by A. C. Cobble
After a quarter hour of walking, they heard the murmur of quiet conversation and entered a room better lit and more populated than any they’d seen so far. There were tiers of benches rising around a circular, marble floor. The floor was inset with intricate patterns in gold, and a short wall around the open space was covered in similar designs.
Oliver had seen enough to know that the designs were sorcerous in nature. He glanced at Sam and saw her lips were pressed tightly together and her nostrils were flaring with excited breaths. He raised an eyebrow at her in question, but she shook her head, glancing at the robed figures in the room.
There were dozens of them, dressed much like the servants except around their necks they wore silver pendants. Where their flesh was visible, Oliver saw the dark ink of tattoos. The bald man led them to a bench, and they sat. They drew several curious glances from the crowd, but no one spoke to them.
Oliver studied the group as they waited, suppressing a wave of panic as he considered that each person in the room was likely a powerful sorcerer.
In front of them, a woman turned to glare at Sam. “I sense the spirit on you.”
Sam blinked back at the woman.
The woman growled, “Do not interfere with the challenge.”
“She will not need to,” said their guide.
The woman snorted. “We shall see. Rijohn is impetuous, but he has reason to be. He is strong and he has the blessings of many spirits. Lilibet claims none. She glides through our halls propelled by nothing more than rumor. Rumors started by you, Absenus, if I had to guess. She is hesitant, afraid to show her power, which is all I need to determine she does not possess what you think.” The woman glanced back at Sam. “I can sense the spirit’s presence on you but not its blessing. You are weak. Do not seek to thwart the contest, or I will slay you.”
Oliver swallowed, and Sam shifted uncomfortably on the marble bench.
The woman turned back to observe the open space in front of them.
Absenus seemed unconcerned.
In time, the room hushed, and from one side, a man emerged. He was shirtless, displaying bands of tattoos like lines of script on a page encircling his torso and his arms in distinct lines. It evoked the markings of one of Archtan Atoll’s tigers, and the man moved with the same lethal grace. Oliver didn’t need Absenus’ explanation to guess this was Rijohn, the dragon rider who had faced them.
The man walked confidently onto the circular floor of the room, and the air grew noticeably colder. In that room, with no distractions, even Oliver could feel the underworld clinging to the dragon rider. Rijohn wore the taint like a cloak.
As if he was a prize-fighter at the pits, Rijohn began to circle, nodding greetings to those who must have been supporters, glaring at those who Oliver guessed were not. When the preening man reached the side of the room where Oliver and Sam sat, he stopped. He smiled, and Oliver grimaced. The man’s teeth had been filed into sharp points.
“Imagine accidentally biting your tongue with one of those,” Sam whispered under her breath.
Despite the ominous scene, Oliver found himself grinning at her jest.
In a loud voice that echoed off the marble in the room, Rijohn declared, “Foreigner, after I have slain your mother, I will challenge you. And then you,” he said, looking at Sam. “You and Lilibet have been foolish in your selection of a patron. What was once the great spirit no longer is. For decades, it has been diminished, pathetic, and weak. Tonight, I will slay the last of its adherents, and then I will bind it. Tonight will mark the ascendency of a new order, the casting down of the great spirit Ca-Mi-He, like the dark trinity twenty years ago.”
Rijohn held up a fist as if he would grab the great spirit and throttle it before them.
Oliver glanced at Sam and saw her sitting tight-lipped and silent. The taint of Ca-Mi-He on her, on his mother? The dragon rider Rijohn clearly sensed something, something that Sam had been reluctant to tell. Lilibet had claimed she and Sam were connected, but what did that mean? She kept staring straight ahead at Rijohn, ignoring Oliver’s look. Soon he would ask her, but not now. Not there.
“You as well, Absenus,” crowed Rijohn, taunting the bald man. “After these two, I will challenge you. The mother, the son, the priestess, the acolyte. The blood of the four will stain this floor. I will draw a pattern in it tonight, call upon the—”
“If you wanted to fight,” snapped Oliver, a sudden rage coming over him, “why did you run away the first time I saw you? You could have saved us all the time and stayed so I could kill you then like we killed the others. Please, spare us the babbling exhortations of a proven craven.”
