The sliph cringed at the information, as if the words whipped her with barbed lashes. The quicksilver face stretched, melted, twisted, and then her mouth widened in a distorted and horrific snarl. “You are lying!”
Nicci stood before the well, adamant. “You know I’m not. You hear the truth in my words. You gave up your life for nothing all those years ago.”
The metallic fluid brightened as if it had become white-hot, and the amorphous molten shape changed as the beautiful woman transformed into a ferocious demon. Her body enlarged and her two arms elongated, stretching into tentacles that struck down with hooked claws. Nicci dove to the flagstones and rolled, dodging the blow, but the sliph shifted her entire form, forsaking her human figure. Four more quicksilver tentacles boiled out of her torso.
“Yes, come travel with me and never return!” The hooked tentacles lashed at Nicci. “I will drag you down and keep you within me forever. I’ll drown you and crush your lungs so that you will be as dead as my master Sulachan.”
A silvery arm wrapped around Nicci like a twisted iron bar, but she summoned her gift to flood the silver form with heat until it ran like hot liquid. She broke free of the appendage and ducked under it, pulling herself away. Her black dress was smoking, and the skin on her arms reddened with burns.
Nicci backed away, giving herself just enough time to create wizard’s fire. She threw the blazing sphere at the sliph, but curtains of silver folded around the fire and swallowed the destructive flame. The metal body bubbled and twisted, but somehow absorbed the energy.
Nicci retreated from the sliph well until she reached the wall of the empty temple. The silver tentacles stretched toward her, as flexible as hot wax and as hard as steel. The tentacles slammed down, trying to crush Nicci, but she dodged again. The blow shattered the stones on the temple floor, and the backlash from another appendage struck a figurine of the Sea Mother inside the temple, smashing it into splinters of stone.
The tentacles grew spines as they whipped past Nicci. She called sharp bolts of lightning and blasted the sliph, searing jagged holes through the quicksilver, which shifted and sealed again. A tentacle wrapped around Nicci’s arm and squeezed tighter than a manacle, while another surrounded her waist, winding so tight that she couldn’t breathe. The mass of appendages pulled her back toward the well. “I will drag you down, and you will never breathe again!”
As Nicci fought, the malleable sliph could reshape herself and recover from any damage. She had already used so much of her gift battling Ava and Ruva, and before that the zhiss cloud had weakened her. Nicci was spent, but she had to find strength or she would die. She realized she had only enough power left for a single strike, but she didn’t dare waste her last chance on another failure.
As the tentacles dragged her closer to the well opening, Nicci found a different target and decided to gamble, hoping it would be her best chance to free herself from this monster. She used the destructive energy to make the ground shake and shift, then unleashed a final heavy blast of lightning—but not at the sliph. Instead, she struck the circular stone wall around the well, blocking off the deep hole. The explosion came from several different directions, and the stone blocks tumbled in. The barrier collapsed, and the well opening fell in on itself.
The sliph shrieked as the walls crashed down like an avalanche. The fallen blocks severed the quicksilver tentacles, lopping off three of them, and the metal appendages dropped loose onto the cracked temple floor. Wailing, the main body of the sliph retreated by plunging down into the endless tunnels. More blocks fell in and closed over the top of the well. Breathing heavily, Nicci crawled forward and fused the edges to hold the stones in place.
She dropped to her knees, but she wasn’t done yet. She raised her hand and used her gift to reshape the unstable stone blocks, softening and smoothing them so they formed an impenetrable lid to seal the sliph well forever.
She slumped in utter exhaustion while her thoughts swam.
Something cold and metallic seized her leg like the grasping hand of a dying man. She kicked out to break free. The three severed tentacles flopped about like headless snakes. They were discolored now, no longer bright silver, but tarnished. The twitching slowed, and the writhing tentacles finally fell motionless, no longer metal, but an oily black mucus that oozed between the cracks in the flagstones.
