valeria
Dark Priestess Valeria
By Geoff Bottone
For a blind orphan girl living on the streets of Kiragazze, Valeria did not do too badly for herself.
This was due, in no small part, to the crows.
Kiragazze was also known as the City of Crows. They had nests in almost every tree. They stood with murderous intent upon the crumbling peaks of the city’s oldest buildings. They roosted in Kiragazze’s leaning and fire-blackened bell towers. They fluttered about the squares, croaking and flapping, accosting passersby for scraps of food and shiny objects.
Valeria had possessed a kinship with the crows for as long as she could remember. They stood watch over her while she slept in the park and gifted her with the occasional scrap of food or tarnished coin.
But their most useful gift, as far as Valeria was concerned, was the gift of sight. By touching a crow, she could briefly gain the use of its eyes, seeing whatever it saw as it flew about the city. She had seen Kiragazze from far above, a riot of rotting spires and belching chimneys. She had visited the inner courtyard of the Prince’s octagonal palace, sat up on the Great Antlers in the Temple of Farnir, and had an unrivaled aerial view of the masked, chained, and brocaded marchers in the Procession of the Holy Ashes parade.
Being blind and also someone who had seen parts of the city that most lowborn were not meant to see, gave Valeria feelings of happiness that she did not usually experience. She treasured these crowborne vistas as she begged in the plazas or sought shelter from the frequent storms of oily rain.
She thanked the crows for giving her this gift, and quietly damned anyone who would mistreat them.
She smelled the man approaching long before he addressed her.
“You there. Girl.”
With one hand, Valera lifted up her begging bowl, rattling the coins inside of it. With the other, she felt for the crow that had alighted beside her, stroking its smooth feathers. In the blackness of her mind’s eye, a spark kindled and grew. She gritted her teeth against the familiar onrush of vertigo as the growing brightness took shape. Valeria saw the alley, saw herself, saw the man. He was old and stooped, draped in layers of filthy rags. He leaned on a crutch and carried a sack.
“What?” she said.
“Seen you aroun’ here quite a bit lately.”
“Haven’t seen you,” she said.
The man let out a wheezy laugh. “Funny. Must be tough here out on the street, you being all alone and blind and all o’ that.”
“I get by,” she said. “What do you want?”
He hesitated, scratched his mangy chin. “Well, thing of it is, me and some o’ the other beggars, we recently joined an organization of what you might call like-minded individuals, and similar.”
“Uh huh.”
“And, seeing as how you’re all alone in the world, which was what I was prior to becoming a member o’ said organization, I thought you might be interested in joining
“Oh,” said Valeria after a moment. “So it’s a gang?”
“Well, no.” He shook his head. “I mean, yes, it is a gang in that it’s a group o’ like-minded people banding together for the purposes o’ mutual benefit. But rather than raise a ruckus or engage in shakedowns o’ the local neighborhoods and suchlike, we’re more about love and understanding and sharing our power to make ourselves and the world a better place.
“Oh. So it’s like a church?” asked Valeria.
The man looked thoughtful now, and a bit confused. “Well, I suppose that, if you squint a bit, it’s kind o’ like a church. But we don’t have any, you know, ceremonies or prayers or trappings o’ a similar nature. And we don’t worship any o’ the gods, either, though we do pay a little respect to something our Grandmaster calls the Darkness.”
The way he pronounced it, Valeria could hear the capital D. She watched herself cock her head in a most crow-like gesture.
“The Darkness?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said the man. “It’s a kind o’, what’d the Grandmaster call it? A representation o’ something that’s, you know, often misunderstood. Like folks such as ourselves. Y’see, a lot o’ people have negative feelings about the Darkness and are afraid of it. But it’s a natural thing, y’know, quiet, comforting. Necessary to the whole running o’ the world.”
“Ohhhh,” said Valeria. “So it’s a cult!”
“It’s not a cult!” shouted the man. “I dunno why everyone I talk to says that.”
“It just sounds a little culty,” replied Valeria. “That’s all.”
