Aelindis’s mother and father never stay in one place for long; they travel around, sometimes venturing into villages and towns but always setting up camp in the marshes, away from Christians. They are Pagans: her mother is devoted to Ritona and has only ever known the Fens, while her father, originally a physician from London, has chosen to join her in her nomadic existence. Aelindis’s family history is far from fully human, and her parents enjoy a good relationship with the fae.
Aelindis decides to strike out on her own at a very young age. She tells a fae friend of hers what she’s planning – he gives her a raven to watch over her, telling her that he’ll ask for the favour to be repaid someday. She sets out, heading north along the East coast, but finds it difficult to subsist away from the marshes that she’s used to. She takes to stealing food, but is eventually caught, not far from York. There is some question over what to do about her – clearly she’s a thief and a Pagan, but she’s also little more than a child.
The authorities decide that she is to be placed into serfdom under the mother of Gerard of York. She will be reformed as a Christian, and will renounce dealings with the fae, who are deemed to have been a bad influence on her. Nobody draws the connection between her and the raven that is often seen in her vicinity….
From her mother, Aelindis has inherited a way with words; from her father, she’s gained some skill with medicine. When she’s 19 years old, her skills are noticed by Sir Gerard, an itinerant monster-hunter, who decides to take Aelindis with him. She tends his wounds and cultivates his reputation in the towns and villages they visit. He teaches her about King Arthur, Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table. Gerard holds Arthur up as his model; Aelindis, by contrast, is much more interested in Merlyn, Arthur’s clever and tricksy adviser. She starts to think of herself as the Merlyn to Gerard’s Arthur; at the same time, she begins to fall in love with her employer.
Gerard and Aelindis attend the first of many meetings at Godstow. The pair of them have now been working together for several years, and Aelindis has become quite accomplished at devising devious plans to aid Sir Gerard in his monster-hunting. With her way with words, she’s also learned to manipulate people quite effectively, and enjoys practicing her skills on the powerful. When William II of Scotland decides to invade England, she bombards him with flattery and, together with Edithe, successfully tricks him into building a fleet to go on a foolhardy crusade instead.
On the first mission she and Gerard share with the rest of the knights, she demonstrates her cunning as a monster-hunter, catching some predatory stone imps through the use of some decoy statues covered in tar. Along with Sir Gerard, she also accompanies the Collegium on an expedition to locate Tintagel castle, using her knowledge of the wilderness to find the tower through enchanted terrain. Here, she learns a spell, the Death of a Hundred Flames. It sounds horrible. She decides never to use it on anyone.
Back at Godstow, the knights learn that one of their number, Averill of Forthwick, has been troubled by a dragon that has taken up residence in his estates. The knights decide to kill the dragon. Aelindis comes up with a variety of intricate plans to destroy the beast, but is ridiculed when she suggests the use of explosive gas-filled bladders that might be fed to it and then ignited by its own fire. Hurt and feeling as though Gerard is more interested in spending time with his fellow knights than with her, she storms off to talk to the one member of the order who doesn’t seem interested in their plans. Aleyn Fair, she quickly learns, is a very unusual person. He describes the dragon as a beautiful creature and seems upset at the thought of its death. This is a new perspective for Aelindis – she’s never seen hostile fae creatures as anything other than puzzles to be ‘solved’ in the most elegant way possible, but the sincerity of Aleyn’s belief draws her in.
Aelindis tends to amuse herself by working out people’s weaknesses for the purpose of manipulation. In general, she limits herself to manipulating her social superiors. It’s her way of dealing with her place in a feudal society – the nobility might have material power over her, but she can gain power over them with her words. Given the way she feels about Gerard, she wouldn’t try to manipulate him, but she’s still worked out his weaknesses. Similarly, with Aleyn, a person of a similar station to herself, she finds herself looking for his weaknesses, but she’s never met anyone who thinks the way he does before. She can tell he loves animals, that he has a strange, strong sense of ethics… but she can’t seem to focus on how she’d hypothetically go about controlling him.
She also gains another new friend, Spik, a fae looking for fun. She quickly takes a liking to Spik, given their shared love of tricks. For a while, Aelindis, Aleyn and Spik entertain the idea of befriending the dragon and riding it away from Forthwick Grove, but Aelindis can’t quite bring herself to plot behind Gerard’s back, even if she does feel hurt by him. Nonetheless, she and Spik will become firm friends.
In the end, Aleyn decides to come along with the rest of the knights, in the hope of talking to the dragon before it dies. Aelindis finds herself beginning to agree with a lot of what Aleyn says, and the two of them develop a mutual trust. They agree that, if Aleyn should die, Aelindis will look after his polecat companion, Summer. If Aelindis dies, Aleyn will look after her raven.
Nonetheless, Aelindis goes ahead with her plan of filling a quantity of bladders with marsh gas to feed to the dragon, reasoning that if the creature is to die anyway, a quick internal rupture will be kinder than being hacked to pieces by the knights. And besides, she needs to remind Sir Gerard of her worth.
In fact, she doesn’t get a chance to try out her plan. Averill tries to drug the knights at dinner and a fight breaks out. It is interrupted by the dragon, which demolishes the manor. Aleyn tries talking to the dragon, but to little avail. Aelindis ends up hurling a couple of her gas-bladders uselessly at the dragon, which sets them alight in the air, startling itself as they explode. After a protracted battle between the dragon and the knights, the creature flies off.
Aelindis does not easily live down her first failure as a monster-hunter – although Sir Gerard never mentions the useless gas bladders, some of the other knights joke about the incident and she feels ever more isolated from her master as he mingles with his fellows. She starts finding excuses to spend more time around Aleyn, who offers to use his ability to speak with animals to find out more about her raven. They spend an idyllic summer’s day at the stone circle at Avebury, where she reconnects with her Pagan roots. Aleyn, it turns out, is a follower of Ritona, just as Aelindis’s parents were.
Sitting in the shade of an ancient oak, Aleyn speaks to her raven. The bird asks them to call him Edgar, and explains that he stays with Aelindis in the expectation of Fun. When Summer the polecat playfully sneaks up on Edgar, the raven takes to the air, breathing smoke - but refuses to tell Aleyn what just happened. They leave soon afterwards, but in the weeks following this time spent together, Aelindis realises that her feelings have changed. Her fascination for Aleyn has given way to something approaching adoration.
One of the knights, Samuel Attaway, has decided to observe the Wild Hunt. Gerard decides to accompany him to ensure that he is safe, and of course Aelindis agrees to come along as well – the Hunt is dangerous and, although her relationship with Sir Gerard has been tested of late, she wants to be there to lend her cunning and her medical skills if things go wrong. She suggests that they should refuse to join the Hunt, normally a decision that would make you their prey. However, if they stand their ground, perhaps they will survive – it won’t be much of a Hunt if they don’t run.
When they arrive, however, they are swept onto mounts before they can object and forced to ride the wind with the other hunters. Through a combination of terror, adrenaline and the influence of some fae glamour, none can resist being drawn into the Hunt. In a frenzy, they chase down a stag just as Aleyn appears over the crest of the hill, crying and screaming at them to stop. But they are the pack, they cannot stop, and Sir Gerard plunges his sword into the stag’s neck before Aleyn can reach them. Aelindis and the other hunters throw themselves upon the carcass, tearing it apart with their bare hands. And then everyone goes silent and the leaders of the Hunt step back and Aelindis and her friends realise what it is that they have killed – a human being. They step back in horror as Aleyn looks on.