Rijohn staggered back as if he’d been slapped.
Sam, rubbing her lips with her hand, whispered, “I’m not sure that was wise.”
The sorcerer Rijohn, shaking his head like he was physically brushing off the shock of Oliver’s comments, let his hands curl into claws. The room watched quietly, evidently everyone having comprehended enough of what Oliver said to understand the sorcerer’s reaction.
Beside them, Absenus tensed, but he did not move to intervene. In the center of the floor, white mist began to curl around Rijohn’s fingers. They elongated, darkening, into jagged claws. The man’s gaze locked onto Oliver, staring murder.
“This isn’t good,” hissed Sam, a hand dropping to grip the hilt of a kris dagger. “You shouldn’t have said that, Duke. You shouldn’t have said it.”
“Are you retiring from our contest?” asked a sharp voice, drawing everyone’s attention to the opposite side of the room. “Do you already concede and are prepared to grovel for my mercy?”
“No,” growled Rijohn. “Your son chirps like a beetle. He is just as loud, just as easy to crush.”
“You need not worry about that for much longer,” declared Lilibet coldly. “Take your position and let us finish this, unless you are too frightened.”
The dragon rider, bristling at Lilibet’s imperious tone, stalked to a distinct point in the pattern on the floor. Oliver could tell the man was searching for a pithy quip to throw back in Lilibet’s face, but he couldn’t come up with one. He’d issued the challenge, and anything he said may appear an attempt to delay it. It did not take much exposure to Rijohn to see he was a man who could not stand appearing weak.
Lilibet took a position on a similar point to the one Rijohn occupied and waited.
Enhover’s pit fights involved a great deal of posturing, and Oliver suspected any organized fight did, but once the bell rang, it was time to begin. Lilibet, evidently, had already rung the bell. Dressed as she’d been when he first saw her, she held no weapon and waited calmly.
Rijohn stretched, corded, ink-covered muscles taut in the lamplight. He collected a black spear from an ally in the crowd and twirled it, displaying a time-earned confidence with the weapon, and then he crouched into a fighting stance, the point of the spear aimed menacingly at Lilibet. With no referee and no indication something should begin, Oliver was shocked when Rijohn sprang into motion.
He raced across the circular floor, the spear leading the way. Around him, a wave of spectral shadows flowed into view. Like a quickly moving wave, they spread and grew then shot in front of Rijohn, streaking toward Lilibet. The lights in the room darkened. The temperature dropped, and in the space of a heartbeat, the shades manifested physically.
They formed into a pair of creatures that ran like dogs but looked like no natural beast Oliver had ever seen. Powerful fore and rear legs propelled slender bodies. As they ran, in the blink of an eye, they seemed to thicken, to grow. The heads, thin and beaked like a bird, extended forward, the mouths opening, revealing rows of small teeth that gleamed. Black fur, maybe feathers, reflected the light, and that was all Oliver could see in the seconds before Lilibet calmly stepped forward.
The creatures flashed by her, muscular legs churning, clawed paws clutching, jaws snapping where she’d been the moment before. Teeth and claw both missed, and the pair of creatures skidded by, st
ruggling to arrest their momentum on the marble floor.
Rijohn came behind them, stabbing with his spear directly at Lilibet’s body. Oliver stood, crying out, but Lilibet looked as impassive as she always did.
With one gauntleted hand, she brushed the tip of the spear aside. Her other hand slapped against Rijohn’s chest, stopping him as if he’d run straight into a stone wall. Faster than Oliver could follow, Lilibet drew back and punched the man in the face. A single blow, delivered with aplomb, and Rijohn fell back, his shirtless body crumpling onto the stone floor.
His head lolled to the side, and Oliver gasped. The man’s face was now a mess of bloody meat, shattered bone, and leaking fluids. His skull had been crushed by a single blow. Rijohn was dead.
“Hells.” Sam gasped. “Did you see that?”
