The Croning.

Laird Barron.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

My thanks to the following for making this book possible: Amy, Marty, Jason, Jeremy, Ross, and the entire staff of Night Shade Books; my agents Brendan Deneen, Colleen Lindsay, Heather Evans, and Peter Rubie; Matt Jaffe; Jody Rose; JD and Lara Busch; Mark Ibsen; Larry Roberts; and Ellen Datlow.

Special thanks to my loyal companions Athena, Horatio, Ulysses, and Persephone; and my friends-you know who you are.

Extra special thanks to Jason and Harmony Barron; and the Langan family-John, Fiona, and David. I love you guys.

For Oksana, Julian, and Quinn.

CHAPTER ONE.

Looking for Mr. R.

(Antiquity).

That venerable fairytale of the Miller's daughter and the Dwarf who helped her spin straw into gold has a happy ending in the popular version. The events that inspired the legend, not so much.

The Spy who was the son of the Miller embarked upon a perilous mission into the Western Mountains. The cart tracks and game trails he followed were tortuous, wending through darksome forests full of robbers and all manner of wild beasts. Such were the dangers of travel in most regions of the world in those days. He chose to walk and was accompanied by a grizzled mastiff who'd served him faithfully through many a bleak hour. He carried a dagger, a water skin, a few coins in a dried-up purse, and a tiny crucifix around his neck. Just those meager possessions and his heart, which burned for the Queen. That devotion guided him through thorn thickets and quicksand, over rockslides and across rivers. It comforted him all those dark, dark nights as he and the dog camped along the trail, wrapped in his cloak, fire dwindling to embers, wolves howling among the trees. The stars glowed cold as stones, cold as the snowy caps of the peaks he climbed closer to each pa.s.sing day.

He thought of his sister, the Queen, also daughter of the Miller, albeit of a different mother. She'd elevated herself unto royalty by convincing the old King she possessed the secrets of alchemy, that she could spin flax into gold, or some similar horses.h.i.t. The Spy couldn't be certain what particular deception his lovely sister had practiced for this high-stakes roll of the bones. He loved her all the more for her foibles, her casual cruelty.

The Spy knew d.a.m.ned well, however, that while Sister possessed a golden tongue for sucking c.o.c.k and other manipulations, she was no f.u.c.king alchemist. Thus, when the old King called her bluff and imprisoned her in a dungeon with a pile of straw and a dawn deadline, literally a dead-line, the Spy, who was at that time a humble groom, figured her head would roll into a basket before noon the next day. He sent his nicest black peasant ensemble to be cleaned, and picked a bouquet of white roses for the pauper's grave.

Imagine everyone's amazement when she emerged from the cell twelve hours later with several baskets of gold wire and a formula scrawled on a parchment for repeating the process under spectacularly rare astrological conditions. Her smug little smile and coy eyelash batting aside, the Spy sensed her fear.

In the three years that followed, all through her lavish marriage ceremony to the Crown Prince, which half the population of the neighboring kingdoms attended; the opulent honeymoon; the abdication of the old King, and her subsequent elevation to queen and consort; the gala b.a.l.l.s and garden parties of epic extravagance; the rosy pregnancy; only the Spy detected a black cloud of gloom piling around her in a gathering storm. Only he paid heed to crows in the branches of the willow tree in her favorite garden.

Despite a ruthless nature and innate talents for subterfuge and skullduggery, he was the Spy entirely due to his sister's generosity. She'd rewarded their father with retirement to a country estate and her brother with a post at court in the clandestine services. The Ministry of Red Hot Pokers, as certain wits dubbed the office.

The Groom was happy to be shut of his prior job. No more getting kicked by nags during shoeing, no more pitching s.h.i.t or fetching water for the irritable stable master. No more s.h.a.gging brawny farrier's daughters and warty hags in back alleys (or so he thought)! It was going to be frock coats, feathered hats, and high-tone p.u.s.s.y until he keeled over.

Things went in that general direction for a while. Until the Queen showed pregnant and the creepy Dwarf started hanging around the palace...