For all that Aelindis has a talent for manipulating others, she does not believe that she herself can be manipulated. While Gerard and Samuel curse the Hunt for deceiving them, Aelindis cannot bring herself to believe that she was being controlled. She tells herself that she knew what was happening, that she was freely revelling in it, that she is a bad person. When Gerard tries to reassure her, telling her that they were all deceived, she snaps at him and pleads to be allowed to leave his service. Dismayed though he is, his own sense of guilt and his honourable nature mean that he cannot refuse. They go their separate ways, each feeling wretched to be apart.
Having witnessed the slaughter, Aleyn is at first afraid to talk to Gerard, Samuel, or Aelindis. Seeing her sitting despondently by herself, he approaches her and they speak of what she did. Unable to accept that her own agency was compromised, she tells Aleyn that she is a monster, that he should stay away from her. He is clearly having to fight the urge to do just that, but tells her that he believes she has the capacity to do good things. She has done something terrible, and will never be able to escape from that – but she can be a force for good if she only tries.
She offers to do anything she can to help him. He mentions that he has been tasked with freeing a hob that is being mistreated; she provides her aid and together they manage to persuade the family to release the hob. She also agrees to help Edithe win a song contest just outside London. Edithe, Aelindis, Aleyn, Adelise, and Sam Attaway devise a play very loosely based around the exploits of Sir Gerard. Aelindis narrates and also throws in a song her mother used to sing to her, a song of Ritona. While this is partly for Aleyn’s benefit, he seems more interested in his role as romantic interest to Adelise’s knight….
Aelindis is approached by Samuel of the Fens, who asks what part of the region she’s from – knowing that he’s a constable, and afraid to reveal her Pagan origins, she panics and claims to come from a small town she knows of. Samuel asks her for aid in infiltrating the camp of Hereward the Wake. Together with Samuel’s other allies, they disguise themselves as outlaws; Aelindis handles the talking and persuades Hereward’s bandits to let them join them. She also learns where Hereward is keeping the legendary Boat of Elaine… just in time, as Samuel is recognised – Aelindis leads the group to the boat for a quick getaway.
The knights are planning a strike against the Hunt; needing a healer, Gerard awkwardly asks Aelindis for her aid. Aelindis agrees – she may have started to distance herself from Gerard but she still cares about him and wants to protect him. All the same, she’s worried she’ll be tempted to join the Hunt again – although she doesn’t believe she can be controlled, she’s also beginning to fear that she’s wicked at heart and can’t control her own baser instincts.
To force herself to repress her evil nature, she sends a lock of her hair to Aleyn, asking him to give it to the Wig Maker if she should willingly join the Hunt. The Wig Maker, it seems, takes hair from her victims in exchange for the ability to run from the Hunt faster – to give your hair to the Wig Maker is to assure your role as Prey rather than as part of the Pack. That threat ought to be enough to keep herself in line, Aelindis thinks. But Aleyn assumes that she wants him to help her die – confused and upset, he angrily rebukes her for asking him to kill, saying he could never do such a thing and questioning whether she knows him at all.
Still, she joins Aleyn, Adelise and Welkin on an expedition through the Alps to locate the Pact of Charlemagne. Aleyn is behaving frostily towards her, and Aelindis still doesn’t fully understand why; she’s wary around him. They find the Pact, but not before they have witnessed the Firebird melting the snow on the mountains, destroying the livelihood of the local people. Seeing Maryushka walking through the valley, they realise that she is connected to the Firebird. Later, Aelindis will confront her about this, confirming that they are one and the same – and that Edgar is a descendent of the Firebird and cousin to Thomas Feyborn!
Returning to England, she joins the knights in their attack against the Hunt. As a non-combatant, Aelindis hangs back, watching out for trickery and healing the injured. She is disgusted by the spectacle of the massacre – by the end, almost all of the fae are dead. Afterwards, she describes the violence to Aleyn in graphic detail, leaving her own role ambiguous and asking what he thinks of her. She is almost hoping that he will give up on her; to her anguish, he refuses to do so.
She is now in a very sad state, and it’s only going to get worse. She’s unable to fully face up to her feelings for Aleyn and Gerard, and she’s unwilling to return to Gerard’s side even though she really wants to – she doesn’t cope well by herself. She’s still punishing herself for joining the Hunt, unable to accept that she wasn’t in control of her actions. But in distancing herself from the people she loves, she lacks focus. She needs a cause to fight for.
Outside of Gerard’s immediate sphere of influence, she has been starting to reconnect with her Pagan roots. Given her personal history, she now regards herself as both Christian and Pagan, a difficult position to hold in the current climate of religious intolerance. She talks to Braith, who explains to her that some of the Pagan gods seem to be connected to Christian saints. The two of them try to establish a dialogue between Christians and Pagans, with a view to eventually uniting the faiths. They join a cross-faith effort to locate the Pact of Anna, finding not only the Pact but a self-duplication spell called the Gemini Gambit – this spell will become one of Aelindis’s favourites.
Dii Casses has announced her intention to consume at least one Pagan god, and is threatening the lives of other gods if the Pagan demographic of England does not drop below ten percent of the total population. Aelindis is a storyteller – she once helped secure Gerard’s status by inflating his reputation, and enjoys spreading false rumours and watching the consequences. She knows that you can change the nature of a thing if you get enough people believing something new about it. She decides to test this principle on Dii Casses.
She travels the country, preaching of Dii Casses, the protector of the downtrodden, who binds the poor together and gives them the strength to persist. She rejects the Dii Casses who asks the poor to rise up against their masters, the Dii Casses who consumes other gods. The people seem to respond well to her stories, but the priesthood has other ideas. One night, she is held down and drugged by four cultists dressed in rags. Dii Casses speaks to her in a dream, explaining that survival is not sufficient – the downtrodden must cast low their oppressors. Aelindis awakens in a refuse heap, dressed in rags and covered in filth.
She has failed. There is nothing she can do – and as someone who holds onto her love for the Pagan gods in spite of years learning to be Christian, she is part of the problem. Osmund is ferrying Pagans out of the country to reduce their population; Aelindis joins them. Not long prior to boarding the ship, she attended Tabitha’s coronation and saw Aleyn and Adelise together. She feels utterly wretched, and hates herself for it. She is still dressed in rags and filth – she doesn’t want to be pretty any more. She just wants to retreat from the world, to do what little good she can and then disappear. Her only real talent lies in manipulating others; she is a bad person – no wonder Dii Casses seems to recognise her as one of her own.
She travels south, through the Alps, putting the last of her money into helping to rebuild the livelihood of those afflicted by the Firebird’s actions. Reaching the hills of northern Italy, she lives a solitary existence, singing for her supper and sleeping rough, with Edgar as her only companion. And then, when she reaches Bologna, something happens that changes everything.
She meets a scholar, Junia, in a tavern. Junia is studying the ancient Roman god Dii Casses. When Aelindis expresses an interest, Junia takes her along to Rome as her research assistant. Together, they uncover the mysteries of an ancient temple buried deep under Rome’s public baths. Inscriptions on the walls of the temple tell the secret history of Dii Casses, a god formally known as Shed-Horon, who defected to the Roman pantheon from Carthage. Dii Casses was betrayed by the people of Rome, who broke their oath to her in their treatment of the Carthaginians. Dii Casses took her revenge against Rome, conspiring with its enemies and engineering the rise of a certain mystery religion from the East.