“Well, I swear on my own name, which is Flinty Pete, that it’s not a cult. At least, I don’t believe it is. And If my promise isn’t worth that much to you, I can also tell you that the Grandmaster provides food and drink for everyone who comes.”
“Oh, well that changes things a little bit,” said Valeria. “I guess I could come to one of your meetings. But I’m not making any promises about joining.”
The frown lines in Flinty Pete’s face smoothed slightly. “Oh, that’s good. Well, our Grandmaster will like to hear that. Always looking to spread our outreach and get fresh blood into the organization, you understan’.”
“I bet.”
“And, if you stay afterwards, I’m sure he’ll be able to answer all of your questions. At least, better than I could, for certain!”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Valeria. “When and where is your next meeting?”
“Tonight, just after ten bells. We meet in a little clearing in the Gloomwood, just a stone’s throw from the north gate. Depending on the strength of your arm, o’ course. You turn right after the broken cart and follow the track into the woods. Takes you right there. If you get to where the produce stand used to be, you’ve gone too far.”
Flinty Pete leaned on his crutch, a thoughtful look on his face. “Come to think of it. Can you find your way out there on your own? I’m happy to meet you at the gate and walk with you out there, if you like.”
She shook her head, emphatically. “No. I can find it on my own. I’ll be there.”
Flinty Pete’s face lit up in what Valeria thought was a relieved smile. “Great. Just great. You won’t be disappointed.”
Looking through crows’ eyes at night was weird. She wondered if people saw at night in the same way. Probably not, the way she had seen some of them blundering around after dark.
To be fair, that might have been the drink.
Whatever the case, the crows flying above her and perched on various trees gave her a good view of the road and the overgrown hump that she assumed was the broken cart. Turning at it and wandering into the woods, she found the narrow, winding path. As she walked deeper into the Gloomwood, she began to hear the occasional snatches of conversation from somewhere up ahead.
Something bright suddenly flared in the lead crow’s vision, causing Valeria to curse and switch to a different bird. This one stood in the canopy of a tree whose leaves partially blocked the extremely bright firelight emanating from a small grove below. Standing in that grove were a cluster of shabbily-dressed individuals. Half of them milled about a long table, covered by a purple tablecloth and heavily laden with snacks. The others jockeyed for position to see who could stand closest to a rusty iron cauldron.
As Valeria approached, one of the individuals near the table turned and waddled up to her. He held a toothpick between thumb and index finger, upon which a variety of meats and cheeses were skewered.
“Ah, girl! You came,” said Flinty Pete. “And just in time, too. There’s still some food left, and the Grandmaster’s about to start his speechifying.”
Valeria went over to the table with Flinty Pete and loaded up on the hors d’oeuvres. As she did this, she saw, from the perspective of multiple crows, a curiously clean-looking gentleman walking into the clearing. The mob of city beggars parted before him like a filthy sea, letting his neatly combed hair and pale-colored robes pass to stand before the cauldron without so much as a smudge.
As he reached the cauldron, something that looked like shadows or smoke bubbled out of its center to pour down the sides, vanishing before it hit the ground.
“Ah, brethren,” said the Grandmaster. “Blessed are we, for the Darkness presides over the hour of our meeting. Blessed are we, for our numbers have again increased.”
The Grandmasters looked out into the crowd and immediately locked eyes with Flinty Pete. “And I see that even those who claim to have no friends have been successful in spreading the Darkness’ message.”
“Erm,” said Flinty Pete, looking somehow ashamed and relieved at the same time. “I suppose I have.”
“I bid welcome to all newcomers,” continued the Grandmaster, spreading his arms wide. “Come forth and be recognized.”
Valeria did not particularly want to come forth, but Flinty Pete gave her an encouraging thrust, pushing her into the empty space between the supplicants and the cauldron. Standing beside her were other folks from Kiragazze’s bottommost rung. Most of them looked suspicious. A few looked hopeful.
The Grandmaster went among them, resting his hands on their shoulders and giving them words of welcome. He stank of perfume and cedar wood, and his hands were heavy on Valeria’s shoulders. She felt an unpleasant jolt as something flashed between them.
