The Guardian of the Border

I knew the moment Father died. I felt the ripples in Death spread to hunt me down, all the while announcing to the Dead that there was a new Guardian of the Border. I felt the interest, the predatory intent to test me from the stronger Dead, the fear from the weaker. Worst of all, I felt the cold scientific consciousness from the Tomb, and I felt another Binding snap. The bastard had used my Fathers death to break the second to last Binding, he had only one more to break to be free. And I was running out of time.

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The bell, the book and the sword arrived in the family mausoleum, like I knew they would, at midnight that night. As the ritual dictated I had come to the place alone, and naked. I was shivering and had goose bumps and I would have liked to put this down to the chill cold of the marble, but some of it was fear of the night to come. Tonight I would meet Death, and she would judge me. I was the last of the line, and I had to worthy. The alterative was unthinkable.

I walked to the black metal altar, unknown metal that looked like tarnished silver, but the tarnish moved sluggishly across the surface like blood in water. I had been here once before in Life– when I had my Naming, and I had seen it from a distance in Death and many times in dreams and visions. Recently that had become more frequent, until night after night I stood in front of the Altar, again and again, naked, trembling, alone. But I was truly alone now, and the grief I had been suppressing hit me like a punch in the gut.

I reached for the bell first. It was so familiar to me, and I smelt it in the hope that something of my father remained, a smell, a presence. But there was just the bell, icy cold silver in a soft leather pouch. I gathered up the small, old Book and the slim short sword in black leather, and knelt on the white marble dais, laying the tools of my trade reverently before me. I took a deep breath and sent my thoughts through the necessary twists of logic and feeling, using my regular deep breathing to anchor me. It was different this time. Before there was always an effort, and on the edge of my hearing some music, or a sound, that ached through me yet would slip away if I got too near. Today it was easy, natural and the music thrilled through my soul, old and triumphant and alien, yet as familiar to me as the song my old nurse used to sing to me to get me to sleep. I realized then that my life so far had been only halfway lived, and tonight I would be claimed, and made whole.

I slipped further into the trance, and the waters of Death lapped against my calves. I looked at the flat grey expanse of water and mist and nothing, and it was home. The book had said nothing about the next part of the ritual, so I started walking for something to do more than anything else. The music was quieter now, but I could still feel it in my soul.

Time passed. I had never been to this part of Death before. It was empty, without even Wights to bother me. After a time I become aware of muted splashing in time to my footsteps. I looked down and She was there, a beautiful large dark grey greyhound, calmly walking beside me. I don’t know how long She had been with me, perhaps since I slipped over to her land. I stumbled a little. She looked up and I met Her eyes. I fell.
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I awoke on the floor, and shifted painfully. I had cramp in my leg, my knees hurt, and my arm had gone to sleep. My left hand burned. I gently touched it with my other hand. It was bitterly cold to my wrist. In my palm there was what looked like a small grey tattoo of a curled up greyhound. As I watched, it got up, stretched, yawned and lay down in a more comfortable position. The perspective was odd, as if it was actually very large but seen from far away. I had been judged, and claimed, and I was the Guardian of the Border.

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Astrael smiled and stretched. She looked happily down at her naked body, her full hips and breasts with their pale pink delicate nipples, her white skin contrasting beautifully with the black bedclothes. She stroked herself, and writhed into the silk humming gently. She was one step closer. The man, for all his reputation, had died easily enough, and the Rite has worked as her Master said it would. She could feel him in the back of her mind, and she giggled at his power. He was with her all the time now, not just in dreams as in the beginning. It had taken many centuries to get to this point, and Astrael was glad that her patience and cunning was beginning to be rewarded. He would be free soon, and his power and hers would mingle and they would hunt, and break and destroy, and there would be pleasure and blood for all of her children. And she would never need to go to the grey place where that bitch Death awaited her. She came, shuddering deliciously.

As she opened her eyes, sat up and arose, Evan, quiet and well trained as always, brought her her heavy red silk robe. She shivered as it slid over her skin. As she tied it tight around her small waist she turned to the  now kneeling Evan. Absently she grabbed his thick blonde hair and stretched his head back, exposing his scarred neck. She fed, his blood filling her mouth with warm, meaty thickness, a little escaping and dripping down her chin. In the back of her mind she felt the pleasure of her Master as he tasted through her Evan’s blood. He was happy now, but she knew that this contentment could turn quickly to anger and pain if she hesitated to put the last game in motion. So she hurried to feed, without taking the time to play a little as she would have preferred. She ignored the gasp from Evan, as she had not dulled the pain with her power, or made it part of the pleasure of sex, and he fell from her with a thump as she straightened, turned and walked away, already thinking of the endgame ahead.