Aelindis’s mind is racing. Dii Casses is a god who has crossed pantheons – and how many times? Shed-Horon has connotations of Phoenicia and of ancient Egypt. Just how old is this god? For how long has she been there, changing her face, duplicating herself, working to unseat the powerful? And is it really so surprising that Aelindis couldn’t change Dii Casses? Aelindis has underestimated her enemy. Dii Casses is a trickster – perhaps the greatest trickster in existence, barring Merlyn of course.
Aelindis returns to Godstow. When Dii Casses appears in person to consume Borvo, Aelindis confronts the goddess, revealing a little of what she knows and a little of what she suspects, and warning her that the Christians will betray her, just as Rome did. Dii Casses is unperturbed – “Oh, they all betray me in the end….” When Dii Casses departs, Aelindis shares her knowledge and theories with a crowd of interested onlookers.
And then a portal opens just north of Oxford and Gerard starts to rally his forces against what looks to be an invincible army of hostile fae. Aelindis runs into Spik – terrified, her friend suggests that they need to get away fast. As they push through the surge of people trying to escape, Aelindis resolves not to leave her loved ones fighting the Unseelie all by themselves. In the crush, she allows herself get separated from Spik, scribbling a quick note to tell them to travel to Italy and meet with her there. She ties the note to Edgar's leg and tells him to take the note to Spik, hoping that Edgar will now be safe too.
And then she prays to Dii Casses, the most powerful entity she knows of. “Please, please just protect my friends. I will do anything; I will serve you to the end of my days – just keep them safe.” Dii Casses sends her a vision that shows the Unseelie armies defeated by the knights through the goddess’s power, and leaves Aelindis with an oath to sign….
At the Portal, the assembled armies are already fighting the Unseelie when Aelindis shows up, pale and scared. As part of the diplomatic delegation, Aelindis tries to persuade Blodeuwedd of the futility of fighting; when Blodeuwedd elects to demonstrate the power of the fae, Aelindis calls upon Dii Casses, who easily defeats Blodeuwedd in single combat. The fight rages on, Aelindis using her trickery to aid her friends. Eventually, the Unseelie retreat and the portal is sealed.
Aelindis has signed an oath with Dii Casses, binding herself to the goddess in servitude. She chose this through expediency, as an act of self-sacrifice – if she cannot find a way to trick the goddess to alter or bind her, she expects to go to her death betraying her. She is, however, still frightened of her own capacity to do evil – what if she eventually chooses to follow Dii Casses willingly? She has written a promise to herself and now clutches it in one hand. It reads:
I am me. I will protect those I love. I will not kill another blameless person. I will see Christians and Pagans at peace. I believe that words can solve all things. I will not let go.
She intends to hold onto this scrap of paper for as long as she is bound to Dii Casses.
With the situation at the portal under control, she makes her way back to Italy, to meet Spik. If she can prove herself a true disciple of Fun, Spik will teach her some trickster magic – while she’s been cautious about making use of her magical capabilities up until now, she’s going to need every advantage she can get if she hopes to trick Dii Casses. Spik and Aelindis decide to travel to Venice, to play a trick on a miserly lord Spik has heard of. After all, Aelindis believes that Trickery belongs to the downtrodden, as a means of tempering the power of their masters.
They play a series of three tricks on their target. Learning that he grew up under an oppressive lord himself, and believing that the play’s the thing wherein they’ll catch his conscience, they put on a little street performance for him. Mentioning his name to get his attention, they recreate an incident from his childhood, in which he was put in the stocks for standing up to authority. They use Gemini clones for the crowd scenes – the man is baffled as the players vanish into thin air at the end.
Next, remembering how differently she was treated after being drugged and dressed in rags by Dii Casses cultists, Aelindis does the same thing to her target. As snooty nobles, she and Spik torment their target as he wanders the streets in a daze, drugging him once more when he reaches a tavern and returning him safely to his bed.
He’s seen an incident from his past and experienced first-hand the treatment of the poor in the present. Now he just needs a glimpse of a time yet to come. Aelindis has one of her clones visit him in the night, as his own ghost from the future, describing a revolution that will destroy the aristocracy in Venice (this turns out to be rather prescient!). At an opportune moment, Aelindis throws a gas bladder at the ‘ghost’ (she’s finally found a use for them after the dragon incident!) and it disappears with a flash of light and a lingering smell.
The plan works beautifully. They leave in the early hours of the morning to the sounds of desperate sobbing as their target enthusiastically throws money out of the window. Amused, Spik agrees to teach Aelindis some new magic. She’s been using her Gemini Gambit to create non-sentient clones that take simple orders and shatter if hit too hard. But what if you were to put more power into that spell? Aelindis reluctantly agrees – after all, what could possibly go wrong? Overclocking the spell, they each create a single, solid, sentient clone of themselves. The clones run off to have more Fun….
Back at Godstow, Aelindis teams up with Wymond and begins working as a double-agent, feeding back information to Dii Casses to gain her trust while secretly trying to undermine her plans. This gets very complicated very quickly, so we’ll skip most of the details….
She has recently joined the Collegium and is approached by Matilda the Young, who expresses her intention to summon a god into mortal form. This might provide useful information, Aelindis realises – perhaps she will gain insights into some means of weakening Dii Casses. She is a little more concerned when Matilda mentions which god she intends to summon: Agrona. Even so, Aelindis decides to accompany Matilda. She wants to ensure that no harm comes to Agrona (who, while a monster, is nonetheless divine) or to any… offerings Matilda has prepared for the goddess. Perhaps Aelindis will be able to defuse any unpleasantness with her rhetorical skill….
She could also do with some more trickster magic. She asks Spik what they would like to do next. Spik declares that it is always funny to slap someone with a fish. Aelindis smiles – oh, they can do better than that. She plans a trip to northern Spain. There, they will pose as travelling physicians offering a cure for gout, that affliction of the very rich. Gout, they’ll claim, is a divine punishment for the misuse of power, and the only cure is to have each of your servants publically slap you about the face with a fish. Aelindis’s real motivation is to make the ruling classes look ridiculous, a classic trickster tactic for undermining established power. And if they bring their clones in on the act and split up, they should get half of Spain slapping each other with fish in no time at all….
The plan works perfectly at first, but then people start looking scared when she delivers her diagnosis. Before she can offer a cure, her patients run away, citing their fear of pain and their intent to take their chances with the gout. Aelindis is perplexed – being slapped with a fish is embarrassing, but shouldn’t be especially painful. In the next town, the mystery is solved: her clone has suspended a large swordfish from a repurposed gallows and is using it to impale people. If they survive, she claims, they will be cured.
Aelindis is more than a little troubled by this, but, assuming that her clone truly is a perfect reflection of herself, the incident only confirms her suspicion that she is wicked at heart. Leaving Spain, she receives the promised spell from Spik, the False Visage of Cressida, which allows her to alter her face at will. It is perhaps no coincidence that the spells she favours from now on, the Gemini Gambit and the False Visage, bear some surface resemblance to the tricks used by Dii Casses in jumping pantheons.