Nicci climbed to her feet again and heaved deep breaths. The pale yellow light of daybreak filtered through the temple of the Sea Mother. She had gotten back to Serrimundi, as she wanted, although she had left Mrra and the Hidden People behind. And now she couldn’t ever get back to Orogang in time to help them. The sliph well was completely sealed, and she knew she would never travel in that manner again. She could not say whether the sliph herself was dead.
Nicci was stranded in Serrimundi. But there was another war to prepare for.
She heard quiet weeping and gasps of misery behind her, and she turned, ready for another battle. Her black travel dress was tattered, her blond hair a tangled, sweaty mess, but she was Nicci, Death’s Mistress, and she could defeat anyone else who threatened her.
Five terrified supplicants stood just outside the temple. They had come at dawn carrying baskets of fruit and fish as offerings, which they had dropped as they watched Nicci battle the frightening silver apparition. Now the supplicants stared at the shattered statue, the collapsed well.
“The Sea Mother,” one of them sobbed. “You killed the Sea Mother!”
“Your Sea Mother was not what you believed her to be.” Nicci hardened her voice and strode to the entryway. “Now, take me to the harborlord.”
CHAPTER 41
The Cliffwall scholars worked all day, every day, poring over the wealth of documents. The kitchens served the scholars their meals at the library tables so as not to interrupt their frantic searches. With the army of General Utros marching relentlessly over the mountains, they had little time.
Cliffwall banked everything on the hope that the archive would remain hidden, since no one in the ancient military force knew it was there. But with a threat to the entire Old World, Nathan didn’t just want to hide. Somewhere in this vast treasure trove of magical lore they would find something to stop General Utros from conquering the cities and lands of the Old World.
Nathan and Verna moved through the corridors that honeycombed the mesa to a cavernous document storeroom. The rock-walled chamber had high shelves filled with books, some piled haphazardly, others neatly arranged. He smelled the dust, the paper, the leather. Inside the chamber, he could hear workers sorting, shelving, discussing what they found.
Stepping inside the door, he ran his fingers along the spines on the first shelf. His nails made a clicking sound from cover to cover to cover. “The sheer number of volumes is exhilarating, my dear prelate.” He gave her a wry smile. “Perhaps if I were imprisoned here for a thousand years, I might be able to grasp it all.”
“One man for a thousand years,” Verna said, “or thousands of scholars working together. We can put in the same number of hours in far less time. But if each person’s knowledge is separate and incomplete, how will we know which pieces to put together?”
He stroked his chin. “Dear spirits, so much to organize. We know how powerful the right spell could be—and how dangerous.”
“We don’t have the luxury of being cautious,” Verna said. “If we find something that might work, we have to hope we can control it. I’m confident in my abilities, and you never had any doubts either.” She looked intently at Nathan. “In fact, the Sisters of the Light were terrified of you.”
“Terrified? Prelate Ann was never fooled. She would come and keep me company even when I raged with my visions of prophecy. Ah, I miss her.”
Just inside the doorway of the document-storage chamber, a heavyset man with a fringe of hair hunched over an open volume on a tiny table. As the scholars came to him with books, he transcribed the titles in his ledger. His quill swirled like a bumblebee as he scribbled the letters, dip
ping like a stinger into the inkpot and writing another line without ever mistakenly letting a drip of black fall onto the page.
Young men and women scurried from shelf to shelf, arms laden with volumes, moving with a hush that seemed natural inside such a sacred library. The room was lit only by an illumination spell, since candles or torches might ignite all the paper tomes and scrolls.
One spindly man carried a load of books stacked up to his nose, while his fellow scholars removed volumes from his pile and arranged them on shelves. A flustered, mousy woman pushed a cart past them with volumes that belonged in a different storeroom.
Scholar-Archivist Franklin guided a team of novices along with Sisters Rhoda and Arabella. Franklin’s robes were rumpled, and his eyes were bloodshot and shadowed. When he saw Nathan and Verna, he flashed a relieved smile. “I’m glad to report significant progress. We have brought the books containing powerful spells here to this chamber.” He sighed and gestured to the creaking shelves. “This is where you start, your best bet. Once you’ve finished reading all of these, we will bring more.”