During a polo match the Spy noticed the Queen staring at a dwarf in a ca.s.sock who was lurking near the bleachers. Horrible creature-and the Spy knew from horrible after his many misspent years on the mean streets among lepers and beggars, and maimed veterans of foreign adventures. He'd seen his share of pox-ridden, congenitally defective, G.o.ds-cursed twisted caricatures of the human form in alleys and brothels alike. The Dwarf, hunched and scabrous, peeping at the world through gimlet eyes and grinning with the malice of a butcher or coroner who enjoyed his job for all the wrong reasons, was something special indeed. The Spy figured the fellow for a mendicant or an entertainer, an itinerate jester. Then the Dwarf tipped the Queen a sly wink, eyeing her by then prodigious belly, and the Spy smelled trouble brewing.

That night he separated her from the entourage of ladies-in-waiting and snot-nosed footmen and brought her into the garden under the weeping willow. He came right out and asked if she was being blackmailed regarding the fact the baby did not belong to the virile young King who'd, ironically, made a virtue of siring hundreds of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds during his boring wait for the throne.

"Have you told anyone it's mine?" the Spy said, holding her small, chilly hand too tightly.

"I'm not stupid," she said in a tone that indicated she thought he sure as h.e.l.l was. "I prefer my head where it's positioned rather than mounted on the wall in my loving husband's study."

"Then who's the pygmy working for and what do they want?"

"The Dwarf never told me his name. He's an imp of h.e.l.l."

"This doesn't sound very good," the Spy said. "The pigf.u.c.ker smuggled in the gold and now he wants a royal favor, is that it? G.o.d's blood, honey. You're in a real bind if it's political."

"He doesn't desire a political favor."

"Really. No maps, no troop movements, no appointments to the cabinet?"

"Nothing of the sort."

"Your sweet a.s.s?"

"He wasn't interested in the royal preserves."

"Well, s.h.i.tfire. f.u.c.k. p.i.s.s. What's his game, then?"

"The Dwarf spun the gold, not I. He's come for his prize."

"What, dear sister, have you gone and done?"

Sister grinned exactly as a fox in a trap baring her teeth, and told him what pact she'd made to produce those fabled baskets of gold wire and thus get her family out of the poorhouse. It hadn't involved the Spy's biggest fear at the time-her blowing the misshapen Dwarf. No, it was far worse.

A few nights after the Prince was born, the Dwarf arrived on a cold draft, then went away empty-handed. However, the reprieve would be short-lived. He vowed to return in three months to the minute and collect payment-the tender babe who presently nuzzled the Queen's fair breast. Although, if dear Queenie could learn the Dwarf's name during the interim, why then he'd declare the whole sordid pact null and void and they'd take crumpets and tea instead.

Fat chance.

The Spy learned of this the next morning when he was summoned to the Queen's parlor alongside several of her majesty's other best men. She kept the briefing short and sweet and the Spy figured he was the only member of the cadre to know the whole ugly truth of the mission. He also doubted that even he was privy to everything. Sister being a sneaky b.i.t.c.h and whatnot.

The Queen dispatched them to the four corners of the land. They had seventy days to learn the Dwarf's name, else there'd be h.e.l.l to pay. Should someone happen to find the sawed-off b.a.s.t.a.r.d and stick a knife into his ribs, all the better.

Predictably, the other men, whipped into a patriotic lather, leapt upon their trusty steeds and bolted hither and yon to begin the search. As the best of the best, the Spy employed unorthodox methods to secure the lead that later sent him across the kingdom to the mountains and the darksome territories beyond.

He spent even more time than usual in taverns and nunneries. He poured drinks for off-duty bailiffs, finger-banged lonely scullery maids, beat merchants and pimps. He held a groom's left foot over an open flame. The Spy despised grooms with a pa.s.sion. He bribed, blackmailed, and cajoled. To hilarious effect, if not much utility.

Everyone knew of the Dwarf, but not his name or whence he came. He was a shadow flickering in and out of reality. Rumors abounded-some claimed he was an a.s.sa.s.sin in the pay of a rival nation; he was the last scion of a ruined n.o.ble house, reduced to begging and prost.i.tution; he was an evil magician descended from the Salamanca Seven who trafficked with demonic forces and had lived far in excess of any mortal span; he was a devil, an incubus, the decrepit human form of the Old One, the Serpent. One syphilis-addled courtesan claimed the Dwarf consorted with worms and the Lord of the Worms. She refused to elaborate.