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It was afternoon when I woke. I felt like I had slept forever, and I still needed another eternity to feel refreshed. But I stumbled out of bed and wrapped up in a large towel to walk to the bathhouse. The homunculi I passed in the corridors bowed lower than usual, and I realized that they knew Father was dead, that I was their Mistress now. The magic that kept them alive and with a certain amount of intelligence and consciousness was linked to our House, and would have subtly changed as it readjusted itself to me. In fact, I thought that the House itself felt more open to me, that I could feel the wards that kept us safe in a corner of my mind, and oddly I felt that the House was watching me with approval and loyalty. It felt strangely like a big pet. For the first time I understood that the homunculi were part of the house, that the reason that they seemed so strange and uniform was that they were all part of the House’s consciousness, a bit like individual bees in a hive. Before I quite knew what I was doing I patted the wall of the corridor, and felt the House hum back to me, like a purr. For the first time since Father died I felt safe, loved.

I walked thoughtfully down the stairs and out of the front door, along the garden path to the bathhouse. I wanted to go to the library to see if there was anything about how the House was built, who constructed it, and how it worked. Was it a trapped demon or sprite? Was it made from magic itself, somehow built into the stones, although I had never heard that this could be done.  I shuddered as I thought of the other way to invest something with personality and life, by killing a child in a certain ritual and giving the child’s soul to the object. But I could not sense any of the malevolence or hatred in the House that you would expect if its origins were from this. In fact it didn’t feel human, but maybe after so long it would have lost its humanity.

As I walked down the warm stone steps into the hot pool, I thrust the train of thought away. If I survived this next year I could investigate the House. But now, I had more urgent things to think about. Like how to find out who was destroying the Bindings in the Tomb and stop them. And how to rebind the thing in the Tomb. And how to stop them from breaking the last binding by finding and protecting the sacrifice whose blood and soul was necessary. And how to avoid being killed myself when my Father, who had experience, wisdom and power that I don’t couldn’t protect himself.

I groaned and slid my head under the warm water. I would have to leave the womblike security of the pool soon and the House the next day. I hoped that I would have a plan by then. Or even an idea about where to go first.

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I have a plan. It is terrible. I know that, and yet I cannot come up with anything better. I was up most of the night in the library, researching, and thinking, and praying that there was something better that I could do. But Father left me no leads. He always wanted to let me grow up as normally as possible, to have a life before I was forced to think about Death. He thought that there would be plenty of time before I was claimed. He was wrong. Now I felt afraid and alone, and very very ignorant.

I am going to have to find the Tomb. The Tomb that held the creature that had broken the laws of nature so thoroughly that Death came closer, the waters a mere thought away, that allowed Necromancers to flourish, and the Dead to cross relatively unhindered into Life. The creature that had broken down boundaries between worlds, for ever destroying the laws of physics and the technological society that had existed before. The creature that had so weakened reality that you could now change it with a thought, a belief, if you had the knack, and now humanity was just one of the many conscious and intelligent races of being that now shared this fractured world.  I hope that by finding the Tomb, there will be clues, scents, markers that will lead me to the creatures’ minions in Life. And by studying the last Binding, I will get an idea of who the sacrifice is. It’s a rubbish plan. But it’s the only one I have.

I found a few references to the Tomb in the Library, in books so old and powerful that I had to read them in a circle of protection. I know that the Tomb is in a valley, I know that the door is visible only in Death and that only a necromancer can open it, and that it will take three drops of blood and an little used ritual of opening. And that if I want to know which valley it is in I will have to read a scroll that is guarded by the Order of Anubis. At least I know where they are. But I am probably going to have the steal the scroll. And one thing that the order of Anubis really hate is people stealing their holy artefacts.

Thank goodness one of the best thieves in the Underground is one of my best friends.

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One of the homunculi packed the last of the supplies into the thorax of the Wasp. The Wasp was another one of the family’s heirlooms that only now really made sense. The large insect head turned to look at me fondly, and one of her antennae swept down to ruffle my hair. She, like the homunculi was a construct that was inhabited by the House’s intelligence. She was beautiful, a huge jewelled insect that flashed gold in the sunlight. It was incredible to think that something so heavy could even fly, but the House kept her aloft by altering reality a little around her to enable her to soar. The control and concentration needed would be immense, and I don’t think I could do it. Again, I wondered at the House’s origin, surely not human.

As I stroked her huge head and stared into her emerald eyes, I reflected that it was a shame that she could not fly me straight into the City. But the air around the City was too unstable, and I would not risk her. So she would fly me to the Suburb, and I would Shift in like anyone else. I jumped as the homunculi gently touched my hip, bowed and pointed to show that the Wasp was ready.

I breathed deeply, trying to convince myself again that this was a good plan, that this was necessary. I really had to get better at lying to myself. I touched the bell and sword at my hip, adjusted my short black leather jacket, and subtly felt that my weapons were secure and hidden. Brushing a piece of the long brown hair that always seemed to escape out of my eyes, I was as ready as I was going to be. I turned and climbed up the steps into small cavity in the body of the Wasp, and sat in one of the two seats, strapping myself in tightly. Last time I had flown I had been sick, so I made sure I muttered a quick spell to calm my stomach. The steps smoothly retracted back to look like the interlocking hide of the wasp, and the clear glass roof folded over me.

‘To the west Suburb, please.’

The wings started to spin, and with a loud whirring and clicking we floated, through the wards, and off through the sky.