Aelindis meets Matilda in the small house near Tintagel castle where Matilda does all her experiments. In the ritual chamber, several people have been bound and tattooed with the Mark of Agrona. Aelindis’s heart is pounding – she has to rescue these people, but she must find out what she can from Agrona if she’s going to stop Dii Casses. But then Matilda starts chanting and Aelindis finds herself irresistibly drawn into the ritual – she is powerless to prevent what now happens, although she will of course blame herself for it afterwards.
Agrona is embodied through one of the unfortunate captives, and then begins to consume the others. Aelindis can only look on in horror; Matilda questions the goddess. Although Aelindis is apparently too emaciated to be of immediate interest to Agrona, she does seem to have caught the eye of the Daughter of Carnage. Agrona tells Aelindis that she will see her soon, before leaving the chamber, followed by a delighted Matilda. Aelindis falls to her knees, spattered with blood and surrounded by the bones of people she failed to protect.
Following her experience at the Agrona summoning, Aelindis is determined to destroy Agrona’s current physical embodiment. She doesn’t want the goddess to die, but she must be stopped from eating any more people, or from gaining any more power via the next ritual her cult are apparently planning. When Agrona appears at Godstow, Aelindis tries to gain her trust, gloating as the goddess tortures Katrina of Maldon – Aelindis has a talent for channelling her panic and revulsion into maniacal laughter.
The goddess leaves, but some of her followers are branding people with the Mark of Agrona. Aelindis recognises this mark from the sacrifices she saw devoured. To gain the cult’s trust and to see the reaction she’ll get from Dii Casses, she takes the mark, praying to the goddess of the downtrodden beforehand and receiving only a sense of impatience. When Dii Casses manifests later, she plays stupid, pretending she thought Dii Casses was impatient for her to take the mark.
Dii Casses feels that Aelindis has messed around for long enough, and gives her a task to perform. Gavin of Revesby has trapped Saint Jutte in a box. Dii Casses wants to use Jutte to cross pantheons. She tells Aelindis to retrieve the box and find a way to open it. Aelindis agrees to do what she can, later enlisting Wymond to help her. Wymond has a ritual that will allow him to feed relics of gods and saints to Dii Casses, empowering her as she consumes the deities in question. If Aelindis can keep Wymond occupied chasing after boxes, she might just keep a few gods safer for longer.
Aelindis runs into Aleyn, who backs away, asking to see the mark on her hand. He visibly recoils when she shows him, explaining that he has been told to beware of women covered in blood and bearing that mark. He looks thoughtful for a second and then touches her arm, before walking away. Aelindis, confused by this, asks Elizabeth if she understands Aleyn’s behaviour. Elizabeth explains that Aleyn is under a curse that will cause anyone he cares about to feel intense pain whenever he touches them. Distraught to learn that he no longer feels anything for her, Aelindis chases after Aleyn, begging him to touch the mark on her hand – does it feel warm to him? Thinking that she intends to use it to place another curse on him, Aleyn retreats in disgust.
The High Priestess of Agrona makes her entrance, carrying a cat. Aelindis, still trying to gain the cult’s trust, asks if there is anything else she can do… besides fattening herself up for the ritual to come, of course. The High Priestess tells her that she requires Aelindis to perform an experiment for her. The wards on Godstow protect humans and fae, but do they have any effect on animals? She hands Aelindis the cat and a knife….
This is a test. If Aelindis does not play along, she will surely die to Agrona without hope of defeating her. A crowd gathers to watch what she will do - she sees Aleyn and Gerard among them. Of course, if Aleyn is right, if the lives of animals have the same worth as human lives, then the wards should protect them too, surely? And if the wards don’t work on animals, then… but she can’t quite focus – for various reasons, she’s under a lot of emotional strain right now. As if in a dream, she plunges the knife into the cat’s heart.
The cat falls to the floor, dead. The knife falls from Aelindis’s hand, along with the little scrap of paper she has been clutching. She staggers across the room, followed by a concerned Sir Gerard, who catches her just as she passes out. He revives and questions her; looking into his eyes, she realises how much she still cares about him. She is also approached by Gavin of Revesby, who has picked up the paper she dropped:
I am me. I will protect those I love. I will not kill another blameless person. I will see Christians and Pagans at peace. I believe that words can solve all things. I will not let go.
Giving her a knowing look, he voices his opinion that these are fine sentiments indeed.
Of course, she now needs to try stealing the box containing Saint Jutte from Gavin. She decides to make a token effort, hoping that she will fail but that Dii Casses will not kill her outright. Disguising herself as a nun escaping the Pagan uprising in Ireland, she turns up at Gavin’s abbey, supposedly seeking sanctuary. She is allowed in and hears talk of Gavin’s plan – to release Jutte in the fae realm, where she will be safe from Dii Casses. She can’t find the box, however, and Gavin discovers her sneaking around. She is thrown out… only to bump into Wymond, who leaves the box in her care.
The night of Agrona’s empowerment approaches. Having gained the trust of her cult, Aelindis joins their procession, wearing the garb of Agrona’s chosen. Her plan is to trick the goddess into cutting her own throat – she’s not sure what power can destroy the physical form of a divine entity, but that same entity ought to be powerful enough, right? She’s strapped a pouch full of blood to her neck – she intends to engage the goddess in a ritual frenzy of bloodletting, each taking turns to draw their own blood, with Aelindis eventually slashing the pouch at her throat and hoping that Agrona follows suit. If that doesn’t work, she already has a back-up option….
Gavin had previously written to her, asking for her aid in defeating Agrona. Aelindis is becoming increasingly paranoid that either Agrona or Dii Casses might be able to read her messages – from now on, she’ll be hiding the meaning of much of her correspondence to keep her loyalties ambiguous. In this instance, her letter reads:
Gavin,
You are a fool. Who are you to stand against the might of the Old Gods? But look to the sky at the allotted hour, look for the black herald of death, and you will witness the power of Agrona.
Aelindis
Hopefully, Gavin will realize that he needs to watch for Aelindis’s raven as a sign of Agrona’s proximity. And while her letter is ambiguous by necessity, when Gavin sees Aelindis working with him to defeat Agrona, he’ll understand where her loyalties lie.
As the procession continues, more and more Agrona cultists join them. Aelindis realises that her plan to trick Agrona into destroying her own physical form isn’t going to work – even if she can get close to Agrona through the crowds, she’d never make it out alive after pulling a stunt like the one she’s planning. But she can’t easily escape now. Luckily, Edgar gauges the situation correctly and flies off to summon Gavin and his forces.
The message is received. Aelindis prepares her False Visage just in time – the fae Avazda swoops down on her dragon, raining fire over the cultists, and then Gavin’s forces are everywhere, cutting off their escape and systematically beheading them. Terrified, Aelindis cuts the pouch at her throat and falls to the ground, playing dead. Only when the battle has passed her by does she summon up the courage to flee – even then, she almost runs into Aleyn, who is mopping up the remaining cultists. She doesn’t know it, but Aleyn has resolved to kill her if he sees her among the cultists, in honour of the Aelindis he used to know.
She is still panicking even after leaving the battleground – can she be sure that nobody recognised her? And even if she used the False Visage in time, she certainly hasn’t proven that she wasn’t working for Agrona. After her recent actions, she is in danger of being killed by her own friends – she can’t stop thinking about the murderous look in Aleyn’s eyes.
She decides to fake her own death – it is easily plausible that she might have been cut down unseen in the carnage. She spreads the story that Aelindis of the Marsh died in the battle, and adopts a new face to return to Godstow – as Sister Idah of Hameln, a nun dedicated to Nonnata, she will find out whether her friends really do think she was an evil cultist.