Several of her crows broke contact, flapping noisily up from the trees and letting out fearful croaks. Valeria felt her connections to the remaining crows fade for a moment, as if she was looking down the length of a rapidly constricting tunnel.
Overwhelmed by panic, she shrugged off the Grandmaster’s hands and stepped away from him. Her crow sight returned with its full intensity, and she was able to see that the Grandmaster had moved on to the other newcomers. Valeria found that she did not like the hungry smile that had spread across his face.
She retreated into the safety of the crowd and, for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom, found herself once again standing in Flinty Pete’s redolent aura. He had given her no reason to trust him–quite the opposite, in fact–but he was also the only person in the crowd that she knew, and that slight familiarity made him seem safer than the rest.
The Grandmaster finished greeting the newcomers and launched into a droning sermon about the safety and power the Darkness could provide. Valeria paid little heed, waiting for an opportunity to sneak away from the gathering and, ideally, never see any of these people again.
“…hope you newcomers will feel comfortable binding yourself to the Darkness. The process is very simple, while the rewards are quite bountiful.”
The Grandmaster tapped the edge of the cauldron, causing another bubble of shadow to burble forth. “Wizards may tell you that only certain individuals have magical powers, but this simply isn’t true. Every one of you has latent magical potential resting deep inside of yourselves, like a slumbering seed. The Darkness can help you make that seed blossom. All you need to do is give a bit of your potential to the Darkness and a bit to the person that sponsored you.”
Valeria made one of the crows turn its head to glare at Flinty Pete. Then, watching herself in the other crows’ eyes, she glared in Flinty Pete’s general direction.
“Sorry, girl,” whispered Flinty Pete, glancing furtively up into the tree. “The Grandmaster said I had to bring someone along to this meeting, otherwise he was thinking o’ terminating my membership. For perceived lack o’ enthusiasm and suchlike. I expect I’m in his good graces again–or good enough–and if you don’t want to swear the oath, there’s no harm done as far as I can see.”
“Peter!” the Grandmaster’s voice sliced effortlessly through the darkness. He smiled as all eyes turned to Flinty Pete. “Do you have something you would like to add?”
“No, Grandmaster. I was just trying to explain some o’ the particulars to the girl here, and–”
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Valeria interrupted. “Flinty Pete is my patron, right? So, if I complete this ritual, I have to give some of my latent power to him and to the Darkness.”
“Indeed,” said the Grandmaster.
“And what do I get out of it?”
“Young lady, this is an investment in your future. You need to be patient and trust in the Darkness. Once you have completed the oath, you will know the Darkness’ power, and you will no doubt wish to invite others to the next meeting. At which point you become their patron and–”
“They give me some of their power,” said Valeria. “I get it. But what happens to them?”
“The cycle continues! And as they recruit others, they will gain power and you will gain even more power. The longer you serve the Darkness, the more–”
“But that doesn’t math!” said Valeria. “If I recruit two people and those two people recruit two people, and then all those people get two people, we’ll have soon brought into our blessed congregation every beggar in the city. There won’t be anyone else to recruit!”
The Grandmaster huffed. “No one ever said that this was a beggars-only organization! You can recruit anyone you like.”
“Oh, yes, sure,” said Valeria. “I’ll just waltz up to one of the burghers of the city, say hello, and tell him I want him to go into the woods with me to join a cult. I’m sure he’ll–”
“It’s not a cult!” said the Grandmaster, Flinty Pete, and several of the other congregants at almost the same time. Though, to be entirely fair, Flinty Pete seemed much less sure about that than he had been.
“Uh huh,” said Valeria. “Sure.”
“I don’t think I like your tone or your insinuations,” said the Grandmaster, “and I don’t think you’d be a terribly good fit for our group.”
“That’s fine,” said Valeria. “I’m not interested in doing…whatever it is you want me to do to fit into the group. So I’ll just be going now.”
“That’s just fine,” said the Grandmaster. “Take your negativity and go elsewhere, before it permanently corrupts our shared goodwill and mutual trust.
