CHAPTER 20: A Clean Thing Out Of An Unclean

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
Job 14:4

The ravens on the windowsills opened their wings, dark eyes glittering as they watched the sculptor’s slow advance. The Erl King waited.

“What do you intend to do?”

“Kill you.”

“So easily.” The Erl King smiled. “The moral teachings of your religion are weak, Völker.”

Behind them both, Alrune laughed. The priest shuddered, his fingers sliding up to protectively cover the crucifix around his neck.

Danti feinted, testing the Hunter. The Erl King stood motionless, letting the tip pass inches from his face, then swung the bladeless end of the spear around. Danti tried to pull his arm back, but the wooden shaft was too swift, cracking across his ribs and knocking him sideways. He caught himself against the wall with hand and hilt, blade scraping against stone, and drew in a sharp breath as he straightened. Pain shot through his side.

“Is that the best you can do, sculptor?” asked Teiwa, baring his teeth in an inhuman smile. “I was expecting more than that, even from you.”

Danti lifted his sword again, testing himself. A stripe of pain crossed his chest and darkened his vision a moment, but he stood.

“So,” the stormlord said, watching him, “you are a warrior, aren’t you?”

Danti swung. Steel sank into wood and was thrown off. Another, and the spear caught it, turning the blow against the floor. Again, carving long splinters from the haft, scraping against the bronze head.

Danti and the wolf god lunged and circled, blade and spear flashing in the lamplight. .

“Wait!” With sudden resolution, Father Völker darted forward and planted himself between them with his hands held out in supplication. Danti paused. “Danti, I forbid you to answer evil with murder!”

“Völker!”

Albrecht’s cry of warning came too late as the Erl King’s spear came up. Its tip pressed against the priest’s cassock for one moment before sliding through cloth and muscle. Bronze sliced a path under Völker’s ribs to rip through the soft cartilage of his sternum. Blood fountained, drenching Danti, the cook and Alrune in crimson gore.

For a moment, the priest stood upright, hands still extended; then the Erl King yanked his weapon back, and Father Völker collapsed.

“There,” the storm king sneered as he stood over the corpse. “Let’s see if you really can be washed white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Albrecht looked down. His shirt was spattered with the priest’s hearts-blood; it ran down his face and hands. In front of him, Danti stood motionless as blood steamed on his face, chest and arms.

Alrune briskly wiped his hands on his hose, leaving behind scarlet smears.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Danti whispered, shaken. The smoldering anger in his eyes had been replaced by stunned grief.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” the Erl King sneered. “This is more than just a little disagreement between the keep’s tenants. This is a matter of power. And you are caught in the middle of it.”

“As are all mortals,” Alrune added. Danti glanced at him, trusting the dwarf no better than he did the Erl King. He no longer believed Alrune was anything so simple as a Florentine scholar. Now Alrune ranked with the Erl King and Araciel, something inhuman, although for the life of him, Danti couldn’t tell if Alrune was on their side, or against it.

He tried to control his nausea, sickened by the warmth of the blood that covered him. Steam curled up from the priest’s body. The Erlkönig’s boar spear was barbed, and its withdrawal had taken more of Völker with it than should have come.

“And that’s one side down,” the Erl King summarized. He looked up, fastening his eyes on Alrune. “Does the other side want to try me?”

The scholar grinned back in his blood-soaked fool’s costume, unimpressed.

“You’d better look to your back, first,” he advised.

The Erl King’s eyes narrowed. Reluctantly, warily, he took a step backward and cast a quick glance behind him.

A huge grey wolf stood in the doorway of the northwest stairs, ears flat and teeth bared.

“Well, well, Hubert,” purred the Erl King. “I see you’ve finally chosen sides.”

“Naich?” Danti felt as though everything he’d known had been snatched from him, to be replaced by a world he didn’t understand and was powerless to alter. He felt no surprise at seeing the Erl King addressing a grey wolf by the flautist’s name; only a dull sense of resignation that yet one more thing he’d thought he was beginning to understand had been made strange.

Alfons and Dietrich dead. Völker dead. Araciel dead, and somehow raised again. Alrune something strange and powerful. Naich a wolf. The children gone.