She spends some time questioning people about Aelindis while also taking the chance to gauge the mood of the hardline Christian separatist faction. Gavin seems to have realised that her raven was intended as a sign for him, and most people have clearly accepted that she was not an Agrona cultist. Aleyn seems saddened by the apparent death of his friend, but before she can discover his opinion of her activities, Dii Casses appears. Aelindis realises that the goddess has seen through her disguise – she isn’t going to let Dii Casses expose her, so she throws aside the False Visage herself and triumphantly proclaims herself alive.
Dii Casses wants to know what she’s been up to. She loudly taunts Gavin about the box, hoping that he will try to steal it back from her. She explains to Dii Casses that she hasn’t been able to open it. Wymond suggests that she bring it to Sicily; she agrees, knowing that this will waste more of Wymond’s time. When Dii Casses has departed, she is approached by her old friend Samuel of the Fens, who wants to know what she’s playing at. When she entrusts him with some of her plans, he offers to help reclaim the box from her. She tells him to await further communications.
Suddenly, Aleyn is rushing towards her. In spite of the wards on the abbey, she backs off, expecting him to attack her. He flings his arms around her, telling her how glad he is to see her alive. His curse has been lifted, and he thinks he understands why she did what she did. In joy and relief, she lets slip her past feelings for him. He looks confused; she feels embarrassed – he never noticed the way she looked at him? Laughing, she calls him an idiot and tells him how happy he looks around Adelise. He runs off to give Adelise a kiss.
She feels strange. She… can’t do this. She tells herself that she is being stupid, putting herself at risk by speaking to the people she cares about. She won’t admit to herself the other reason why she isolates herself – that it hurts to talk to the people she loves. When Gerard writes to her, trying to reconcile with her and asking for her aid spreading stories to undermine Eckehart, she replies with utter vitriol. She needs to push him away, she tells herself, for his own good. It certainly has nothing to do with the part of his letter where he reveals to her that he and Lady Patience are to be married. It’s not as though Aelindis is still in love with her lord, after all….
But the act of pushing her old friends away is taking its toll on her. She’s started to care about her new allies, Wymond and Gruff, and when she thinks about Dii Casses, she feels… odd. She tells herself she’s just feeling respect towards a great trickster, nothing more. But then there’s Agrona, who may have eaten people but hey, you can’t deny she had style. Aelindis sometimes catches herself staring fondly at the mark on her hand….
The boat pulls into the docks at Sicily. Wymond, Gruff, and Aelindis unload the box but are confronted with Samuel of the Fens, Gavin of Revesby, and a few others. It seems that Samuel received Aelindis’s coded message: “Bring boats – we sail for Sicily.” After a frenetic chase through the city, the Dii Casses cultists find their way into Palermo Cathedral via a hidden doorway. Their pursuers seem to have lost them, so Wymond and Aelindis break open the chest. They each pray to Dii Casses three times, gaining the same answers: “Jutte is free,” “Jutte is bound,” and “Jutte is free.” Wymond seems unperturbed, but Aelindis is privately relieved – her little intervention seems to have worked. If all has gone according to plan, Gavin has now freed Jutte in the fae realm.
Of course, Aelindis has never seen the world on the other side of the portal, and decides to take the opportunity to do so now. Disguised as Edithe LeBelle (there’s no way the guards would knowingly let Aelindis through), she infiltrates a group planning to explore the story-realm of Liardet. She follows the group through the story for a while, and then uses some currency she has gained, a card bearing the word “Enchantment”, to escape to a different part of the story where she learns a new spell, the Skin of the Changeling. If she has access to a recent corpse, this will allow her to wear the person’s skin to disguise herself perfectly as them. It is a very powerful spell.
Although she repelled Gerard’s attempts at making contact by letter, she cares about him and wishes to serve him in whatever way she can. Remembering that he asked her to spread propaganda to dishearten Eckehart’s armies, she recruits both Spiks and her own clone to help her do just that. She is a little worried about bringing her clone along, but then, they’re clearly only as evil as one another and it’s probably best to keep themselves occupied doing useful things. She challenges her clone to see who can do the best job of disrupting Eckehart’s military effort.
Disguised as an old soldier, Aelindis moves between camps, spreading stories of the might of England’s greatest. She also doctors their food supplies with laxatives – an army marches on its stomach and falls on its arse; nobody wants to go to war literally shitting themselves. As she travels, she starts to hear stories of a baby-eating monster called Elzken. Eventually, she traces these stories to the forest where this creature is supposed to reside.
In a glade in the heart of the forest, she meets herself, dressed in tattered finery. Her clone claims to have won the challenge by taking all the stories about Eckehart and making them about her – now half the Empire fears her, the Erlking in the dark of the forest. Aelindis realises that her clone no longer fully resembles her – it has started to warp into something inhuman. When she asks if her clone really has taken to eating babies, the shadows lengthen and eyes light up around the glade. Aelindis flees.
Horrified though she is by this development, Aelindis is excited by the implications. She was right! There truly is a transformative power in stories, which her clone has harnessed to steal the power of a demiurge. Aelindis begins taking hold of the stories herself, trying to undermine her clone’s power.
All right - next tyrant. Aelindis journeys East with the Spiks, to perform as a jester for Genghis Khan. Staying in one of the Ysbathadeni moving castles, she gathers a great deal of information about his armies, including the existence of the fae monster known as the Deathworm. She’ll end up passing this information on to Sir Gerard anonymously. Of most interest, however, is the relationship between Genghis Khan and the Ysbathadeni. She learns that he has gifted a special sword by King Pellehan – now, would it put strain on their alliance if the sword were to… go missing? She manages to steal the sword but is disturbed when it starts asking her to feed it blood. She will later give it to Wilfreda as a token of trust.
Back at Godstow, Allie has had her sense of guilt removed and has become dangerous and erratic. While Dii Casses is engaged in conversation with Aelindis, Allie uses Excalibur to stab the goddess, killing the physical form she is using. Aelindis puts up a good show of horror to ensure that Dii Casses and everyone else will be in no doubt about her loyalty to the goddess – although, in truth, she is shocked to realise how scared she really is that Dii Casses might actually be dead. Why is she feeling this way? She prays to confirm that Dii Casses is definitely still alive.
Then she formulates a plan to end the chaos Allie is now wreaking. She recruits Braith, Wymond, and Gruff. Together with various others, her allies attack Allie just as she retrieves the Grail; Aelindis supports them from the shadows, sending in waves of harmless clones to distract Allie. Eventually, Wymond succeeds in cleaving Allie in two. Of course, Aelindis is well aware that keeping Wymond busy with an assassination is a good way to prevent him from feeding quite so many gods to Dii Casses….
Still, Wymond is close to demolishing the Pagan pantheon. He’s also close to ascending, after which he’ll be more dangerous than ever. Aelindis decides she needs to act soon and show her true face by killing him. Needing more allies against him, she persuades Wymond to go after Wilfreda – she is certain that he will fail and gain a powerful enemy in Wilfreda.
Wymond ultimately fails to get Wilfreda eaten, and the goddess knows full well that he stole her body. While Wymond is distracted, Aelindis reveals to Wilfreda that she plans to kill Wymond. Wilfreda doesn’t trust her – in fact, she regards her as a treacherous viper – but later sends Gregor to see if her story checks out. Aelindis also reveals her intentions to Braith, who has been shaken by the death of Taranis. With Braith, Aelindis comes closest to telling the whole truth. Wymond has been trying to recruit Braith for the cult of Dii Casses, so the pair of them play along whenever Wymond is around.