Lilibet Wellesley, shaking blood from her gauntlet, glanced at Oliver and Sam. Without word, she turned and walked out of the room.
“I’m told your captain has made good progress but needs a few more turns to finish provisioning the two airships,” said Absenus. “You are welcome to leave as soon as she is ready, but your rooms are still available should you care to spend the night here.”
The Priestess X
Duke was slumped on one of the comfortable couches that apparently served as the only beds in the floating city. He was still dressed, his broadsword lying across his lap. He’d been asleep for half an hour, long enough that his breathing was deep and even. Sam had seen the man sleep enough by now that she knew his habits, and she thought there was little chance he would awaken soon.
Walking on bare feet, she moved to the open hallway that led from their room. There were no doors in the floating city, and as quiet as the place was, they seemed unnecessary. She hesitated then set her boots down on the floor and continued barefoot, the stone cold under her feet.
It wasn’t lost on her that it was the second time she’d set out while Duke was sleeping. The first time, she’d meant to kill the old man they’d met in the wilds of the Coldlands. This time, it was to kill Duke’s mother.
Lilibet Wellesley, once the Queen of Enhover, was something entirely different now. She was both more and less. She wasn’t the woman who had raised the young peer. She wasn’t the woman King Edward had known, though Sam wondered how much the old man suspected. Had he understood that if Lilibet survived Northundon, it was because she was far along the dark path? Had he known even twenty years ago what she’d done, where she’d gone?
Sam pondered the question as she skulked through the halls of the palace atop the floating city. Hours after the sun fell, there was no one about, but flickering flames in the lamps hanging in the corridor lit her way. There were no guards that she’d spotted during the day and evidently none at night. She was hoping that Lilibet’s bedchamber would be near the room the woman had received them in earlier that day. If it was, gaining entry and finding her should pose little difficulty. There were no doors to lock, after all.
King Edward had charged Sam with protecting his son. Would killing Lilibet fall under that command? Sam didn’t think the king would shed a tear at news of his wife’s death. Lilibet had been gone for twenty years, pursing her own interests and turning her back on the Crown. No, King Edward would not forgive that. The only mourning he would do at her loss had finished two decades prior.
Approaching the halls outside of Lilibet’s rooms, Sam checked her daggers. The sinuous blades of her krises had been sharpened and polished before they’d disembarked the airship. The two katars she’d pressed into Duke’s hands before they’d left for Imbon were hanging from her shoulders. Ca-Mi-He’s dagger was hidden in the small of her back. Lilibet had already proven that weapon could not harm her, but King Edward’s words were like a spirit lurking in the depths of Sam’s mind. He’d insisted the katars might be needed on the journey to Imbon, that Sam’s own weapons were insufficient. What had the infuriating man known?
Sam’s fingers touched the handles of the katars, and quietly, she drew them. She had no idea if King Edward had been referring to this moment when he’d given her the blades, but it never hurt to be cautious, and they couldn’t do any worse than Ca-Mi-He’s tainted blade.
Lilibet Wellesley was blessed directly by the great spirit. Not a binding, not a taint, but a touch. A true blessing. Sam had suddenly understood it during the challenge. The words the woman said in front of them, the connection she implied between Sam and Lilibet, it was Ca-Mi-He. In Northundon, Lilibet must have gained the favor of the great spirit, and that was why the dagger had not wounded her.
At least, that’s what Sam hoped. If it turned out the katars could also not injure the woman, then Sam was about to be in a great deal of trouble. It was a risk, but she had to take it. The awful power, a direct connection to Ca-Mi-He, it could not be allowed to exist. Sam’s mission, everything she claimed to stand for, was empty words if she left the Darklands while Lilibet still breathed.
Ducking quietly into the room, she saw the shutters were thrown wide, and the lights of the floating city reflected on the unceasing mist that encompassed it with a ghastly glow. The room itself was dark. No lamps were lit inside.
