Lord of Secrets

by Breanna Teintze

  ‘Of course it isn’t right,’ Acarius snapped. ‘It’s missing an eye. Like I keep telling you, the doll is only good for putting souls in vials, phylacteries, containers. It acts as a temporary body, keeps the consciousness alive until it’s transferred, and you need the whole doll for that. This won’t help you raise an army.’

  Raise an army. It made sense – this building had been a Daine outpost as well as a temple, and the scene of a battle. The fields around it were probably full of bones. Which meant that Jaern would have ample material to work with. The hair on my neck rose.

  Keir put the points of the shears to the notch where my ribs came together. My bare skin rippled goosebumps out from the cold metal. ‘Tell me now, Acarius. I won’t wait longer.’

  In a sense, it was fascinating being so close to such ruthlessness. With Jaern you could at least be fairly certain he was mad, and suffering. Keir was neither. He maimed and killed not for pleasure or revenge, but just because it was convenient.

  ‘You fool!’ Acarius was right at the edge of his prison. ‘He’ll die, just like the others, and you won’t know anything! Let him go and I’ll explain . . .’ He hesitated, then closed his eyes. ‘I’ll explain how to catch a soul, when the subject is already dying. You can do that without the doll, just with the rennen and the appropriate spells. Please. See sense.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Keir muttered. ‘You’re still lying. I have your diaries. I know this doll has something to do with controlling the dead. If I have to kill him to make you raise him—’ He took a step away from me, rearranging the gems in their sockets while still holding the shears, glancing upwards every few minutes to see if his followers had managed to re-hang his stupid tapestries yet. There was a set of scaffolding against one of the walls that they had had to climb. Most of them had finished and were now descending.

  ‘It won’t work to move his soul, won’t work to raise the dead, no matter how you arrange the gems.’ An increasing note of panic was creeping into Acarius’ voice. ‘It’s not complete. Why won’t you listen to me?’

  ‘Tell me,’ Keir said, ‘or I’ll just kill him now, and I’ll do it slowly.’

  The old man stared at me, then spoke, slowly. ‘The obsidian are the eyes. Ruby is the heart. Emerald is the liver; the sapphire and diamond are the lungs. You have to scribe corresponding runes on the subject’s body. Cricket, forgive me.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ I cradled the elbow of my wounded arm in my good hand, which eased the pull on my shoulder a little. I had to think.

  ‘Of course . . . of course! That would halt necrosis in each body system, wouldn’t it?’ Keir moved back to the altar, put the shears down and picked up his brush and paint. He came to squat in front of me and put the doll on the floor between his feet. Looking down after each character to confirm his pattern, he scribed a rune on my torso over each of my major organs. ‘And the tapestries? When do we use them?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Acarius said. ‘I told you to hang them two months ago just to take up time, so you would stop hurting me. The tapestries don’t do anything.’

  You’d think being so close to dying would make it less satisfying to be right, but it didn’t. I grinned.

  The veins on Keir’s neck stood out. ‘Anything else you want to revise before I cut his chest open?’

  ‘Just do as I tell you,’ Acarius said. I didn’t think he was talking to Keir. ‘Remember, paralysis is useful.’

  Keir fetched the shears and the roll of tools. He opened the roll, revealing a selection of curved forceps and slender knives.

  Acarius wants you to do something. Think.

  The doll was still on the floor near me. I could grab it, but I wasn’t sure what good that would do. Hitting someone with a heavy weight wouldn’t be all that easy, considering I had to fight from my knees.

  Keir incanted under his breath. The runes he had scribed on the floor lit with a strange blue-black light, moving forwards from the altar. The hair on my arms rose in response to the sound they made, too low in pitch for me to experience as anything more than a steady hum of unease. Listening to it made me want to writhe, and not just because it hurt my ears.

  The spell crawled along the line of runes towards the spiral where I kneeled. I watched it, and tasted bile in my mouth.

  ‘Gwillam,’ Keir said. ‘Keep him still, and then fetch me one of the djinn flasks. I don’t want to get sick in the middle of this.’

  Do something.

  I tensed. It would have to be quick.

  Gwillam had just now wandered back over from the scaffolding. His nose wrinkled with dread and disgust, a man who would have made a perfectly competent village sorcerer pressed into awkward service moving souls.