He was a sculptor, not a hero. He no longer wanted to have anything to do with Gestern Keep, its damnable winters or its unearthly residents. He just wanted a quiet, warm studio and some peace.

“No,” the Erl King corrected. “Gestern.”

Danti wiped his eyes with the back of his coat sleeve, other hand still holding saber at the ready. The priest’s blood was slowly soaking into his clothes, dulling the simple colors and turning them a matte scarlet.

The two ravens, all but forgotten on the windowsill, fluttered their wings, hopping from side to side and croaking as if excited. The Erl King smiled with little humor.

“My daughters are glad to see you, Hubert. They’ve enjoyed your music, this past century. I wonder if they think you’ll defeat me and continue to entertain them?”

“‘Beware of thy own children,’” Alrune quoted. “The wælcyrge Agony and Death aren’t discriminating ladies.”

The wolf Gestern crouched, muscles tense, waiting. The Erl King lifted his boar-spear, ignoring the dwarven scholar.

Closing his eyes, Danti thought about the ravens and remembered Agony’s words to him so long ago – or was it really only last night?

Gestern slowly began to inch forward, slinking to the side of the wall, eyeing the Erl King. Teiwa watched him, dark eyes sardonic.

“You’ve been a wolf less than a century, Gestern. I’ve been the wolf king since mankind first lit a fire in these mountains. Forget this ill-fated revenge of yours and acknowledge me as your master, as you did those years past.” The Erl King continued to turn, keeping his weapon between the wolf and himself. “You are very near death, Gestern. Nearer than you think.”

Danti opened his eyes to watch. Albrecht and Alrune were intent on the scene, the cook in shock, Alrune with academic interest.

Nobody would do anything until somebody broke the stalemate. He glanced at the ravens and caught one of them watching him back. With a brief nod, Danti gathered himself up and, as soon as the Erl King took one more step, back to him, he leaped.

An arm hardened by years of working stone locked on the Erl King’s shoulder. He yanked the Hunter back and thrust his sword arm forward. His free arm slid forward to wrap around the stormlord’s neck, and his sword hand brushed the fabric of the Hunter’s tunic as steel pierced the Erl King’s flesh.

Danti felt something grind in his side as the Erl King staggered against him, off-balance.

The great wolf sprang, its front paws snagging around the stormlord’s shoulders. Teeth closed on the northern god’s face, tearing at both his neck and Danti’s arm. Danti staggered under the sudden increase in weight, red pain streaking through his chest.

The Erl King almost dropped his boar spear. His free hand rose to claw at the sculptor’s arm. Like a wolf himself, he twisted and snapped his teeth in the air. Danti yanked backward, trying to disengage the saber. Araciel’s sword jarred against something as it emerged from the Hunter’s back, and Danti gasped. Something inside of him twisted, and everything went two shades darker.

Four hands dragged him away. He tried to struggle, then opened his eyes to see both Albrecht and Araciel over him, hauling him away from the battle. Relieved, he let himself go limp. They pulled him past Völker’s corpse and leaned him against the wall.

“Be thee well? Danti!” Araciel grabbed his friend’s shoulders, sighing in relief when the sculptor groaned and opened his eyes.

“Hell,” Danti gasped. “I think I broke some ribs.”

“Thou be as blessed by God as fools and children,” Araciel said, hands tightening on his shoulders. “What made thee believe thou could attack a deity with impunity?”

“The old story of David and Goliath.” Danti winced as Araciel helped him lean against the wall. “This time, I think Goliath won.”

“Thou must….”

“Danti!” Caterina skidded to a halt in the laboratory door, staring wide-eyed at all the blood. “You’re hurt!”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Danti said, amused even in the midst of the chaos around them by the look in Araciel’s eyes as he moved aside for her. Caterina kneeled beside him, wincing slightly. She wore a man’s coat and a dirty pouch belt tied around her waist. Her hair was in disarray and blood smeared across her face and hands. Danti wondered what she’d been doing, as she laid a small hand on his.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ll live. The Erl King killed Völker. Naich….”

“Is the old Lord Gestern.” She looked up, past them, to where wolf and stormlord circled each other. “I know.” Her eyes dropped from the fight to Völker’s body, and then to Dietrich’s. She caught her breath, hands rising to her mouth.