“We will get right to it,” Nathan said.
“I hear you’ve already found the Weeping Stone spell that melted the prophecy archives,” Verna said. “The one your student couldn’t control.”
“Elbert was a fool to attempt it,” Franklin said. “Not power-mad or ambitious, but untrained and not inclined to consider consequences.”
“Too foolish even to know how great a fool he was,” Nathan said, clucking his tongue. “That is the most dangerous kind.”
The prelate was more intrigued than frightened. “We should make note of such a powerful spell. It must be based on braided magic tied to the fundamental structure of stone. It could allow us to melt a mountainside.”
“Melt a mountainside? Against General Utros?” Nathan felt uneasy. “And what if you can’t stop the spell once it gets started?”
Verna pulled a faded gray book off a shelf and looked at it, but she was distracted. “It is still worth considering, if we should need it.”
Franklin showed them an ornate urn of glazed blue porcelain sitting on a shelf. “We found this in Elbert’s quarters after he accidentally melted the prophecy archive. I decided to keep it next to the documentation of the Weeping Stone spell.” He removed the lid of the urn, and Nathan and Verna peered closer. “This was a necessary component of the spell-form.”
Nathan saw fine grains at the bottom of the urn, white sand with an unusual prismatic shimmer. “Dear spirits, that’s sorcerer’s sand!”
Verna nodded. “I can see why that would be a key to triggering a great spell.” She looked worriedly at Nathan. “If Elbert used half an urn of sand without knowing what he was doing, no wonder the walls collapsed! So much power! We’re lucky he didn’t destroy the whole archive.”
“So this isn’t just plain sand?” the scholar-archivist asked. “We were going to dump it out as we cleaned up the clutter.”
Nathan gasped. “Oh no, don’t do that!”
Verna relieved Franklin of his burden, protectively holding the urn. “We’ll keep this ourselves. Sorcerer’s sand is powerful and rare, but even a few grains can act as a catalyst for releasing enormous magic.” She secured the porcelain lid in place. “This is very important.”
Two scholars shelving books on the far side of the chamber cried out in surprise. Nathan heard the muffled clatter of volumes tumbling to the floor in an avalanche. A young man bolted around the end of the shelves. “A spirit! A spirit in the archives!”
Hearing more shouts, Nathan and Verna ran toward the last row of stacks, where another cascade of disturbed books thumped to the floor, pages strewn everywhere. The wooden shelves rattled. A second scholar tripped on the hem of her robe and sprawled, knocking an armful of scrolls onto the floor.
A shapely but insubstantial female figure flitted toward them in a shimmer of green glow. She was hairless and painted with symbols, but she seemed only partially there, a whisper of a human being.
Nathan’s boots slid on the smooth stone floor as he skittered to a stop. “You’re one of the general’s sorceresses!”
Her image wavered, and her face shifted from beauty to hardened vengeance. Her flickering form became razor sharp. “Such a lovely archive. Such interesting information.”
“Begone from this place!” Verna shouted, calling power into her voice. The other Sisters of the Light joined her, staring at the image.
The spectral image just laughed. “I found you! Now I know where you hide.” Her voice had the hollow coldness of a winter wind.
“Which one are you?” Nathan demanded, stepping forward to face the green-tinged spirit. “Which sorceress? Ava or Ruva?”
“I am the dead one. I am Ava.” She flitted to the ceiling before she swooped down, unbound by gravity or any physical form. “Nicci killed me, but I am still here. I will help destroy you all!”
As the glowing figure lunged toward them, Nathan lashed out with his gift to defend them, though part of his mind rejoiced in the knowledge that Nicci was still alive and had fought the sorceress. As the spirit came closer, he called a wind that blasted directly through the insubstantial form and succeeded only in rustling the piled books on the shelves behind her.