Those who spoke of meeting the Dwarf made the sign against the evil eye and spat, or clutched their crucifixes. A strapping barmaid who moonlighted as a doxie for the well-heeled gentlemen in the High Market swore the Dwarf was in tight with mercantile princes, that he taught them secrets of the black arts in return for abominable favors. She'd seen him unhinge his jaw to devour a screaming baby which he'd received from a harlot as recompense for his services to a certain burgher. The barmaid had been sleeping it off after an orgy. None of the princ.i.p.als realized she was lying beneath a mound of cushions on the other side of an ornamental screen when the dark deal was consummated. She was a young la.s.s, a former redhead, except her hair had gone white as the mountain snow, allegedly upon witnessing the horrible murder.

The Spy nodded politely, believing none of it. Nonetheless, he did due diligence and investigated the merchant in question-a burgher formerly of Constantinople named Theopolis who specialized in antiquities and dwelt in a posh manor on the upwind side of the city. Quiet inquiries revealed Theopolis to be no more devious or unscrupulous than any other of a hundred merchants; no more or less perverted or corrupt, no more or less exotic in his leisure proclivities.

Desperate for any lead whatsoever, the Spy broke into the house while its master and most of the servants were on the town drinking and whoring. Nothing seemed untoward. The house was sumptuously appointed in a variety of styles as befitting a man of Theopolis's means; a few tasteful volumes of erotic lore, a handful of risque statuary, a t.i.tillating nude portrait of some long-dead diva. Perhaps several of the pieces of armor in the hall or a baggie or two of the spices in the bedside drawer might be of questionable legality, but certainly nothing sinister or helpful in tracking down the d.a.m.nable Dwarf.

On his way out the window, he hesitated, then doubled back to check the bookcase in the master study, and Lo! did find a cunningly concealed lever. The cramped brick chamber hidden behind the case was fitted with shackles and chains and arcane torture devices. An onyx floor plate gleamed by the light of his candle. A skeletal serpent bent into a C configuration was deeply etched into the plate. Serpent wasn't accurate; perhaps a worm. Whichever, it was altogether unwholesome. In a bamboo hamper, its lid also engraved with the occult symbol, were the bones of children. The Spy counted enough discrete segments to const.i.tute nine or ten infants and toddlers.

It appeared he had a lucky winner.

Later that night he abducted the drunken merchant from his bed and interrogated him in the wine cellar. All Theopolis would admit to was that the Dwarf belonged to a powerful family who dwelt somewhere in the Western Mountains. The man also predicted the Spy was going to wind up suffering a fate worse than death. The Spy thanked beaten and bloodied Theopolis for his information and dumped him in a burlap bag full of stones off the Sw.a.n.gate Bridge. While the bubbles were still popping in the water he set forth on the Western Road.

This was the end of the first month.

He and the dog traveled on highways, then roads, then trails, and finally tracks that vanished for leagues at a stretch. The cities shrank to towns, villages, hamlets and thorps, each farther and farther apart, then there was only the occasional woodcutter's hut in the depths of the wilderness. Fellow pilgrims were seldom seen. It was a lonely journey.

After much hardship he came to a remote valley populated by dour, sunburned folk who tended sheep and goats and raised beets and radishes in the turf. A province of peat-cutters and burners of cow chips. The kind of place overlooked at court and likely awarded to some down at the heels shirttail n.o.ble as a b.o.o.by prize.

The countryside was largely untamed beyond primitive farm plots and unfenced grazing lands. Copses of pine were broken by stony pastures and hillocks. A river thundered down from a glacier caked in black dust. The far end of the valley rose into a high, desolate moor stalked by wolves and dotted with the ruins of ancient fortresses and the weathered cairns of defeated barbarian tribes. A rugged and gloomy scene that disturbed the Spy's anxieties while also exciting him with its potential as the sp.a.w.ning ground of the miscreant he hunted.

The Spy struck gold right away.

A graybeard farmer had occasionally seen the Dwarf in the nearby village. Name? Who could say? Folks called him the Dwarf. He lived in a cave and came down to the lowlands for supplies once or twice a year during the festivals where he'd get drunk and dance with the pretty maids who weren't nimble enough to escape his lecherous advances, and horrify the children (mostly he'd horrify the mothers) with gruesome tales of s.e.xually deviant fairies and monsters. Made his way in the world as a crafter of jewelry and a wolf trapper. Privately, the farmer suspected the Dwarf was a professional tomb robber who filched most of his trinkets from the ruins on the moor.