  The spiral beneath me lit, the hideous sound working its way up through my bones, pounding behind my eyes with splendid, multifaceted pain.

  ‘Don’t, don’t . . .’ I dropped my elbow, hunching forwards, clutching at my ear. ‘How can you stand it? How can you think with that noise?’

  He stared at me, hesitant, and for a moment I couldn’t make sense of it. The confusion on his face was too genuine.

  He can’t hear it.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said.

  ‘I have to,’ Gwillam said.

  I wasn’t talking to him, but I couldn’t make my voice obey me, couldn’t think of anything except blotting out the sound. I tried to master myself enough to get my hand down. I would need it.

  Come on, Gray.

  Gwillam took brush and paint from the pocket of his robe and began scribing a paralysis spell on his arm.

  Come on.

  The hum had filled all of me, obscuring every other physical sensation, threatening to wipe out thought. Even the pain changed, sharpened, condensed to one glittering point in the middle of my skull.

  ‘Be very precise with the incantation,’ Acarius said. ‘We don’t want him awake during this.’

  Get your mouth open, dammit, now!

  Gwillam finished the final brushstroke, and I pronounced the paralysis spell.

  The magic leaped from him towards me, a ball of purple light gathering in my palm. I had exactly one second to decide who I would aim it at.

  ‘What—’ Keir said, as it hit him. The bastard fell sideways, like a tree, surgical tools clattering around him. The line of runes from the altar went dark.

  Gwillam was trying frantically to smear the spell on his arm when I dove for his ankles. He stumbled backwards, kicking. ‘Get away from me!’

  The other Guildies began running for us. Gwillam twisted to his knees, still tangled up with me, pawing for the dagger sheathed at his waist.

  I grabbed for the brush and paint. If I could somehow get them to Acarius inside his circle, we might have a chance.

  ‘Get off!’ Gwillam grasped the knife, but I had the paint and brush. I slid them, skittering across the floor. Acarius squatted and caught them.

  Boom.

  Everyone froze and turned towards the big double doors at the foot of the room, which had just thudded on their hinges.

  Boom.

  The hive of bees came to life in my chest, buzzing in my teeth, filling my skull with stings. They mingled with the low vibrations still rising from the necromantic runes, until there was none of me left.

  I arched backwards, every muscle in spasm. There was no place to hide, nowhere to get away from the noise. I couldn’t breathe, think, move. The world bleached into emptiness.

  ‘Don’t!’ I screamed.

  Hello, love, Jaern said, inside my head.

  Twenty-Five

  Jaern came into his sanctuary flanked by the dead.

  The marulaches seemed to be mostly for dramatic effect, although the noise from outside indicated they were dealing with Keir’s men-at-arms. When a Guildie ran towards him, yelling a hurried fire spell, Jaern merely stuck one arm out and caught him by the throat, cutting off the incantation.

  ‘Stop that,’ Jaern said, mildly.

  Down, he said, in my he
ad.

  I shoved my face against the obsidian. ‘Acarius! Down!’

  The next instant a sheet of green fire pulsed over the room, hissing a mere twelve inches above me.

  Tattletale.

  When I could get my eyes open again, Jaern was wiping his hand on a hank of cloth. He dropped it on top of a heap of rags on the ground, and I recognised it as a piece of the Guildie’s robe.

  My mouth went sour. It wasn’t a heap of rags. It was all that was left of a body. The green fire had cremated the flesh and left the fabric intact.

  Across the room, the Guildies who had thrown themselves to the floor lifted their heads cautiously. Ashes hung in the air, and piles of clothes dotted the edges of the room. About eight of them hadn’t dropped in time.

  ‘Stay down,’ Jaern snapped.

  Nobody screamed. Nobody ran. Even Gwillam, who had been stretched prone just a few feet away from me, had frozen on his hands and knees. His eyes found me, wide with horror. He still had a knife in one hand. More to the point, he still had Brix’s vial somewhere in his pockets.

  ‘Help us,’ he whispered. ‘Help us.’

  I dragged myself back up on to my knees. Maybe I could get Jaern’s attention, give Acarius time to scribe something with the paint I’d thrown him.

  ‘Jaern.’ My voice wasn’t obeying me. I had yelled it into oblivion, apparently; it came out as a rasping croak. ‘Listen.’