“I am here, but not here!” Laughing, Ava swooped through the bookcases, but made herself substantial enough to knock volumes loose and send them flying. Nathan and Verna ducked as Ava pelted them with a hailstorm of tomes. One sharp-edged book struck Franklin in the forehead, and he collided with the shelves beside him.
Ava taunted as she rose up, her green shimmer flaring brighter. “I will tell General Utros about this magical archive and guide the entire army here. My sister will help him ransack it and seize all the knowledge.” She seemed amused. “You are all doomed.”
Alarmed, Verna called up a shield. “Block her, Nathan! We can trap her, bottle her up.” Sisters Rhoda and Arabella also called on their gift and joined the effort. “We don’t dare let her escape now that she knows where Cliffwall is.”
Nathan helped weave an invisible wall of magic, but Ava’s spirit was too swift and insubstantial. She slipped through them, darting along the lines of shelves as more young scholars scattered in panic.
Sitting at his little table, the portly recorder lurched out of his unsteady seat as the spirit blasted past. His inkpot spilled all over his ledger, and a fountain of black liquid sprayed in the air as Ava swooped by. She careened through the archive shelves like a phantasmal battering ram, knocking the books into disarray. The wooden shelves creaked and bent, on the verge of collapse.
Ava’s spirit reached the stone wall and vanished directly through the rock, leaving only the chaos of settling papers and slumping books in her wake.
Franklin groaned in dismay as he looked at the storm of disrupted volumes. Books lay scattered with broken spines. Many pages had torn, the covers sheared off.
Nathan looked at Verna in deep concern. “We can’t remain hidden anymore. General Utros knows where we are.”
* * *
In camp after another day of marching through the foothills, the general stared at his campfire, trying to read messages in the flames. He felt the sadness of all he had lost, the loyalty to his emperor, the illicit love of an empress, and the fresh grief of Ava’s death. Utros shouldered the responsibility for those many thousands of loyal soldiers who had died in his service. Was conquering even a continent enough?
Ruva squatted by the fire, hardened and disturbed by the loss of her twin. When Ava’s spirit had manifested itself, Ruva’s broken heart had twisted with an even more intense determination, and now the painted sorceress stared into the flames at the general’s side, both lost in their own thoughts.
The flames flared, and Ava’s insubstantial figure rose from the fire, perfectly formed as in life, identical to her sister except for the mirror-image scars on their outer legs. Ruva gasped and opened her arms in an embrace. Ava drifted close and matched Ruva’s position,
overlapping as if the two of them were fusing their auras into one united being.
General Utros faced the oddly doubled figure, awaiting the report of his spectral spy. Seeing the incorporeal image, First Commander Enoch also hurried over from his nearby tent.
When Ava spoke, Ruva’s mouth moved in tandem. Their words overlapped with an eerie resonance. “Beloved Utros, I have vital information. I searched the land, I followed connections, and I found the wizard Nathan Rahl and his infuriating companions.”
Her expression brightened with hungry anticipation. “They have a hidden archive of powerful lore within a few days’ march. The countless books are filled with incredible magic, devastating spells that Ruva could use to help you subdue the land. If you conquer Cliffwall, General, we could take all that information for ourselves.” Her shimmering face smiled. “It would guarantee your victory over the land.”
This was something Utros had never considered. An arsenal of forgotten magical lore? “Can you tell us where to find this archive?”
“Yes, beloved Utros,” the two women said in harmony. “It is hidden in a side canyon, and they have almost no defenses. They rely on camouflage to protect themselves. We would easily take the archive.”
Utros smiled. Even here at night, he kept the gold mask in place as part of who he was. He looked up at Enoch. “Cliffwall is our new target, First Commander.” He stared around at all the bright campfires like winking eyes spread across the hills where his army had camped. “Once we overwhelm the archive, we will strip it clean.”
CHAPTER 42
The sea was wide open around the Norukai ships as they lost sight of shore. Bannon took no joy in the expansive sight, even though it reminded him of how he and Ian had once stood on the beach at Chiriya Island, watching the ships sail by. The two had dreamed of seeing the world, though Bannon mostly just wanted to escape his father.
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