Blood ran from the Erl King’s face and shoulders, and the sleeve of one arm was ripped from shoulder to elbow. Gestern snarled, feinting at his legs, darting back, snapping. Teiwa watched angrily, on the defensive. The sword Danti had half-pulled from his back now laid on the ground, shaken from the wound by their struggle. The Hunter didn’t seem to notice that his tunic, front and back, was soaked with his own gore.

“Where’s Basti?” Albrecht asked, using his meat cleaver to rip the front of Danti’s crimson-soaked shirt open. The sculptor winced as fingers pressed against his battered side.

“He….” Caterina pointed, the sight of her brother’s corpse stealing her voice. Both cook and sculptor looked up.

A black-furred wolf stood in the door of the northeast stairs.

“God have mercy,” Danti breathed, letting his head drop back to the floor again.

Alrune edged forward, his fingertips touching the hilt of the fallen French sword. He picked it up and stepped back. With an expression of satisfaction, the dwarf leaned against the wall and tapped the tip of the saber on the varnished floor.

The Erl King staggered, his back striking the stone wall as Gestern came at him with a furious round of attacks. Teeth bared in his own snarl, he brought the wooden haft of the boar spear across the wolf’s muzzle. Gestern fell back, shaking his head.

“Kommt!” howled the god of storms, throwing his head back. “Kommt!”

Basti howled in anguish.

Alrune began to whistle to himself. Not losing a note, he whipped the sword in his hand sideways.

The action caught the ravens on the windowsill by surprise, and the blade struck them. Fragile bones in their legs shattered under the blow, but before they could make a sound, Alrune used the point of the saber to poke them through the shattered glass of the windows. The violent storm wind caught them and swept them away.

Eyes dancing, Alrune turned back to watch the fight.

“Caterina!” Araciel cried as the small wolf sprang from the darkness over her head. Caterina gasped and ducked, but Basti was past her, his nails scrabbling a moment on the floor next to Araciel before he caught his balance and leaped again. Araciel was already halfway to his feet, grabbing for the saber that wasn’t there.

“Oh no,” Albrecht groaned. “He’s called his pack!”

The black wolf ignored Araciel and lunged at Gestern’s belly as the larger wolf leaped for the Erl King again. Teeth buried themselves in soft tissue as the smaller beast bowled his opponent over. The two rolled on the floor, snapping and snarling.

“I think Naich led away the rest,” Caterina said. “It’s only Basti. Araciel, do something!”

The devil nodded, turning and sprinting for the beasts that struggled on the floor tearing at each other.

“Engel!” Araciel was brought up short by strong fingers grabbing his shoulder and digging into his re-opened wound. The Erl King swung him around with a cruel smile. “Join me, and I’ll save him from being ripped apart by Gestern.”

“I cannot!” Araciel gasped, as the Erl King twisted harder, grating raw bone and torn muscle together.

Blood smeared the floor where the two wolves tumbled, and he couldn’t tell which was the more injured. He feared it was the sculptor’s apprentice, the untrained Neapolitan youth who’d sworn to be his friend. His vision swam, and still the Erl King gripped him relentlessly.

“Call him away, then,” Araciel choked through grinding teeth, “and tell me what you want.”

The Erl King released him, fiercely victorious. As Araciel painfully straightened, steel flashed between them. Teiwa howled, jerking backward, and Araciel felt a hand on the center of his back, shoving him toward the wolves. He twisted around, startled.

“Loyalty is such a rare virtue in today’s world,” Alrune sighed. He carried Araciel’s saber. Its blade glittered scarlet with the Erl King’s blood, and the stormlord clutched his wrist with his free hand. The boar spear lay on the ground, forgotten as he tried to stifle the spray of blood that spurted between his fingers from the nearly severed limb. “Who is this Man, anyhow, to deserve what you deny God and Satan?”

“You platitude-puling little golem,” the Erl King hissed. “Whose side are you on?”

“Not yours.” Alrune tossed his head and laughed, swinging Araciel’s sword from side to side. “Araciel may be something of a Job in our circles, but even Job only had to face one Tempter.”

“What in truth be thy purpose, Alrune?” Araciel asked, staring at Alrune with wide eyes. “I do wonder.”