Later, she sends another of her apparently innocent letters. This one is addressed to Wymond, but she arranges for Edgar to drop the letter over Gavin’s abbey by ‘mistake’. It reads:
Wymond,
So, our work is almost complete. You are to ascend to godhood. Then we steal the relics of the remaining gods and saints due to be fed to her. After this, nobody will be able to stop her. Unless they defeat us now, they will fail.
This time, I will be there with you on your hunt for relics. If we encounter opposition, I will do what is right, what I have always known is right. I once held my faith in my hand; those words still stand. So let us end this.
Aelindis
Given that Gavin had previously discovered the promise she had held in her hand:
I am me. I will protect those I love. I will not kill another blameless person. I will see Christians and Pagans at peace. I believe that words can solve all things. I will not let go.
…he’ll understand that this message is for him.
She has a few other issues to deal with, however. First, there is the matter of her double. She fears it won’t be possible to defeat the other Aelindis using trickery – she knows all her own tricks. Perhaps the best way to deal with this problem is to throw raw strength at it… in the form of the Knights of St George. In any case, she’s been missing her old monster-hunting adventures with Sir Gerard, and wants one more chance to team up with him before she has to sacrifice herself.
She appears before Gerard with a new face and a disguise to make herself look like a friendly forest fae. She uses the name “Forest Maiden Shahli.” She tells him of the Erlking that dwells at the heart of the forest and begs him to remove this malignant influence. It has been eating children – surely such a righteous knight would not allow the death of innocents (yes, she did just poke those memories!). Gerard explains that he is very busy at the moment but will see what can be done.
She hears some troubling rumours that Merlyn might be the Demiurge of Trickery. She has been excited to see Merlyn at Godstow (even if Merlyn has managed to see through each and every one of her own disguises with ease), but she has complicated feelings about her old idol. Aelindis considers trickery to be a power that belongs to the downtrodden. Of course, Merlyn is a hob, about as low-status as you can get… but for a trickster to wield the power of a demiurge? That seems to betray the principle of the thing, as far as Aelindis is concerned.
As she sits brooding, she is visited by the fae who gave her Edgar the raven, all those years ago. This fae explains that she has a debt to settle – the new Pact to replace the Pact of Charlemagne must be settled within the next six months to prevent anarchy among the Seelie. She must see this done.
Aelindis speaks to Samuel Attaway, now Guardian of the Seelie. Knowing that Samuel thinks she’s something of an evil witch, she pressures him to take his time over the new Pact – maybe he should take a holiday in the Bavarian forests? He is immediately suspicious and tries to establish why she might want to delay the signing of the Pact – what evil scheme does she want to push through before things are finalised? He explains that he was going to take his time over it, but that he will now move to having it finalised within the next six months. Aelindis feigns anger - Sam might be Guardian of the Seelie, but has he the courage to gaze into the dark at the heart of the forest, the strength to face the Erlking?
Aelindis is keenly aware of her own soft-heartedness, and is afraid that she won’t be able to go ahead with the plan to kill Wymond and Gruff when the time comes. Remembering what Allie was capable of, she rashly gets herself addicted to Guilt potions and then has her innate sense of guilt removed. Now, if she can just handle her addiction, she can regulate her own guilt and become a remorseless monster when she needs to. Being addicted to Guilt potions, however, should force her to periodically return to her normal self.
She follows the movements of the knights to find out when they’ll be heading out to defeat the Erlking. To her disappointment, Gerard sends Lahav into the forest alone. It looks like she won’t get to fight at Gerard’s side ever again. Nonetheless, she follows Lahav in her disguise as Forest Maiden Shahli, making sure that he catches glimpses of her between the trees so that he’ll know there’s a kindly spirit protecting him. Arriving in the clearing, Lahav attacks the monster that was once Aelindis’s clone, but the Erlking is slippery and evades him, using her newly gained power over the dark forest to strike at Lahav. But Aelindis, concealed within the trees, knows her own evasive tactics too well, and casts a fireball at her clone to alert Lahav to the Erlking’s hiding place. Lahav charges at the burning tyrant and despatches her with his sword. Aelindis quickly binds his wounds and then flees before he can realise who she is.
Without guilt, she is now ready to kill Wymond and Gruff to stop them murdering any more Old Gods or interfering with Gavin’s plans to bind Dii Casses. She meets Wymond in a rubbish tip outside London just as he is preparing to ascend. Unaware of her attentions, he lets her join him to watch his moment of glory. When a large group of people (and one goddess, Wilfreda) appear, ready to kill him, he pays them no heed. While he is distracted, Aelindis hits him with the Death of a Hundred Flames and Wilfreda tears his throat out. He promptly ascends to become the Shadow God, cutting Aelindis down before attacking his other persecutors. There is a protracted fight as the group tries to get near to his relics to destroy them. Eventually, they manage to beat him back sufficiently, with a coordinated action that unexpectedly includes Aelindis staggering to her feet to cast fireball after fireball at him. Wymond’s relics and god-form are destroyed.
Gruff has asked her to teach him the False Visage of Cressida – this is an excellent opportunity for her to kill him. She decides to push the odds in her favour as much as possible, suggesting a winter break in the desert outside Marrakech (where it’s still nice and hot and there’s no stone for him to shape), and then giving him flammable oil to rub on himself ‘to protect you from the sun’. Instead of preparing the False Visage to teach him, she casts Death of a Hundred Flames – but he is just able to get out of the way, losing only an arm to the fire. He throws the area into twilight, wounds her, and makes his escape.
She now fully expects Dii Casses to kill her as an oath-breaker and traitor. Her only hope is that she gets a shot at Dii Casses before she dies – she has a few ideas for how she might go about tricking Dii Casses into binding herself. She’s lost so much – both of the men she loved have ended up with other people; she’s distanced herself from everyone she cares about and feels achingly lonely; she’s even sacrificed the thing that has come to define her most – her guilt. All that she wants now is to die getting one over on a mastermind as cunning as Dii Casses.
But Dii Casses does not come for her, and in time she hears rumours that the goddess has been successfully bound. At first, she is not willing to believe it – surely Dii Casses is too cunning to be bested so easily, but as the next meeting at Godstow approaches, Aelindis realises that, one way or another, she has lost her chance at a battle of wits with an entity as clever as Dii Casses. She also runs out of Guilt potions altogether, and receives no more from Elizabeth, who had threatened to withhold her supply until Aelindis managed to feed the Lady of the Shadows to Dii Casses. Aelindis cannot bear to go on living without the weight of her guilt, and returns to Godstow to see if she can persuade Elizabeth to give her some more potions.