“I will!” said Valeria, as she strode off into the forest.
Most of the crows flew off after her, scouting the way ahead, guiding her safely back to the road and the city gate. Some remained in the trees around the clearing for a few more moments’ more, watching the aftermath of her departure. Valeria saw the Grandmaster recover his composure, address the crowd, and invite the newcomers up. They approached the cauldron one at a time, touching the rim and, presumably, swearing an oath.
The crows grew bored and took flight. At the sound of their departure, the Grandmaster looked up, staring straight at the nearest crow. Through the crow’s eyes, Valeria saw a fearsome, predatory smile spread across the Grandmaster’s face.
Valeria couldn’t quite tell if she was worrying unnecessarily, or if something had happened to her supernatural bond to the crows. Over the next few weeks, she found that she could not see through their eyes nearly as clearly, or for nearly as long. For the past few days, she had found herself far more tired than usual and susceptible to painful headaches that would have, had she not already suffered from the condition, been blinding.
One rainy and early morning, having arisen mostly alert and with only a gentle throb in the back of her head, Valeria decided to conduct some experiments. That way, she would be able to figure out if it was all in her head, or if it was all in her head because someone had put it there.
With two crows to guide her, she traveled through Kiragazze to the abandoned Tower of Knives, a favorite perching spot. She hoped that there would be other crows roosting there in sufficient numbers for her to test out the full limits of her powers.
When she ducked in through the half-collapsed doorframe, she expected to see at least a dozen of the oily black birds clustered in the rafters, trying to get out of the rain.
She did not expect to see them dead on the floor.
Valeria had seen dead crows before, and that did not disturb her. Crows died in Kiragazze with as much frequency as everyone and everything else did. What disturbed her was not only the sheer number of dead crows inside the Tower of Knives, but also the manner in which they died. They were rigid, twisted into unnatural postures, as if someone had grabbed them in mid flight and wrung the life out of them.
She reached out to touch one of the dead crows. The moment her fingertips brushed its wing, it crumbled into dust.
The crows that accompanied Valera cawed out in terror and fled, departing through the tower’s slit windows in a flurry of flapping wings. She was seized by a brief moment of vertigo as she saw the rooftops of Kiragazze, of the leaning structure of the Tower of Knives falling away below her. She fumbled around, accidentally treading another crow to dust, before she was able to find a mostly upright wall to steady herself. Trying to keep the panic and desperation from her mental command, she begged the crows to return.
Then everything went dark.
“Girl? You there?”
Valeria abruptly ceased her weeping, feeling around for a gap in the rubble behind her. When she found one that she thought was large enough, she pushed her way inside of it as quickly and quietly as she could.
Unsteady footsteps made their way across the dusty tower floor, punctuated by the thump-scrape of a crutch tip.
“Girl? I know you might be afraid, but it’s only me, old Flinty Pete.”
Valeria made herself as small as she could.
“I hoped you might have been here, girl, on account o’ the fact that this is a good place for crows and you’re the girl that has that…thing…with the crows.” She heard him scratching at something and was hit by a fresh wave of his scent. “Though I’m looking aroun’ and it occurs to me that it might be less o’ a good place for crows at the moment.”
Flinty Pete let out a defeated sigh.
“Been to half the roosts in the city searching for you. I expect I’ll have to search the rest until I do. I gotta tell you that you were right about the Grandmaster and that organization o’ his. It’s a cult and there’s no mistake about it. A powerfully nasty one, too. Why, if you could see me, you’d probably be even more afraid o’ me than you are now.”
By now, his aroma had spread out enough to reach Valeria’s nose. From the strength of the smell, and the direction of his voice, Valeria judged that he was standing right in front of her.
“You can see me, can’t you?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I can. Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean that I can’t see you, girl.”
With an annoyed huff, she wriggled herself out of the rubble and got to her feet.
“What changed your mind?” Valeria asked as she brushed what she hoped was stone dust out of her clothes.