“Shut up and save your friend,” the dwarf snapped.

Startled, Araciel nodded and plunged into the middle of the fight, grasping the first bit of black fur visible and hauling upward. The smaller wolf tried to twist and bite his hand, but with a painful heave Araciel turned and tossed him into the laboratory.

“Leave him!” Araciel commanded, glaring at the larger grey wolf who scrambled to his feet. Gestern snarled indecisively. Araciel stood firm, and after a second the wolf flicked and ear and dashed past him for the Erl King, blood staining his grey fur.

Araciel turned to his lord and lady’s lab, dropping to one knee and holding out his good arm. The other was pressed against his side as he tried to keep it as motionless as possible.

“Basti!” he pleaded, as the black wolf began limping back. “Thou be thine own master! Remember, Basti…?”

Unable to see much past the flurry of black and grey that was the Erl King and Gestern’s fight, Albrecht looked away.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, crouching near Caterina and Danti. Caterina looked up at him, dark eyes somber. He suddenly thought she looked much older than she had before all this had begun.

“Protect Danti,” she said, standing and brushing her skirts. Danti started to argue, but she stepped over his legs and ignored him. While the sculptor and cook watched, she checked the wheel lock’s mechanism and powder, then lifted it in both hands.

Both Gestern and the Erl King were stained bright red, fur and clothes ragged and torn. For a moment they separated, each gasping for breath, then attacked again, the wolf snapping with iron jaws, the stormlord slashing with the spear he’d scooped up again. He held his wounded arm close to his chest. Blood streamed from the deep cut Alrune had made, darkening his black sleeve.

“I think we’re all going to die,” Albrecht predicted, gazing at the crowded, bloody hall. It seemed like blood was everywhere; on everyone, including himself. Poor Father Völker, he thought. Poor all of us. We’re swept up in events beyond us.

It wasn’t much comfort to think that he’d always expected to come to a miserable end.

“I wonder….” Danti mused, deep in thought. “Albrecht,” he said, shifting with a grunt of pain, “help me downstairs. I need to go to my workshop.”

“Now?” Aghast, the cook gazed at him as though he’d gone mad. Danti gave him a forced smile, pulling one leg underneath him as he slowly tried to stand. His ribs grated against each other and he blanched, sweat standing on his forehead.

“I have this idea….”

“It had better be a good one,” Albrecht muttered, helping him stand. Together, the two lurched down the hall and vanished down the northeast stairs.

Basti whined and limped closer. He was bloody from a dozen small wounds Naich’s teeth and claws had opened on his flanks and muzzle. His eyes rose to meet Araciel’s and he dropped to the ground, panting.

Araciel stood and scooped him up into his arms. Then he turned to watch the battle.

The Erl King stumbled, stepping over Father Völker’s corpse, and Gestern snapped at his leg, burying his teeth in the Hunter’s calf. Bronze swung down and he retreated before the spear tip could split his skull.

“Damn you, Gestern!” the Erl King spat. “You have no right to blame me for your own crimes! You called me, you worshipped me, you killed for me! And I gave you what you wanted! I gave you the wolf!”

Gestern snarled, muzzle bloody. There was nothing in his eyes left to remind anyone of the gentle, silent flautist who’d once been. Naich was gone, lost in the bloodthirst and madness of the old lord of the keep.

Caterina took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and pulled the trigger.

This time she caught the Erl King unawares, and with a sharp report, the iron ball tore into the stormlord’s upper chest. He jerked backward, as much from surprise as from the impact.

“What…?” He looked down at the gore that soaked through shirt and doublet, then back up at her. She lowered the gun, staring at him through a blue cloud of gunpowder smoke.

“That’s for my brother,” she said.

The Erl King’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed himself from the wall with his good hand. Before he could take the first step toward her, Gestern leaped.

This time the Erl King collapsed, knees buckling. Teeth ripped at his throat, his face; the stormlord lifted both hands to try to push the great wolf off, then tumbled backward.

Gestern growled deep in his throat as he stood on the Erl King’s chest and ripped the stormlord’s throat out.