In any event, a right homely b.u.g.g.e.r, that little man, and long-lived.

"Long-lived?" the Spy said.

"Aye. First I clapped eyes on 'im, I was a sprat. Saw 'im again, caperin' along the Moor Road, just last spring. 'e 'ad a sack slung o'er 'is hump. Must've 'ad a goat in there...That bag was jumpin' somethin' fierce."

The farmer offered his barn as refuge since the village was full of wicked folk and no place for any G.o.d-fearing Christian. When pressed for examples of this wickedness he simply spat and made the sign against the evil eye and grumbled into his beard. On parting, he warned the Spy to beware the Dwarf. "Ye wanna steer clear o' 'im and 'is little friends. Ye shall come to a nasty end nosin' 'bout that gent."

The Spy knew the refrain. He wondered aloud as to the nature of these little friends.

"Ain't ever seen 'em, just 'eard of 'em. Cripples and deformed ones. Some ain't got no arms or legs is what I 'ear. They crawl along behind 'im, see? Wrigglin' in the dirt all ruddy worm-like."

"He's got an entourage of folk without arms," the Spy said, raising his brows toward the brim of his c.o.c.ked hat. "Or legs. Following him wherever he goes."

"Some got arms, some don't. Some got legs, some don't. Some got neither. That's what I 'ear." The farmer shrugged, made the sign of warding again, and would say no more on the matter.

The Spy slogged his way to the village and took a room at the dingy inn. His disguise was that of an ex-soldier trekking across the kingdom to his homestead near the borderlands. He claimed to be a prospector and that he might linger a week or two surveying the hills for likely sources of gold or silver. None of the sheepherders or goatswains who staggered in for a pint of grog after a day in the heather seemed to give a d.a.m.n.

He bedded a couple of the serving wenches who were pleased with his appearance and moreso by the fact he at least didn't smell of cows.h.i.t and actually had two silvers to rub together. Both had seen the Dwarf as recently as the previous month. Both were frightened and repulsed by the creature's demeanor, though he'd not done much to offend either of them directly. Yes, they'd heard of his deformed kin who were said to remain hidden in a mountain cave except rare occasions when they accompanied him on excursions into the moor. The rumors the wenches shared were not enlightening. Except for one-according to certain old goodwives, the Dwarf and his kin made mincemeat of babies and their cave was carpeted with the bones of several generations of wee victims. There'd be a proper torch and pitchfork army marching on those cannibals one fine day, avowed the wenches.

The Spy did not learn the name of the village. The buildings were from olden times, fashioned of mud and brick and thatch with small doors and smaller windows sealed with sheepskin. Doors got barred shortly after sunset. Pagan tokens hung above entry mantles and the bones of animals were common decorations in yards. Conversations dried up when he entered a room or pa.s.sed by on the street and the people smiled at him and looked at their feet or the sky.

The local denizens were a queer lot-the folk dressed archaically and spoke with an accent troublesome to his ear, such that he missed every third word when they conversed slowly in normal tones, and lost the gist entirely when they muttered amongst themselves, which was often. On the whole, the population was h.o.m.ogenous as a pod of toads. Not counting the wanton barmaids, who'd been born outside the valley in a more populous area, the women wouldn't speak to him. The women weren't shy by any means; they smiled and winked and brushed him in pa.s.sing, but simply wouldn't exchange words. Many of them were pregnant, but the Spy was surprised to see no other children in evidence. The youngest person he noticed was old enough to shave.

A half mile north of town lay a bluff upon which loomed a temple built in ancient times. On the Spy's first evening ensconced at the inn, he witnessed a commotion in the taproom. Proprietor, staff, and guests set aside mugs of ale and haunches of roasted goat and gravitated outdoors into the square. A procession of villagers marched from the square and up the lane to the temple, lighting the path with torches and lanterns. They marched in absolute silence, led by a trio of figures garbed in rust-colored ca.s.socks and frightful pagan masks that resembled no beast of fact or legend familiar to the Spy.