She quickly learns that Reynoldus of the Inquisition is looking for her – with Wymond gone, she is now seen as the highest profile Dii Casses cultist still alive. In disguise as ever, she tries to gain a free sample of Elizabeth’s wares, but exhausted by her recent experiences, Aelindis’s skills are not what they once were… and besides, Elizabeth knows an addict when she sees one. After giving her the potion she wants, Elizabeth tracks her down and confronts her – if Aelindis doesn’t do as she says, Elizabeth will reveal her identity to the Inquisition. Realizing that Elizabeth will try to use her addiction to manipulate her for the rest of her life, and given her own feelings about being manipulated, Aelindis refuses, challenging Elizabeth to report her to the Inquisition and using her last few minutes of guilt and freedom to pass a letter to Sir Gerard. It is the letter she would have had Edgar deliver to him in the event of her death to Dii Casses. It reads:
Sir Gerard,
I am sorry. I wish I could have said a proper farewell. I don't know if you'll ever receive this letter, let alone believe my words. I decided years ago not to write what I am writing now. I determined to let myself go to my grave despised, to avoid hurting anyone any more than I had already. But… I am frightened. I am in such a dark place and I can't bear to leave the world without first making my confession, my testament. I pray only that this reaches you.
I have made many, many mistakes. You have no doubt heard stories of my wickedness, and I fear there can be no forgiving the things that I have done. I have killed without just cause. I have betrayed the principles that I held dearest. I have fashioned a snare too ingenious to permit my escape.
I did not want this. I wanted only to protect those I loved. When the portal opened, I was so afraid for all of you - and I could see I was too weak to be of much use to anyone. But I knew of one who might be powerful enough to defend you… so I made a deal with Dii Casses. I swore to do her will if only she would keep my friends safe. And then you were victorious and with my relief came the realization that I was bound to an oath I could not break. I tried to do what I could to hinder her plans, but all my trickery is no match for something as old and cunning as she is. And now, at last, as I reveal my true face, knowing that it will mean my death… I cannot say whether my sacrifice will do any good.
I should have died to Agrona. When I heard that Matilda meant to summon her, I went to that house of carnage in hope that I might be able to save some of the goddess's victims. But then I felt the ritual take hold and she was consuming them and - oh, gods and saints, I wish I could forget. My only thought was that she had to be stopped, and as she trusted me as her follower, I swore that I would use her trust against her. I joined the procession of her acolytes and sent Edgar as a sign for those who came to destroy her. If you had not arrived when you did, they would have given me to her. You saved my life and I could never speak of it to you. I am sorry for my cruel words - I hope you understand why I had to push you away. Only now can I thank you, and now it is too late.
Still, I tried to watch over you as before. I told Etzen's soldiers stories of your might, as you asked of me. I fed back to you every piece of information I could gather, to help you defeat your foes. I looked on as you overcame so much, while I stood alone. I am happy for you, and for Lady Patience. I hope that you have a beautiful life together. Truly.
I only wish I'd had one last chance to fight monsters with you. When I discovered what had become of my twin, I visited you in disguise, knowing none better able to defeat her. I would have followed you, bound your wounds, made some ridiculous plan or other. Just the two of us, one last time… even though you would not have known me. But I was wrong to think it could ever be the same - you have become something far greater than you once were. And as I know all too well, the monsters have changed, too.
Never clothe yourself as a villain, Sir Gerard. It is the loneliest thing in the world.
There are so many things I wished I could have told you. I have not forgotten you. I would never knowingly betray you. I love you. If only you could have known – I am not what I appear to be. I do not love Dii Casses. I am Christian, as you taught me, and I am Pagan, as my mother and father were. And yet… I know there is no place for me in any afterlife. I am lost. And in the end, that is as it should be. I have sacrificed so much of myself – what remains is not a lot to lose.
I must ask you one last favour, my lord. Please, tell them that I am sorry. Aleyn, and Samuel of the Fens, and Braith, and Gavin, and… all others who ask about me. I am sorry. I am sorry.
I told you once that it gave me comfort to know you exist, ever fighting the monsters. Let that be my final thought.
With all my love,
Aelindis
And just this once, every word is true.
She waits by the entrance to Godstow for the Inquisitor to find her – he can execute her outside of Godstow’s protective wards. He soon arrives, closely followed by Braith, who is trying to convince him that Aelindis is not a Dii Casses cultist after all. Reynoldus questions Aelindis. Desiring only death for herself, she admits she was never a true follower of Dii Casses, but when asked if she is planning the death of any Christians, she replies (truthfully) in the affirmative. Reynoldus refuses to kill her outside the abbey, preferring instead that her execution be made public. He drags her back into the abbey and summons Saint Boniface to pronounce judgement on her. The Saint casts her to the ground and curses her – every few minutes, she will feel the agony of the blood in her veins turning to fire. This will continue for six months, after which Reynoldus will kill her. Gerard and Patience are sitting nearby – Gerard cannot bear to look at Aelindis, and turns away.
Elizabeth targets her once more, proposing a new deal for some potions. Aelindis takes the Guilt potion Elizabeth offers her and smashes it on the ground. Does Elizabeth know what she does to people? What it’s like to lose yourself every five minutes, over and over again, as the effects of her potions wear off? Besides, she has something else to act in place of her guilt now – on cue, she screams as Boniface’s curse takes hold. Aelindis runs off to a quiet corner, apologising to Gruff for trying to kill him as she goes.
There, she is joined by Braith and then by Sir Gerard, who has just read her letter. Each of them tries to reassure her, to help her find a way to go on, but she is beyond comfort. Gerard holds her, trying to make sense of what her happened to her since she left his service. Reynoldus appears and gives her a Happiness potion – “I will kill you in six months… but they need not be a bad six months.” Osmund, Lord Shipwright joins them and tries to offer her a chance to ascend for the work she has done, but she is adamant that she just wants to die. Eventually, Osmund takes away Boniface’s curse as an act of kindness. She slumps to the floor.
After some time sobbing alone, she returns to the main part of the abbey with the intention of begging someone to kill her now. She meets Braith, who is also crying. When Aelindis asks her what the matter is, Braith confides in her about her feelings over the death of the Pope (now Anti-Pope) Peter II, who turns out to have been her brother. She wants to know who did the deed and to seek revenge. Aelindis, sad for Braith, promises that she will do what she can to bring the killer to justice. As they share a hug, Aelindis realises that she thinks of Braith as a real friend.
With a little investigation, they find evidence that Stanley the Abiding may be the culprit. Aelindis really isn’t sure how she feels about killing Stanley, but Braith is adamant that she must avenge her brother. Aelindis, knowing that she made a promise, follows – if nothing else, she might be able to keep her friend from getting herself killed. Braith attacks Stanley, who promptly cloaks himself in darkness. Aelindis casts a fireball to illuminate the area but the flames graze Stanley and suddenly his banshee familiar is attacking Aelindis. Its claws mark her face; she feels for the first time the coldness and horror of her own mortality. While Stanley makes his escape from Braith, Aelindis is left questioning her own determination to die.
Back at Godstow, she tries to talk to Aleyn, but is unable to say what she is feeling. This will be their last meeting.
Given her recent tribulations, she hasn’t been paying much attention to current affairs, but as she approaches Gerard and the knights, she hears what they are talking about – Merlyn, it seems, turns out to have gained power through a series of atrocities against other fae. The demiurge must be stopped. Something clicks in Aelindis’s mind – suppose she had the opportunity to trick the greatest trickster who has ever lived? Of course, she’d need to increase the glamour at her disposal sufficiently to be able to fool a demiurge, but she might be able to do that by stealing some of Merlyn’s own power… just as her own double did with Etzen, through stories.