Araciel raised his eyes from the carnage to Caterina, who slid the pistol into her coat pocket. Deep inside the devil, something ached in sympathy for her, although she held herself tightly under control. He would have spared her the last two days if he could have; if he’d still been an angel. Dirty, wounded, covered in blood; no angel celestial or infernal had ever felt as helplessly, powerlessly mortal as he did now.

The wolf in his arms whimpered, and he looked down. It rolled dark eyes toward him.

“An interesting question,” Alrune said. Araciel looked up. “What happens to an old god’s power when it is broken,” the scholar amplified. “Whether Basti will remain a wolf forever.”

Araciel tightened his arms around the wolf.

On the other side of the hall, Trina ran a cold hand over her face. The gore Gestern waded in was enough to make her feel ill, despite the shell-shocked calm she felt. She lifted her chin and walked closer, eyes fixed on the wolf instead of the stormlord.

Even as she watched, the creature turned, its jaws dripping with blood. Colorless eyes and dark eyes met, locked. She no longer saw any human intelligence there.

“He’s dead,” she said. “You can go.”

Instead, the wolf snarled and attacked.

Caterina screamed, losing the iron grip she’d had on herself and throwing up her arms to protect her face. Araciel turned, but before he could do anything, Alrune had plucked the carving knife from his belt, throwing it overhand. Dark iron grazed the wolf’s muzzle and made it falter a moment. As it jerked its head aside, the dwarf stepped forward and raised the saber. He brought the blade down two-handed on Gestern’s neck even as the wolf gathered itself, blood-streaked front paws striking Caterina and slamming her into the wall behind. The beast’s blood sprayed over her skirts as the impact battered it to the ground.

Alrune struck again, with as much grace as a woodsman chopping firewood. This time he severed its neck, and the wolf trembled and fell still.

Fur broke off the corpse in chunks, revealing raw, bloody flesh. As they watched, the muscles dried and contracted, snapping dry, ancient bones. The severed head withered, becoming Naich’s face, then a skull with dry, yellowed flesh pulled tight over it. The body disintegrated into a twisted and broken human corpse, at least a century old.

“My lady,” Alrune said with a twisted grin, bowing and flourishing the bloody blade. Caterina stared at him, her mouth half-open.

“Was that murder necessary?” Araciel asked, chest hurting. “Did you really have to cause one more death?” He lowered Basti from his arms and held out a steadying hand to Caterina. She grasped it, leaning on his arm. “Dietrich, Father Völker, the Erl King, and now poor Naich, too?”

“The Erl King isn’t dead,” Alrune said, pointing. Basti began to snarl.

Although his face and upper body was a bloody ruin, the stormlord still twitched. His nearly severed hand flopped helplessly and his good hand slowly, painfully, rose.

Araciel stared, disbelieving.

“Why do you look so surprised? You could survive nearly as much, and you’re not an ancient god.” Alrune looked back down at the Erl King. “The lord of wolves has lived hundreds of years. You’ll have to do better than a blood-maddened turnskin and a grey-haired sculptor to defeat him.” Alrune gave Caterina a sidelong grin. “Not even your modern weapons can destroy a god’s soul. The Erl King has been a friend to iron and fire for a long time.”

“We must needs destroy him,” Araciel said. “He doth owe us too many lives to yet escape with his own.”

“Tsk, now,” Alrune chuckled, “is your goal to become an avenging angel?”

Araciel flushed, but with Caterina leaning on his arm, he could do nothing but lower his eyes from the scholar’s mocking gaze.

As if sensing his discomfort, Caterina straightened.

“What must we do, then?” she asked, somehow managing to look regal despite her blood-spattered, ragged appearance. Alrune’s grin lingered, but there was a flash of approval in his dark eyes as he rudely eyed her up and down.

“You’re the sorcerers’ daughter,” he said. “Figure out how to defend your keep yourself.”

“You will –” Araciel forced himself to be silent as Caterina placed a hand on his wrist, stopping him as he began to step past her.

“No, Araciel.” Her eyes traveled up and down the hall, past bodies, fallen weapons, shattered glass and dripping blood. Basti limped through the corpses and circled around the Erl King, his small body trembling and his ears flattened with apprehension. “Araciel,” she said after a second, “where are Danti and Albrecht?”

“I have not seen them since I left them with th — you,” Araciel said, looking around.