  The false god moved with an easy, lazy strut. He seemed to be paying no attention to the wizards around the room, but I was betting he knew exactly how many of them there were and where they crouched. The marulaches remained by the door, a wall of corpses, ready to bash in the brains of anyone foolish enough to try to leave.

  ‘Don’t waste your words.’ Jaern drew closer, sigils burning around his neck and more crawling over his shoulder. ‘Don’t beg for mercy for these cretins. You won’t get it.’ He stood in front of Gwillam, contempt and amusement vying for mastery in his expression. Then he crouched like a cat. ‘Shall we wake the Guildlord? Can you do that, boy? Or do I have to do it for you?’

  Gwillam stared at him. ‘I . . . yes, I . . .’

  Jaern smiled. His long fingers rearranged the collar of Gwillam’s robe, delicately. ‘Say yes, my lord.’

  ‘Y – y – yes—’ Gwillam’s voice rose with terror.

  ‘Say it.’ Jaern’s grin acquired an edge. ‘Say it, rabbit.’

  ‘Jaern!’ Acarius said.

  A shimmer passed over Jaern’s body. For a split second the icy façade cracked, and rage boiled through the fissures. He gritted his teeth. ‘You don’t exist until I say you exist, Acarius.’

  My grandfather stood in the exact centre of his prison circle, brush wet between his fingers. It was simultaneously the safest and the most dangerous place in the room. Jaern couldn’t physically approach him, but Acarius couldn’t run. He was scrawling runes across his arms, legs, up and down his tattered clothes, so many that I couldn’t sort them into individual spells. ‘Your quarrel is with me,’ he said. ‘Why waste time with these others?’

  ‘Quarrel. What a sweet term for it.’ Jaern still hadn’t turned to look at my grandfather, hadn’t released Gwillam from that snake-stare. ‘I’m waiting, rabbit.’

  ‘Why wake Keir up?’ I said.

  That did get Jaern to favour me with a glance. ‘So he can be afraid.’

  ‘Don’t kill this one.’ Maybe I could keep Jaern’s attention on me, preserve Gwillam and the precious vial he carried. ‘You don’t need to.’

  Jaern studied me. ‘Gods, you’re quaint. Still trying to save the world?’

  ‘No, you’re the one who wants the world.’ I swallowed. It was like forcing a ball of sawdust down my throat. ‘I just want this one, not incinerated.’

  Gwillam, the poor fool, chose that moment to try to crawl away. Jaern’s hand closed on his arm. Sigils blazed on the back of Jaern’s wrist and down each finger. The magic coiled around Gwillam’s forearm like a gauntlet, flesh blackening under it. The char raced up his arm and reappeared at his throat, creeping up his face. I kept waiting for the wails to start, unable to look away, but Gwillam never made another sound.

  Jaern watched him slump to the floor. ‘Not incinerated, Cricket. Never say that I don’t give you presents.’

  My eyes stung. ‘Bastard.’

  Jaern wrinkled his nose. ‘Prude.’

  Keir burst into gasping life as the paralysis spell dissolved. He scrambled backwards first, and then to his feet, staring. To his credit, he took in Jaern’s silver hair and elegant malice in only a few seconds. ‘My lord! It’s – I didn’t think—’ He seemed to recover his wits. ‘I am your servant, the one who restored your temple.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Jaern rose gracefully. He glanced around the room, ignoring the death and fear. ‘Tapestries,’ he said, after a moment. ‘My temples never had such things.’ He touched the string of runes on the floor with one toe. ‘And you’ve started a ritual without knowing anything about it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Indeed, Keir looked as though he might be repenting of his entire career.

  ‘You can’t take Gray’s soul out without a death.’ Jaern grasped me by the collar and dragged me back to the spiral, where he planted me firmly. ‘Not his death, you understand. That would defeat the purpose. Someone who doesn’t matter much. A human sacrifice, in fact.’

  ‘I can provide a slave,’ Keir said.

  ‘How clever of you.’ Jaern whistled, and the marulaches by the door shifted.

  Four of the walking dead marched into the room. By craning my neck, I could see they led two living men between them. One was Lorican, pale and bruised but seemingly intact. The other was – or had been – Makesh, the slavelord. The marulaches dragged him, terrified beyond madness, but he didn’t make a sound. He couldn’t, even though he was trying.