“Ever since your visit, things have taken a turn for the less pleasant. It started with some o’ the other members asking the Grandmaster questions about what you said, which he didn’t seem to take too kindly to. Then, we all started to get sick.”
Valeria thought of her headaches, especially since one was coming on. “Sick how?”
“Feeling a bit tired, at first, nothing too severe, at least in my case. But then other members o’ the organization started to feel sluggish and sickly. Some o’ them had bone aches and stiff joints. Others o’ em couldn’t eat for stomach cramps. Shaggy Bert’s hair started to fall out in clumps, which is a problem, as he’s mostly hair.
“We all went to the Grandmaster for advice, and that’s when he blamed you.”
“Me?!” Valeria’s voice resounded off of the tower walls.
“Yeah. He said it was you that had done it, on account o’ you being jealous. He said that you were using your own powers to pull all o’ the latent magic out o’ the group, and out o’ the Darkness itself.”
“Obviously I’m not,” said Valeria, gesturing at the petrified and desiccated crows she knew still littered the tower’s interior. “I’m just as much a victim of the Grandmaster as the rest of you.”
“Course I know that,” said Flinty Pete. “Unfortunately, most o’ the rest o’ the group don’t, and, on account of that, they’re trying to find you to bring you to the Grandmaster for judgement. It’s a lucky thing that Flinty Pete found you first.”
Valeria privately agreed that she much preferred to have been found by Flinty Pete than by a horde of sickly and angry cultists.
“What do you think are the odds of getting the others to see reason?” asked Valeria.
She could almost hear the gears creaking in Flinty Pete’s head. “Pretty bad.”
“All right, then we’ll have to take care of this some other way. But first, I need to find some of my friends.”
They traveled slowly until Valeria found a pair of crows hopping around on the Street of the Lost Gods. With some effort, she coaxed them over to her, fed them with the crumbs lining her pockets, and asked if she could borrow their vision. The images she saw were washed out and blurry. They made her temples ache.
“You all right, girl?”
She thought of the crows in the Tower of Knives and clenched her hands into painful fists. “I will be.”
They proceeded onward, much faster than before, the crows circling overhead to help Valeria on her way. Through them, she saw the mob of beggars gathered in the distant Plaza of the Crook-Backed Demon. She told Flinty Pete.
“Let’s not confront them,” Flinty Pete replied, “They were powerful angry the last time I saw them, and I don’t expect things have changed much.”
“Oh, I’m not going to confront them,” said Valeria. “I just want to spy on them and see if they know where the Grandmaster is.”
Cloaked and masked townsfolk stalked past them as Flinty Pete stroked his chin and looked all around him. He gestured with a blunt finger to a narrow, leaning alley between two brick buildings. “Down here. We’ll be out o’ sight while you do your bird thing. And there’s a bakery back there, if memory serves, which means there might be stale bread in the bin out back.”
They crouched down in the shadow of the alley, avoiding the puddles of mystery moisture and almost cracking their remaining teeth on charred, ironhard crusts of black bread. Valeria fought back the awful pounding in her head and the rising nausea in her stomach as she surveyed the nearby mob of beggars.
She suspected that such a large gathering of the city’s most hated class would attract attention, and she was right. A few minutes after she began gnawing her way through her second loaf, Valeria spotted a detachment of the city guard, clad in their black and crimson, pushing their way into the Plaza of the Crook-Backed Demon. They formed into ranks, leveled their spiked mancatchers at the crowd of beggars, and advanced.
Just as it looked like battle was inevitable, a familiar figure in a pale robe appeared on a balcony overlooking the plaza. At the moment of his arrival, Valeria felt stretched thin, as if her very essence were being pulled out of her body, through the crows, and into the outstretched arm of the Grandmaster.
He radiated such an aura of command that the city guard, usually content to cave in skulls with barely a pretext, fell back. The beggars jeered, howled, and made some very creative and impressive gestures as the guards fled the plaza in something between a fighting retreat and a panicked rout.
Laughing, the Grandmaster directed his attention to the unwashed masses gathered below. Valeria watched as his words transformed them from a milling crowd to a mindless, multi-bodied organism bent solely on destruction. They pumped the air with their fists, cheered at his every word, and screamed so loudly that their voices reached Valeria in the alley.