Breathing a slow sigh of relief, Sam stalked across the naked stone floor on bare feet. She was counting on Lilibet being asleep. If the woman had been awake, Sam would have returned to her room. She’d seen what Lilibet was capable of, and regardless of the weapons Sam had available, attacking the woman straight on would be futile. Even with the designs Kalbeth had restored on her skin, Sam was self-aware enough to realize that she could not face Lilibet. The reason it was necessary for the woman to die was the same reason it would be impossible to confront her directly. No, slaying her in her sleep was the only option.
Not that killing the sleeping woman would be easy. They would have to flee immediately, and Sam thought it possible they’d have dragons in their wake when they did. She had to do it, though. She had to kill this woman who commanded power that Sam struggled to understand, at the end of a path that Sam shuddered to think maybe she did understand.
The sorcery of the Darklands was not the simple grasping for more power as they’d seen in Enhover. The Darklands sorcerers enjoyed power, to be sure, but their power was merely a means to an end. They had something grander in mind.
Silent as a breeze over stone, Sam crept through the halls and rooms of Lilibet’s private quarters. There was sitting room, a room for ablutions, a dining room, and a bedchamber. All were dark. All were quiet. She found the woman’s armor, hung on a dressing rack. A neat hole from where Ca-Mi-He’s dagger had punched through it was still there, but there wasn’t a scratch on it from the woman’s battle with Rijohn.
Sam found texts and artifacts, which at any other time, she would have stolen, but she did not find the Lilibet. She returned to the sitting room, adjacent to the patio Lilibet had received them on, and looked around. Lilibet wasn’t there.
Sam moved back toward the open doorway, intending to slip away, but she heard voices approaching. She crouched behind a couch and shifted her grip on the two katars, holding the punch daggers up near her chest. There was only one hallway out, and she was stuck.
As the voices neared the room, Sam identified Lilibet and the seneschal, Absenus. They were at the doorway, blocking the only way in and out of the suite of rooms. If Sam sprang from hiding now, there would be no chance of attacking unseen. If she attacked the two of them, after what she’d seen Lilibet do to Rijohn, Sam knew she’d be throwing her life away. She prided herself on her skills, but she wasn’t blinded by that pride. Lilibet, with whatever sorcerous enhancements she had, was a far superior fighter than Sam.
She would wait in hiding, hoping the other woman would retire to bed, and then she’d have an opportunity. And if not, perhaps there would be a better chance to get away unnoticed. Either way, attacking now was certain death.
“Leave me,” said Lilibet, her voice crisp in the quiet room.
Sam listened and thought she heard the man ret
reat into the hall, but he moved as silently as a shade. She waited, sweat on her palms against the handles of the katars. She heard rustling, liquid pouring, and then the creak of furniture as she imagined Lilibet sitting down.
“Few in the Darklands drink alcohol,” said Lilibet suddenly. “Syrup of the poppy or the smoke of more esoteric herbs are the vices of choice in this region. I find those make this body lethargic, so I keep to wine and the occasional gin. Unfortunately, I find myself drinking alone more often than not. Do you care to join me?”
Sam cursed and stood.
“The presence of Ca-Mi-He clings to you like a banner,” remarked Lilibet. She sipped a glass of wine. She nodded toward a cart in the corner where another one sat, already poured. “You should know there are few sorcerers in the Darklands who would not immediately sense you lurking inside of a room. I could feel you the moment you entered the boundary of the storm wall, and I could name every room and every path that you’ve walked while in our city. If you mean to sneak about this place, you should take pains to hide the connection.”
Sam shifted nervously.
“Go on. Take the drink,” instructed Lilibet, “and then, tell me of Oliver.”
Sheathing the katars, Sam walked hesitantly toward the wine glass.
“You meant to catch me sleeping,” said Lilibet, her gaze following Sam’s hesitant movements. “Is your plan now to move so slowly that I doze off? Come on, girl. There are only so many turns of the clock before dawn. By then, I suspect Oliver and his captain will be eager to return home.”
“He came here to find you,” said Sam, picking up the glass of wine.
“Not to chase the rebels and the stolen airship?” questioned Lilibet.
“He wanted to come here before that happened, as soon as we guessed that you’d survived Northundon,” replied Sam. “We suspected you might have come here. He had to know. He was desperate to search for you.”