Once the stream of pet.i.tioners had disappeared into the distant edifice, its exterior remained cold and dark for the better part of two hours, whereupon the procession returned to the village square and dispersed. The innkeeper was one of the bizarrely robed leaders of the ceremony. He removed his unpleasant mask that appeared to be a waxen hybrid of an eel and a predatory insect, and stamped about the taproom, stoking the hearth and clearing flatware as if nothing unusual had transpired. Later, the serving wenches kept their eyes downcast and deflected the Spy's queries regarding the incident with inelegant, but exuberant ministrations of love.

The next morning, he ate a hearty breakfast and decided to visit the site. The dog followed him with a decided lack of enthusiasm. The dog had communicated through growls and groans and baleful glares at every villager who pa.s.sed that he didn't like this place one bit. The mountain air agreed with his canine sensibilities not in the slightest.

The temple on the hill was by far the grandest monument the Spy had seen since departing the capital; extravagant beyond the wildest imaginings for such a remote province of the kingdom while also existing in a fabulously decrepit state; certainly a relic from an ancient era. A forbidding structure of granite blocks and carven pillars, the whole shot through with cracks from age and earthquake (a ma.s.sive shaker had hit the region about ten years ago, according to the innkeeper- The Worm turned, he quipped with a sour grin) and covered in unwholesome northern black mold and th.o.r.n.y vines.

Instead of the traditional crucifix, a ma.s.sive ring of hammered bra.s.s hung above double doors the likes of which belonged to a fortress. The ring was broken in the upper corner, much as the monstrous symbol he'd encountered in the burgher's cell, and it canted at an extreme forward angle, presumably as a result of the earthquake. The effect was that of a giant torque poised to descend, literal hammer of the G.o.ds style, on pet.i.tioners shuffling through the gates.

The interior was dim and cavernous, reminiscent of Roman and Greek temples of the h.e.l.lenic; naves and altars to a dozen G.o.ds were arrayed in alcoves. The Spy recognized Jupiter and Saturn, Diana and Hecate, and busts of the Norse pantheon, in particular a feral depiction of Loki undergoing torture for his crimes against Baldur, and another of Odin weeping gore from his plucked eye socket. The Spy's father was a learned man despite toiling as a simple miller, and his sister a supremely ambitious woman, and between the pair it was books and lessons in cla.s.sical history throughout the long, bleak winters.

There were other G.o.ds represented that he did not recognize, however. Situated deeper inside the temple hall these statues were much older and the writing upon their placards was foreign to him. Upon reflection, he concluded this place had been constructed or renovated piecemeal over the centuries, with the modern additions, G.o.ds and architecture alike, tacked on near the entrance. Thus, proceeding into the torchlit gloom was to travel backward into antiquity.

His hunter's senses were sharp and he knew a hostile gaze had fallen upon him. On several occasions he caught movement in the corner of his eye; small shadows moving inside the larger ones of the pillars and arches. Low and thin and fast; at first he thought it must be children, whatever the pagan equivalent of altar boys were. He soon decided this was incorrect, although he couldn't quite name how or why. He recalled what the farmer said of the alleged "limbless kin" of the Dwarf, and shuddered.

At the opposite end from the main doors were two huge pillars of basalt and a thick curtain of crimson. On the other side was a nave, larger than its neighbors, and a crude altar of primordial black stone, hewn from the spine of the Earth herself, and roughly fashioned into a pyramidal shape, flattened at the apex in the manner of certain jungle civilizations. The ziggurat was nine feet tall, and approximately twelve feet broad on a side. A shallow depression was carved in each face at eye level.

Above the altar and inset at the heart of a soot-streaked tile mosaic was another broken ring symbol the diameter of several men standing on one another's shoulders; this version was constructed of countless pieces of interlocking bone aged to a decayed black. Dragon's-blood incense wafted from wrought-iron braziers and mingled with the torch smoke in a haze that caused the ziggurat and the effigy to distort and bend like reflections in stained metal.

The Spy took a torch from a sconce and raised it high to better examine the broken ring and the mosaic of murky imagery that enmeshed it-a hunt or revel in a forest; maidens with babes in arms fled dark figures whose eyes blazed red and who grasped with elongated arms and spindly, clawed hands. He saw, as his light glanced from surface to surface, that the bones of the broken ring symbol were real human skeletons of all sizes, mortared and fused to create a piece of unholy art.