“That sounds bad,” muttered Flinty Pete, who had also heard the cries.
“It is.”
It got immediately worse when the Grandmaster looked upward, staring directly into the eyes of one of her crows. His smile was vicious, predatory. Valeria watched his mouth form words.
I see you.
“We need to run,” said Valeria, calling the crows back. “Right now.”
“Not much for running,” said Flinty Pete, grunting as he stood, “but considering the alternative…”
Above the streets of Kiragazze, the crows circled, watching the crowd of beggars as they poured out of the Plaza of the Crook-Backed Demon to spread through the city. Guided by their aerial view of the city, Valeria was able to avoid encountering any of the unleashed mob, although she did collect quite a number of bruises banging into walls and other obstacles.
“Watch yourself, girl,” said Flinty Pete.
“I can’t,” hissed Valeria, as she dragged Flinty Pete by the ratty hem of one sleeve. “You’re the one with eyes. You’ll have to do it for me.”
“Ah, right,” said Flinty Pete. “Well, in that case. You’re going to want to take a left here, to avoid that gutter.”
Squelch.
“Godsdamnit,” seethed Valeria, under her breath.
“Er. I suppose I meant right.”
Valeria pulled free of the midden, shook off the worst of the filth clinging to her leg, and dragged Flinty Pete to the right.
“Where are we going, anyway?” he asked. “If you were to ask me, I’d suggest leaving the city entirely and finding a nice hidey hole in the Gloomwood.”
Valeria pushed him back against a wall and flattened herself against him as a pair of beggars ran across the mouth of the alley.
“‘Course, I did happen to notice that you weren’t asking me,” Flinty Pete continued. “Which makes me think you have a destination o’ your own in mind.”
“I do,” said Valeria, waiting a moment before venturing out of the alley’s mouth. “We’re going to the Plaza of the Crook-Backed Demon.”
“But why?” Flinty Pete’s voice broke a bit in terror. “That’s where the Grandmaster is!”
“I know. And if he’s there, then the cauldron holding the Darkness is there, too.” Valeria paused to check in on what the crows were seeing and abruptly changed direction. “I think if we can get the cauldron away from him, we might be able to take his power away, too.”
“Is that how it works, do you think?” said Flinty Pete after a long pause.
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But it’s better than running away.”
“I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, girl,” he replied.
She ignored his concerns. This was because, in part, if she really started thinking about what she was doing, she would probably also break and run for the Gloomwood, which would not solve their problem. This was also because, in part, they had finally reached the plaza. Valeria dragged Flinty Pete into the shadows of a nearby colonnade.
“I’m going to need you to be my eyes for this next part,” she said, leaning on Flinty Pete’s arm.
“What about your birds?”
“They’re not technically mine,” she replied, “and they can’t see through roofs. I asked some of them to come back for me, but that’s going to take them a bit. You have to guide me until they get here.”
“Well then you’ll have to guide me,” said Flinty Pete. “Where do I go?”
She gestured ahead, vaguely. “I saw the Grandmaster on a white building with a balcony. It had stone columns with crow skull decorations and–”
“I see it. C’mon.”
They moved forward slowly. Despite having visual confirmation that none of the beggar cultists were coming back this way, Valeria still felt an icy trickle of sweat drip down her spine. She had not seen the Grandmaster since he had left the balcony. He could be hiding in the colonnade, or in a shadowed doorway, waiting to strike.
“We’re here,” said Flinty Pete. “Watch out for these steps.”
With Flinty Pete guiding her, Valeria stepped up and into a massive chamber that smelled of desperation, rot, and dust. The sounds of her own footfalls echoed back to her, distorting her sense of scale. She stumbled to a halt, almost overcome by the dizzying thrill of vertigo.
Then, with a caw, she felt the reassuring weight of a crow as it landed heavily on her shoulder, one wing ruffling her hair and scraping feathers along her ear. Claws dug into her flesh, hard enough to leave marks, but not enough to break the skin.