Aelindis is suddenly back on form – her mind is racing, she’s trying to devise the means whereby she might trick Merlyn in a battle of wits. And then everyone is looking at Merlyn and Arthur, and Arthur stands up to Merlyn for the first time ever and the demiurge stabs him with Excalibur and he lies dead on the floor. And Merlyn informs everyone that if they want to live past the next five minutes, they need to leave now. Most people exit in a hurry, leaving just twelve people in the room. Merlyn, Lancelot, Wilfreda, Reynoldus, Gavin, Braith, Andris, Edithe, Ludovic, Rhydian, Gerard, and Aelindis.
Merlyn paralyses them all and brings down the protective wards over Godstow. “I don’t need to do anything to you – I can just leave you to tear each other to pieces once I’m gone. And if any of you do manage to survive, I’ll see you at the boat!” The demiurge departs, leaving the rest of them to stare at the body of Arthur as they await the end of their paralysis. Following a brief argument which features the question of who gets to be the one to kill Aelindis, they make a mutual agreement to leave without violence – they’ll need to abandon petty squabbles to defeat Merlyn. Andris is prepared to let all of them ride his whirlwind to bring them directly to Tintagel, to meet Merlyn at the boat. Wilfreda is adamant that she needs to be on the boat, to sail the dead to the stars. Aelindis is smiling – she knows exactly how she’ll go about tricking Merlyn.
The unlikely allies land together in a flash of light, in a pile, in a field. Aelindis has persuaded Gerard that they’ll need the body of Arthur for what she’s planning. When he asks her what she intends to do with it, she manages to evade the question, reassuring him that she won’t be performing any weird Pagan magic on it. Fortunately, he doesn’t ask about weird fae magic. Aelindis persuades everyone to liberate some horses, and together they ride for Tintagel.
It’s almost like old times, but on a much larger scale. Gerard and Aelindis are working together, her lord coordinating a large group of fighters while she briefs her team of storytellers and tricksters. Just a few hours ago, nobody trusted her – in fact, a number of people wanted her dead. But now, people are looking to her for instruction, and all because she has a plan.
She brings the body to the house where Matilda summoned Agrona – this is ghoulishly appropriate, given what she’s planning. She gathers her storytellers and explains what she needs. They each ride out to different parts of the country. There isn’t much time, but with the help of Edithe, Sam Attaway, Braith, and Andris, she should be able to steal Merlyn’s stories and bind them with her own:
They might know a few of my tricks. Tell them more. Tell them how Aelindis tricked the old king of Scotland into wasting his might on a futile crusade. Tell them how Aelindis and her friends saved a cathedral from imps when she trapped the creatures in tar. Tell them how Aelindis tricked Hereward the Wake into letting her friends escape his camp with the Boat of Elaine. Tell them how she fooled a miserly Venetian lord into throwing his fortunes to the poor, after she posed as his own ghost from the future. Tell them how she tricked half of Spain into slapping each other with fish to cure the gutta. Tell of how she led Agrona into a trap and then faked her own death to escape reprisals.
Tell them how the Holy Roman Empire's soldiers started deserting after she spiked their water and got them literally shitting themselves. Tell them how she used her disguises to pretend to be her friends' friends, and all the pranks she played on them. Tell them how she performed for Genghis Khan as a jester, and then used the old disappearing sword trick to steal the symbol of his alliance with the Ysbathadeni. Tell them how she had Allie the Upshot fighting phantoms, how she infiltrated the cult of Dii Casses and cleverly distracted Wymond Payne from sacrificing several old gods before she finally turned on him.
Tell them the story of a woman of a thousand faces, a duplicitous vagrant with a clever raven. Tell them she's Christian, tell them she's Pagan, tell them she's just like them, poor and downtrodden, but that she gained power over her oppressors through quick wits and guile. That's something Merlyn's forgotten - to be a trickster people will love, a folk hero, you need to be the underdog.
Oh, and tell them all the stories you know about Merlyn, the good ones, the ones that make people remember how clever Merlyn is. Tell those stories, and make them about Aelindis. We need to steal them from Merlyn. We need everyone to believe that Aelindis of the Marsh is the true Demiurge of Trickery.
While the others travel across the country, Aelindis focusses her storytelling around Cornwall. She starts to feel the power flowing into her, and returns to Matilda’s cottage to assemble her team of tricksters – the two Spiks.
Together, they skin Arthur’s corpse. Aelindis prepares Skin of the Changeling, feeling the spell draining her own energies just as the power she’s stolen from Merlyn starts to overcome her. She knows she will not last long, but this is her choice – she will sacrifice herself to save her friends, while tricking the greatest trickster of them all. She says farewell to her dear Spiks, who are somewhat distraught at the thought of her death. She also says goodbye to Edgar, her oldest friend. She tells him to go and live with Aleyn and Adelise from now on – they will take good care of him.
She heads out to Tintagel. Her plan is already working – she can feel the power being drained from Merlyn. But she intends to do so much more – to distract Merlyn from the ship through trickery and to hurt Merlyn psychologically. But how do you trick a trickster? Why, using the same principle as for anyone else - find their weakness. And Aelindis is pretty sure she knows what Merlyn's weakness is. She’s asked herself the question: how would I destroy myself emotionally? – and applied it to Merlyn. She will exploit Merlyn’s pain over their unrequited love for Arthur. She will make them feel as though their agency is an illusion, as though they have been manipulated all this time. She will steal their legacy.
Merlyn has easily defeated the combatants at the ship when Aelindis arrives. As Merlyn raises Excalibur to kill Sir Gerard, a hand grabs their wrist. Merlyn looks up to see Arthur, inexplicably alive. Arthur distracts Merlyn, claiming to love them even now. After all, what happened isn’t Merlyn’s fault – Arthur was manipulating them: “You and I, we play a greater game than these insects could possibly comprehend. Of course, you thought you were pulling the strings the whole time… but I took hold of them long ago, when you weren't paying attention. I've been using you, Merlyn.” Merlyn falls for it, declaring their love whatever Arthur decides to do to them.
They link arms. As the Lady Esus rises up into the air, Arthur summons some energy from somewhere and he and Merlyn rise up into the air to stand on the rim of the ship. Before the ship can pass through the rift in the sky, however, Arthur pushes Merlyn off the side, sneering – Merlyn was never good enough for him. Arthur dives over the edge, following Merlyn’s descent. Merlyn, screaming, hits the ground with a cracking of bones. Arthur changes in mid-air – the chain mail morphs into the green dress Gerard once gave his servant, and Aelindis, smiling, bids farewell to her lord as the energies consume her and she disperses into stories.
Aelindis’s friends fight the weakened Merlyn, using the stories Aelindis stole from them to taunt them into making mistakes. Eventually, with everyone working together, Merlyn is killed.
The stories persist. Aelindis’s legacy is never untangled from Merlyn’s. She is remembered as the demiurge of deception, trickery and mass-murder, Aelindis Kingslayer, a name that becomes synonymous with True Evil.
Various of Aelindis's alter egos: - Sister Idah of Hameln - Marie de la Font Shish - Alison the Fried Sham - Forest Maiden Shalih
- The bit where she decided to leave Gerard's employ… “If she'd hail no master” - The bit where she accidentally cloned herself… “Another selfish maid” - The bit where she started slapping Spanish nobles with haddock… “A fish harms elite Don” - The bit where she stabbed that cat… “Oh, this feline's drama!” - The bit where her clone became the Erlking… “Almost fae, her sin hid” - The bit where she skinned the Wants A Suture King… “Dim Artie has no flesh”