Chapter 19: Embracing the enemy

Tsanja awoke as the sun streamed through her window.

At first, she thought it was a normal day, and she was ready to steel herself, to go to the Church, to perform her useless duties, to find out more about Lilith.

Perhaps Poe would come to visit.

Tsanja was not sure about Poe, about whether to trust her or not. Her stories of the Felthings were outlandish, but Tsanja knew that terrible things were abroad in the land.

Her new pet, the night-wing, was wrapped around her midriff. It was large, like an apron, and warmed her. She stroked its soft fur, and it moved, pleasing her with small undulations, and vibrated with a sort of purr.

As full awareness returned, a dull, painful ache came with it. She remembered all of the students she had lost, and all of her abortive attempts to find them before her memories of them had been hidden.

Reaching up to her neck, she realised that her choker charm was gone.

When had that happened?

Her bed, too, was a mess, and the sheets she was sleeping in were spotted with blood.

How had that happened? She did not feel pain, just the sadness of her returned memories.

Had someone been injured here?

Oh, no.

She felt her stomach.

The bump was gone.

Her baby was gone.

Oh, dear gods, no ... What had become of her baby?

There was movement at her foot of the bed, and a strange creature arose. It had a black hood, rather like the night-wing she had around herself, but this hood was not alive. It had been sewn, and fitted tightly around the creature's head and eyes. All Tsanja could see of it that looked alive was the lower part of its face, its red lips.

Tsanja contemplated it with a sense of horror. It could be a Felthing, Tsanja supposed, but what was it doing here?

It hissed slightly, and showed her its claws.

She was being guarded, but why?

Tsanja knew that she would need to find some protection again. She looked around her bed, slowly, trying not to arouse the suspicions of the Felthing.

She found a black leather bag under the little table next to her bed. It was one of Poe's.

Why had she left it here?

Tsanja looked inside, and saw that it contained dozens of choker charms.

None of them looked like hers.

She picked a nice looking one, probably one of Madeleine's, and fastened it around her neck.

The effects were mixed.

She felt some relief as the memory of her lost students, and, with it, the evidence of her outright failure, faded away.

The night-wing released her midriff, and slid away from her body, and regarded her. It looked like it wanted to return, but seemed to be wary of the choker charm. It just curled up on the bed, hoping that Tsanja would return eventually.

Tsanja soon realised where all of the blood had come from. She was bleeding, and she saw blood on the night-wing's muzzle. Real pain returned to her then, and Tsanja knew then that she was hurt, that she had been raped, or injured.

The small pleasure of waking to a sunny morning had become something else, and Tsanja was beginning to the feel stark terror of the unknown.

The tiny maw of the night-wing had not caused this.

She must have been unconscious for a very long time, or her mind was playing tricks on her. Sometimes shock could cause amnesia, she knew that. Had she been raped? Had the rape unbalanced her mind? Would her memory of last night's events ever return?

Tears prickled her eyes, and Tsanja wept, wept for her helplessness, wept with the pain of her injuries. Most of all, she wept because she felt alone.

She doubted that anyone loved her now, but it was worth a try.

"Penn, Penn, Penn, can you hear me?"

She was so relieved when she heard his voice thrice repeating her name.

"Tsanja, we are safe now. Pamela says that if you can come to the cave near the old oak tree, then you can be safe too. Your mother is waiting for you at her house, and you can come here through the wooden chest. It is dangerous for her now, she might not stay. Try not to be followed.

So, Penn was with Lilith, too. Was she the last free soul left? So much for protecting the village!

She could not think of any way in which she could have been any more ineffectual than she was.

As they continued to talk, it soon became apparent that much of what Penn said to her made little sense. She convinced him to slow down, and he began to help her reconstruct her memories of the last few days of her life.

Penn explained to her everything which they had seen in the mirror, and although she felt strangely relieved to rediscover all of the horrible things that Hypatia had done to her, Tsanja could not help feeling annoyed that so many people had been spying on her solitary existence.

It was strange listening to Penn tell of what had happened last night. For months Tsanja had been the bearer of news to Penn, and it was unusual to be on the receiving end for a change. Tsanja had no memory whatsoever of the events that Penn told her had occurred, but she knew that Penn told the truth.

The Felthings had stripped out a puppet from her flesh, something dead and gruesome, but they were looking for a baby.

Why? She could not remember being pregnant. Had she been carrying a baby?

"Tsanja, I know it will be hard for you, but Pamela wants you to help us. Can you find out all you can about the Felthings? If we don't do something, the Church will use them to enslave the world, and the lives of the Healers will be forfeit. Please, we must do all we can for them."

By now, Tsanja had lost any sense of loyalty to her Church. The only thing left to her was her love for those souls in Lilith's care. She would do what she could for them, and for the poor healers. She simply did not know what to think about Lilith, but she could not solve all of the world's problems.

One problem at a time would be more than enough.

She could think of only one way to learn about the hated Felthings, but it made her stomach turn. Aside from the horror of what they had tried to do to her, she blanched at the thought of what they had planned to do to her family, and the sick pleasure that Hypatia took in their feasting. She had heard from Penn about the horror of their nakedness, but had no wish to rediscover it in the flesh, so to speak.

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Tsanja arose from her bed, slowly. She still felt wounded, and still she bled. The Felthing faced her warily, and licked its red lips. Tsanja shuffled towards it. It didn't react. She was no threat, and had no chance of escape.

She reached her hand up to the Felthing's head to feel the hood. The Felthing bent its head towards her, like a cat, wanting to be stroked. The hood was stuck fast. It had become part of the Felthing, a shackle around its mind. She put one hand inside its robe, and felt one poor, damaged breast. The Felthing's face looked quite young, as if she had been a woman in her twenties, but the breast tissue was saggy, the skin slack, no muscle underneath to support it.

The Felthing hissed, softly, and moved to increase its contact with Tsanja's hand. Tsanja obliged, and released the sheet she was holding around herself. She wrapped her arms underneath the Felthing's cloak, and held herself against its dead flesh.

The Felthing bent its head down, and held Tsanja, gently.

It did not breathe, and Tsanja began to feel chill as her own body heat warmed up the Felthing's lack of it.

An intimacy seemed to arise with this single Felthing, and she began to feel at one with its flesh. Her skin crawled, but she felt the boundary blur between the Felthing's identity and herself.

So much of this world's magic relied on the soul. This must be how they took people from the demon. The Felthings could get their hooks into a soul, and hold it in a woman's body while they ripped out the flesh of the demon. It must be a horribly painful process.

Without the hoods, Tsanja felt sure that these poor women's souls would flee into the darkness, to be gathered, leaving nothing but their pale, dead flesh behind.

There was no need for pain now. Tsanja found herself swimming in the Felthing's awareness, and was able to look upon the memories of all that the Felthing had had seen.

The most immediate memories were of pain, and screams, and hunger assuaged. The Felthing had feasted from the belly of healing women in Solveig. The healers shared a large building, a hospital, in the city, where they would help anyone who needed them.