She could see again. The ground floor of the stone building might have once been some kind of marketplace, temple, or other communal area. The floor was covered in drifts of dirt, and the detritus of the dying city had collected around the plinths of the supporting columns. There were signs of impromptu habitation all over, from the sooty remnants of small fires to tattered scrawls of scavenged blankets.
Ahead, a chipped and slightly listing stone and iron staircase led upward.
She pointed. “That way.”
Valeria tried to ignore the way the staircase shuddered beneath her as they ascended to the upper floor. This area looked slightly better than the floor below. Someone had at least employed a broom recently. They had also hung several pieces of faded brocade cloth between the pillars to liven up the place. The waning daylight filtered in through an open archway that led out onto a balcony. It illuminated an alcove made by three clashing and wrinkled panels of fabric, and the rusty cauldron it contained.
“There!” she said, springing forward.
“Now what?” asked Flinty Pete, from a respectable distance behind her.
Through the crow’s eyes, she peered into the cauldron. Whatever roiled inside was almost smoke, almost liquid, and was the darkest thing that Valeria had ever seen. She wondered if pouring it out would remove the Grandmaster’s powers. She grabbed the rusted lip. It was worth a try.
Something slithered into her head. The crow on her shoulder let out a panicked caw and took off to the rafters. Valeria thought she heard a distant voice, but she couldn’t make out what it was saying. Then she thought she heard it laugh.
Behind her, Flinty Pete let out a strangled gurgle and collapsed.
“Step away from the cauldron, or he dies.”
Valeria turned.
Behind her, the contents of the cauldron churned and writhed. Ahead of her, the Grandmaster spread his arms so wide that his robes blocked out the balcony entrance behind him. Between them, Flinty Pete clutched at his chest and struggled to rise, veins bulging on his purple face.
“Stop it,” said Valeria.
“You are in no position to make demands.” The Grandmaster lowered his arms. “Move away from the cauldron.”
From her bird’s-eye view, Valeria watched herself circle to the right, away from the cauldron. The Grandmaster matched her steps and speed. They remained directly across from one another, but now the balcony was on Valeria’s right, the cauldron on her left.
Flinty Pete let out a shuddering moan.
“I did it,” said Valeria. “Let him go.”
The Grandmaster made a dismissive gesture with his hand. Flinty Pete’s face rapidly took on a more appropriate shade as the air wooshed back into his lungs.
“Remember this, Peter,” he said. “I could have killed you, but I didn’t. That’s because we are brothers in the Darkness, and though you were unwitting, you have served it well.”
“I’d rather not be your brother, or any o’ your other relations, if it’s all the same to you,” said Flinty Pete. “And I don’t particularly want to serve the Darkness anymore, either.”
“But you did so, all the same.” The Grandmaster spread his arms again. “I knew you liked the girl. I knew that if I started killing crows, if I set the others against her, you would try to find her and protect her. I knew that if you thought the situation was dire enough, you might even feel brave enough to try and confront me, bringing her here in the process.”
“That was her idea,” said Flinty Pete.
“Nevertheless.” The Grandmaster smiled, one of his awful, predatory smiles. “The important thing is that the girl is here. The girl with her delightful magical talents.”
He raised a hand. A tendril of Darkness curled up out of the cauldron and slithered across the room to intertwine itself through his fingers. Valeria felt a sudden pressure in her head. Her connection to the crow wavered. It now seemed that she looked down at herself through a rapidly narrowing tunnel.
“It is easier if people give me their power,” said the Grandmaster, “but it isn’t strictly necessary that they do. It requires effort to take someone’s power. It makes me tired. Sometimes for days. Not a dealbreaker, certainly, but it’s something I only do if the power is worth it.
“Yours is.”
The Darkness hit her like an avalanche, like a tidal wave. She was enshrouded, constricted by a blackness so black that it made mere blindness seem like noonday sunshine. It tugged at the core of her being, pulled it screaming and sobbing from the center of her chest. It pulled it taut, deforming it hideously, dragging it inexorably into the body of the Grandmaster.