Upon determining the sheer numbers of corpses involved, and inevitably recalling the burgher's collection of children's bones and the tavern wenches' pillow talk of a cave carpeted with baby bones, his knees shook and he nearly lost his resolve. The Spy was by no means a pious man, nor afflicted by undue superst.i.tion. Even so, this sight quickened in his breast a chill dread and reminded him that he was a man without friends, far from home.

"Welcome to the House of Old Leech," a woman said. She stood in an alcove, watching him. Clad in a diaphanous gown, a crimson diadem at her throat, she was dark of hair and eye and lushly proportioned. Older than the Spy by a rather wide margin, her flesh was taut and she radiated carnality as voracious as fire.

A priestess, he a.s.sumed. Instantly smitten, only a sliver of his fevered brain was capable of rational thought. "Hullo, priestess," the Spy said. He affected an archness of tone. Beautiful seminude women jump out of the shadows at me every day, cheerio! He tried not to stare at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, focusing instead on her eyes, and that seemed equally dangerous for she appraised him with a measure of intellect and cruelty that even his sister the Queen could not match. It was the kind of gaze to flay a man's soul, and it reminded him that not so long ago he'd mucked horses.h.i.t in a stable, far from the good silver and polite company. He cleared his throat and said gamely, "This is an unusual church, if I may say so. I confess surprise that such blasphemies are openly conducted. And the coin required to maintain the roof. Ye G.o.ds..."

"And you missed the orgy, too." The woman approached with a slowly widening smile. Thankfully, she possessed legs, and nice ones. Up close she smelled of perfume and pitch. Her eyes were painted in a soft glitter and her lips were the deep red of the diadem. "These lands are administered by Count Mock who is fond of the old ways. He's filthy rich and the crown seldom pays heed to the doings along the frontier. Left to their own devices are Count M and his people. You may find the Valley exists under a different set of traditions and customs than you are familiar with."

"Yes, if by different you mean uncivilized. The Count must've paid off the diocese as well. Yours is the only place of worship I've witnessed in the entire valley. That is pa.s.sing strange, my lady. Surely there are Christians dwelling among you pagans."

"Christians are welcome. All are welcome. All flesh is food of the G.o.d."

"Who is Old Leech? The name isn't one I recognize."

"You're surprised? There are in excess of twenty thousand G.o.ds acknowledged to exist. Unless you are a scholar or a master theologian, you'd be hard-pressed to name a hundredth of them. You don't carry yourself like a philosopher. A mercenary, perhaps." Her accent was more foreign than that of the villagers. While the peasants spoke with a rustic tw.a.n.g, hers hinted of a cosmopolitan education in a distant land. There was a nearly imperceptible lag between her words and the movement of her lips; the sound of her voice echoed in his head an instant before it issued from her mouth. He wondered exactly what was in that incense...

"I'm an ignorant clodhopper, which means I should feel right at home here. Are you a caste of healers? A gaggle of old leeches?"

She laughed into her cupped hand and watched him sidelong. "Curiosity killed the cat." She boldly hooked the chain of his crucifix with her nail and its silver chasing reflected in her eyes. "Good Christians should not seek knowledge outside the Holy Book."

"Really, there's very little good in me," he said, trembling at the heat of her skin close to his own, the swirl of exotic perfume that clouded his mind.

"I bet." The priestess glanced down and seemed to notice the dog for the first time. "Oh, cute dog," she said and patted him on the lumpy head.

The Spy opened his mouth too late to warn her-the dog was a savage and had chomped off the fingers of more than one person who'd come too near, but now the brute whimpered, cowed, and shivered in ecstasy or terror at the woman's touch. The Spy understood the emotion. He said, "Priestess, are we alone? On my way in I could've sworn there were children moving in the shadows."

"Kids are in short supply around here," she said. "Unless we're talking the kind with floppy ears and an ivy fetish. What spooked you was probably a few of the limbless ones creeping up. Don't worry, they won't brave the light just for a taste of city dweller flesh." A gong sounded through the alcove and the air rippled and his teeth chattered. She stepped away from him. "By the way, I'm not a priestess. I'm a traveler."

"Your manner of speech...Where are you from?" He chose to completely ignore her reference to the limbless ones.

"Wouldn't mean a thing to you, handsome."

"Ah, a woman and her secrets. What are you doing here?"

"I am undergoing an initiation. A croning, of sorts."