Ears swiveling, Basti began picking his way down the hall, head close to the ground. Finally he stopped and looked at the northeast stair tower. For a moment his ears flickered indecisively, then his head snapped up, ears upright. Alrune smirked.

“They look so human when they do that,” he said sweetly.

They heard Danti and Albrecht before they saw them — the sound of hammers against stone and cracking marble. Basti skidded into the room first, as though certain of what he’d find there.

The two were smashing the statue of the Erl King into rubble.

“What be the purpose of this?” Araciel asked, standing in the doorway behind Caterina. Danti looked up, his hair and beard white with marble dust. He was doing most of the directing; it was the cook who wielded the hammer.

“Destroying the graven image,” the sculptor declared. “I’m almost positive that’s why he let me live. Because I was setting him in stone.”

“Do the old gods draw power from their images?” Caterina asked, looking from the two dusty, sweating men to blood-covered Araciel. The fallen angel looked weary and uncertain.

“I know not,” he admitted. “From the graven image, mayhaps, or the memory such an image inspires. Oft the image be the same as the subject in works of magic.”

“This damn thing’s been possessing me ever since I started it,” Danti stated flatly. “I’ve been so busy I’ve hardly spent any time at all outside this studio. And the more complete it became, the more powerful the Erl King grew.”

“The Erl King yet lives.”

Albrecht turned and swung, fiercely knocking another chunk off the half-torso that was all that remained of the statue. Danti flinched, then nodded.

“We’ll see if this takes care of him for good, then.”

“An’ it do not, thy work will be wasted.”

“That’s all right,” Danti muttered, looking away. “I don’t want to see his face again, anyway.”

Basti whined.

“What happened to Naich … or whoever he really is.”

“He’s dead,” Caterina said, before Araciel could answer. “Alrune killed him when he tried to attack me.” She watched as Albrecht struck again, splintering a long shard off the sculpture. It was almost completely gone, now. “Dead, like my brother.”

Araciel reached out a hand, hesitated, then lightly touched her sleeve.

“Be brave, my lady,” he whispered.

“Well, he got what he wanted, I guess.” Danti gave Basti a reassuring pat and flinched as his fractured ribs protested. “How’s it going, Albrecht?”

“Nearly done,” the thin cook grunted, swinging again. The statue’s legs shattered. He pounded the base a few times for good measure, then stepped back and wiped sweat from his forehead. “How’s that?”

“A fine end to my work.”

“That,” the cook said as he tossed the hammer aside, “was almost fun.” His normally doleful face was content. “I wish I could have done that to the real thing.”

“I will go to check on him,” Araciel said suddenly, turning and walking off.

Basti got to all fours, hesitating a moment, then limped after him.

Upstairs, Alrune sat on a window ledge, his feet dangling. Shutters slammed behind his head, and snow whipped around him, but he seemed oblivious to the noise.

“Sculptors and carpenters,” he said, as Araciel looked around the hall. “Only creators know also how to destroy.”

The Erl King was gone. Not even his clothes remained; only blood on the floor.

Basti shuddered, then howled as wrenching, tearing pain ripped into his gut and clutched his heart and lungs.

Something broke every bone in his body and painfully, agonizingly twisted them around to re-knit them. His muscles were torn from bone, ligaments dangling, and re-sewn with needles of fire. He screamed, jaws ripping apart and reforming around smaller teeth, nails turning in on themselves and piercing his hands and feet. Convulsing and retching, he sagged. Dimly, helplessly, he felt himself being picked up, held off the cold wooden floor. He jerked again as something yanked at his intestines, then snapped his spine and re-strung it on a thread of agony. Finally the pain stopped, and he lay motionless, gasping for breath.

Araciel laid him on his own bed and wrapped a blanket around him. Basti tried to hold it with fingers that seemed too weak, shivering in the cold air that blew through all the shattered windows and chilled his bare flesh.

“Be thee well?” the fallen angel asked, lifting his chin, pushing sweat-drenched hair from his eyes. Basti nodded, tears filling his eyes. For a moment he tried to speak, and couldn’t — as though even that brief time as a wolf had stripped speech from his soul. Panic filled him, and he tried again.

“I’m sorry,” he forced out, catching his breath and pulling the blanket closer. “I’m sorry.”