  ‘What’s wrong with his mouth?’ Keir blurted, although anyone could see what was wrong with Makesh’s mouth: he didn’t have one. Where there should have been lips and teeth there was only a brown scar.

  ‘He wouldn’t shut up.’ Jaern frowned at the spell on the floor. ‘This is clumsy to the point of incompetence.’ His eyes flicked to me. ‘You didn’t have anything to do with it, I can tell. What, you were going to let him play merry havoc with both of our souls, just to see what would happen?’

  ‘Both?’ Acarius said.

  For the first time the false god looked at my grandfather, and seemed transfixed. I had expected hate, or perhaps gloating. Instead his face twitched with raw, aching grief.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Jaern said. ‘It hasn’t been pleasant for me, to be next to a mind so similar to yours.’

  ‘Pleasant.’ Low fury burned in Acarius’ voice. He stalked slowly to the edge of his prison. ‘You’ve killed what, forty or fifty people, just today? And tormented more? And you intend to hurt my grandson—’

  ‘He’s not your grandson,’ Jaern interrupted. ‘And do you think I’m so blind I don’t know that you’ve been writing while my back was turned? Is that why you were stupid enough to think I wouldn’t feel you taking the eyes out of my mosaic?’

  ‘And are you stupid enough to expect me to feel sorry for you?’

  ‘No,’ Jaern spat. ‘I expect nothing, which is all you ever gave me. I’m taking what I need. I know what makes him special, more than the hundreds of other descendants you probably have by now. Not your grandson, Acarius. Your great-great-and-on-to-ridiculousness-descendant. You didn’t need to love him. But this is the one who looks like you. The one who has your talent. The one who needed you.’ He grinned. ‘So I’m taking him.’

  ‘You can’t have me,’ I said. They both ignored me.

  ‘None of this had to happen.’ Jaern strode to Lorican. He grabbed the Erranter by the hair and yanked him away from the marulaches and around to face Acarius. ‘This?’ He shook Lorican like a terrier with a rat. ‘This was what you did with the knowledge I gave you? You’ve gone out of your way to save the lives of dogs. Y
ou’ve insulted my gift.’

  ‘Let me go!’ Lorican twisted, hands clawing towards Jaern’s face. ‘You bastard!’

  ‘Oh, gods, be quiet.’ Jaern put his free hand over Lorican’s mouth. Runes blazed on the back of it. Lorican’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp, hanging in the air the way I had when Jaern had wrecked my knee. Jaern stepped backwards, his hand stroking the black pendant that glittered against his chest. ‘How shall I kill him, Acarius? Shall I use him to take out Cricket’s soul, or shall I just let him burn?’

  ‘No!’ Acarius lunged to the edge of the circle.

  ‘No,’ Jaern repeated, sneering. ‘I did everything for you, gave you eternal life. You shouldn’t have locked me up, alone, buried alive in the dark. You don’t get to tell me no after that. This is your fault. It’s all going to be your fault.’

  Acarius’ words cracked like a whip, insulting, calculated. ‘You think living this long has been a gift, you blind fool? You’re pathetic.’

  Jaern crossed the floor so quickly he blurred. In one motion he destroyed the edge of the circle, grasped Acarius by the elbow and yanked him out. They stood together for a moment, nose to nose, almost in the attitude of lovers ready to kiss.

  ‘Come and kill me, then,’ Jaern said, and it began.

  Acarius got the first spell off, a stream of fire pouring from the centre of his chest towards Jaern. A patch on his ragged shirt glowed, where the runes he’d scribed were still wet.

  Jaern spun like a dancer, caught the fire in one glittering hand and stretched it like silk between his fingers. In a second he had transformed it into a burning net, which he sent whizzing back towards Acarius.

  My grandfather, whom I had always thought of as less than spry, leaped to avoid the net. He crouched and shot a swarm of glowing purple spiders at Jaern’s feet.

  Jaern laughed. He turned sideways, shocks of green lightning bursting from each palm. The spiders frizzled into nothing, while the lightning skittered across the floor and forced Acarius to leap again.

  The speed picked up. They moved like fencers, chanting without stopping, spell after spell cracking through the air. The room went rank with the noxious fumes of magic and with the fear-soaked sweat of the living, who cowered against the walls.