“It will be easier on you if you don’t resist.”
The Grandmaster’s voice was as honey sweet as it was insincere, and something about its tone kindled an ember deep inside Valeria. It was little more than a white hot mote of light and heat, of pain and rage, but it was enough to push the Darkness back. Enough for Valeria to see the truth, see that the Grandmaster was risking everything to claim her power. He might have thought he was using the Darkness to strip her gift away, but what was actually tied to her now was the Grandmaster’s soul.
Valeria gritted her teeth.
And pulled.
“What?!” she heard the Grandmaster cry in disbelief. “How?!”
Once again, she could see through the crow’s eyes, but the situation had changed. Flinty Pete was on his feet, limping backward toward the balcony, his crutch held out before him in a warding gesture. Now it was the Grandmaster who was on his hands and knees, his face turning crimson, his veins bulging on his skin. The Darkness that had once wreathed his fingers was now stretched taut between them like a black rope, linking Valeria to the Grandmaster, the Grandmaster to the cauldron.
Valeria gave a final heave. The tension in the room ended abruptly as she felt something inside the Grandmaster give way with a wet snap.
For a moment, there was no other sound other than the Grandmaster’s labored breathing and the distant susurrus of laughter.
“How…” the Grandmaster sobbed. “How did you…How…”
“Let’s go, girl,” said Flinty Pete.
Valeria could have let him go. She could have walked down the stairs and left the Grandmaster broken and powerless, abandoned by the Darkness, abandoned by his followers.
But she thought of what he wanted to do to her. Of what he wanted to do to her crows.
She reached out with the Darkness, seized the Grandmaster by his ineffable core, and gave one final yank.
What was left of the Grandmaster sagged bonelessly onto the floor and lay very still.
“Girl,” said Flinty Pete, in a whisper of awe and horror.
“Valeria,” she said, cocking her head as she expanded her crow sight and saw what all of her friends could see, saw the beggar cultists returning to the plaza. “My name is Valeria.”
“Yes,” said Flinty Pete. “I suppose it is.”
“Come,” she said, striding past him out onto the balcony.
Arrayed below her were the beggars of Kirigazze, their faces pinched and hopeless, their eyes brimming with tears and terror. WIth her new connection to the Darkness, Valeria knew that they had felt the Grandmaster die. They also knew that he had died at the hands of the girl who, until recently, they had hunted on his behalf. She knew that they did not like their chances of living to see the sunset.
For the moment, she left them to wallow in their own fear as she opened herself to the Darkness. It flowed through her, cool and powerful, joining with her already considerable gifts. Enhancing them. Expanding them. She thought of the crows at the Tower of Knives, cruelly murdered by the Grandmaster. She sent the Darkness through the Veil between the world of the living and the dead, commanding it to find the spirits of her murdered friends and bring them back to her.
Again the distant laughter. Then, in puffs of eldritch smoke and livid, heatless flames, her friends returned to her, beating at the air with ethereal wings and cawing in horror.
With this done, Valeria at last turned her gaze to the beggars assembled below her. She raised a hand and let the Darkness flow from her fingertips. The beggars shivered, shuddered, and looked at one another in disbelief. Beside her, on the balcony, Flinty Pete did the same.
“I have restored what the Grandmaster took from you,” she said. “Your power was not his to take, nor is it mine to keep. You are now once again complete, as am I.”
“Here is where we part ways, you and I. I give you back your lives. Know that I could have taken them, and taken them easily, just like the Grandmaster would have done had you displeased him. Know that I give your lives back to you even though you would have, until moments ago, taken my life from me to satisfy his whims.”
The expressions on the beggars’ faces subtly shifted from confusion and dread to rapturous awe. One beggar woman toward the front raised her hands in supplication and shouted.
“Mistress, you are kind and you are merciful. We will serve you forever!”
Valeria smiled and let the Darkness flow from her hands. It coiled around the balcony, embracing Flinty Pete, before pouring down onto the plaza below and anointing her new followers.
“I know,” she said.