“There be nothing to apologize for,” Araciel reassured him. Basti stared at him, the golden youth, darkened now with his own and others’ blood, weariness and tribulation. For the moment they were alone in the room. Araciel gazed into his eyes and slowly shook his head.

“Basti,” he whispered, “remember who I be. Thou did not choose to serve; I did. If thou could manage to forgive me that, how could I do less for thee?”

“But I did choose to serve him. I wanted to be able to fight back,” Basti said, anguished. “I was the wolf!”

“The Erl King did say there be that which be noble in the wolf; and perhaps he was right, for nothing thou did as a wolf under thine own volition was less than that. Thou did fight thy nature, and deny it, and now thou be the wolf no longer. Come, Basti, thou hath persevered and won.”

Basti took a deep breath, seeing that Araciel was serious, and then let it out with a feeling of profound relief. His friend smiled.

“Araciel, he even killed Fraü Bru — Basti!” Caterina stood a moment in the door of the room, eyes wide, then ran forward and caught him in a wide, relieved embrace. Basti’s cheeks burned as he fought to maintain his dignity, but his last shreds of apprehension dissipated in the wake of her obvious concern. She stepped back, hands on his shoulders as she searched his face. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“The Erl King’s really dead, then,” he said, wrapping the blanket more securely around himself. “You did it.”

“Dead?” Alrune’s voice broke into the room, and Caterina let her hands fall, turning. The dwarf leaned on the doorframe. “Banished is a better word. You’ve broken his power and you’ve hastened his eventual destruction, but gods don’t die. Not until they’re forgotten.”

“But he be gone,” Araciel said. “Gestern be safe from him now.”

Alrune bowed his head.

“Alrune,” Caterina said slowly, “who are you?”

“Oh, one of the despised and rejected men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

“You be a servant of God, methinks, or of Satan. It be my shame that I be unable to guess which.”

“’How long halt ye between two opinions?’”

Araciel gave the dwarf a long, measuring look, then, with some hesitation, painfully and slowly lowered himself to one knee.

“I halt no longer,” he said. “I have repented my sins, and I have commended my soul to God. You did catch my soul as I retreated in doubt of my own salvation and did deliver it back. I be decided and no longer of two minds.”

“Why, the pretty courtier’s on bended knee to me!” Alrune said with mock astonishment. “Kneeling to a bent and twisted dwarf, instead of a pretty aristocrat? Have you lost your mind, Araciel, or only your taste?”

Araciel remained firm, eyes steady. Basti stole a glance at Caterina. He couldn’t figure out what game the two were playing. It seemed somehow grotesque, in the aftermath of so much slaughter, to hear Alrune’s japes and watch Araciel do for him what he had refused to do for the Erl King.

“Well,” Alrune said, seeing that he wasn’t going to get a rise from the normally sensitive courtier, “I suppose you don’t have much reason to be proud. Look at yourself, Araciel! Tired, wounded, a failure … you’re no better than a common man, now. Satan has given you up as a lost cause, and God needs more than facile apologies to accept you back. Is that what you want, Araciel? To get your hands dirty like any ordinary man, to forfeit all power and glory?”

“Be that God’s will.”

“Fatalist!” Alrune sneered. “You were eager enough to fight for what you believed in before. Are you going to roll over like a whipped dog and take whatever scraps God throws to you? It was a weak will that betrayed you once. Are you giving up your struggle now?”

“I have fought for forgiveness these past thousand years and more, and so I shall another thousand years, be that asked of me. My will be not weak in this thing.”

Alrune threw up his hands as if in despair.

“He’s gone dull on me!” the scholar cried out. “Not even a spark. Araciel, you’re cheating me of my fun.”

“Fate forefend,” Araciel replied.

Alrune grinned, then looked at Trina and bowed.

“My lady, I thank you for the hospitality Gestern Keep has offered me, but,” he looked past her, through the door at the blood and corpse-strewn hall, “I think it’s time to be moving on.”

“The roads are blocked. You have no place to go.”

“Oh, I’ll manage,” Alrune smirked, straightening.

“Then — before you go, would you please help us cover the broken windows to keep the storm out?”

The dwarf gave her a crooked smile.

“Keeping the storm out is what I do best.”