“If you could search through the parchments at the records office and write down anything you find about the horn, that would help.”
“Where is that?”
“At the palace. There’s a little building just inside the gate to the left of the entrance. I can show you tomorrow.”
Mawyndulë discovered there were actually several small buildings. He focused on a tiny stone structure that was round like a tower but too short to be called one. A narrow door hung open, revealing steps that went down instead of up. Mawyndulë guessed it had been built as a storage pit—a root cellar perhaps. The muted light of that morning’s impotent sun drizzled down the steps, fading into darkness. He had to be in the right place.
He’s in there: Seymour, the all-too-convenient monk.
Despite his need to return to the surface and escape the rune-covered walls, Mawyndulë moved closer to the door, gaining a straight view down the dark staircase. Then he stopped. The entrance didn’t look inviting. It seemed dangerous.
“You’ll succeed,” Trilos had told him. “You’ll have your revenge, at least.”
Why had he added “at least”?
Mawyndulë stared ahead into darkness. What lay through the doorway was a mystery. Although what he had told Sephryn about the monk being Turin made perfect sense, he didn’t actually know for certain. Now that he faced the possibility of meeting the one waiting down there, he paused.
Mawyndulë’s master plan had called for a clean sweep. When the smoke of a ruined Percepliquis cleared, all the Instarya—anyone with Fhrey blood—would be dead. A Fhrey from Merredydd might arrive in time to put forth a challenge, but no Miralyith lived there. And if the challenger was young, which was the most likely scenario, he wouldn’t have tattoos—only veterans of the Great War would have remembered that important trick.
Sephryn knows.
He stopped to consider if she could be a source of any true threat.
I should have killed her. I was planning to. But she did save my life, and that stayed my hand. Was that moment of weakness a fatal mistake?
Cut off from the Art, Mawyndulë felt both blind and deaf. Defenseless as he was, it would be easy for Sephryn to sneak up on him. Mawyndulë spun around, expecting to see the half-Fhrey stabbing at his face with a fistful of arrows.
She wasn’t there.
He studied the open spaces surrounding him but didn’t see her. Oddly, everyone seemed to have disappeared. The palace courtyard was as empty as Imperial Square had been. The ghazel were no doubt off looting and feasting. Mawyndulë stood in the center of the most populous city in the world and was utterly alone.
Eerie, he thought.
He looked back at the entrance to the records hall, at that small doorway that led to the future he had worked so hard for. Someone calling themselves “Seymour” was down there.
Did Turin select that name as a joke? “See more” was a bit too on the nose, wasn’t it?
But if Turin was half as powerful as his old mentor had implied, then such a being could afford to be brash. Trilos repeatedly referred to his brother as pure evil.
How awful does something have to be for a demon to use that label? I’m inside. I’m underwater. Helpless and alone.
Surrounded by the Orinfar, the palace was a perfect place to trap a Miralyith.
Maybe I should wait for Trilos to show up. He will. Now is his big chance to catch his brother.
After so many centuries of planning, Mawyndulë was mere inches from his goal, but fear made him hesitate.
Who is Turin, really? What kind of being frightens a demon like Trilos? I should have asked more questions when I had the chance. But I never cared until now. All I wanted was revenge and to get back the crown that was stolen from my hands.
After Mawyndulë had killed his father, after he broke Ferrol’s Law, nothing had been “right.” Food didn’t taste as good. Sunsets weren’t as colorful. And all the water on the face of Elan couldn’t slake his thirst. It had been more than eight hundred years since he’d lost his soul, and still that feeling of emptiness remained.
Once I blow the horn, I’ll get it all back.
Then a new thought walked in, a wonderfully amazing revelation.
What if Trilos is wrong? He’s been chasing his brother for longer than I’ve been alive and hasn’t even come close. What if Seymour really is just an ordinary monk?
All he had to do was walk down those steps, take the horn, and blow it.
How hard is that? One short toot and everything will reset. I’ll become invincible—at least for a day. Then once the time of challenge has passed, I’ll cross the Nidwalden and enact revenge on every Fhrey who betrayed me. After that, I’ll resume the war and erase the Rhunes.
Realizing his trip down the stairs was his destiny, Mawyndulë stopped putting it off. He walked forward, ducked his head, and went down.
The monk was right where he ought to be, seated on the bottom step, using the faint light to read an old parchment. Mawyndulë couldn’t see much else. The morning light was so dim that even his Fhrey eyes failed to detect much more than the vague shapes of clutter at the base.
Mawyndulë was less than five feet away when Seymour sensed his presence and looked up. As he did, Mawyndulë spotted the bag at his side. “Give me the horn,” he said with as much menace as he could muster.
Mawyndulë didn’t like the monk’s response. He should have jumped and cowered.
Instead, Seymour smiled. “About time you got here.”
Mawyndulë froze. It’s true. Trilos wasn’t wrong! Curse it all! “You’re the Invisible Hand!”
“I’m not Turin, you idiot.”
“Trilos?” Mawyndulë stared at the slender figure in the battered frock. Over the centuries, Mawyndulë had been forced to play the game of Find the Trilos; he never knew when the demon might turn up in a new body. The exact reason for each jump was often difficult to figure out. Some bodies were worn for decades while others were kept for less than a year. They didn’t seem to decay, so that wasn’t the reason. Sometimes, Trilos left a body because it became damaged or ill. Mawyndulë’s mentor seemed unwilling to suffer through something as mild as a head cold. A few times, a corpse was abandoned merely because its muscles were sore. Most of the time, Mawyndulë assumed a switch was done to provide variety because everyone liked a new outfit now and again.
“Have you . . . were you in this body all along?”
The monk shook his head. “No, just the last few days.”
“But you’ve been here? Watching how things played out?”
“Yes.”
“You were right,” Mawyndulë told him. “The plan worked.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“What do you mean? Nyphron and his heirs are dead, and we have the horn!”
“The only reason the emperor died is because I intervened; had I not, then you’d be dead. I was so sure that Turin would stop Sephryn. But he didn’t bother to raise a finger to save that poor woman from losing her soul. I should have known better. His cruelty knows no bounds. Turin is a heartless bastard.”
Now that the fear of facing an unknown evil had passed, Mawyndulë discovered he was irritated. “You could have told me what you were planning. If I had known—I mean, I didn’t need to be here at all. I nearly died while trying to stab Nyphron.”
“I couldn’t. I needed to wait until the last moment to act.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there could be another reason Turin didn’t stop Sephryn. And if it proves to be true, then we may have learned something very important today.”
“Such as?”
“Perhaps Turin can’t predict what I will do. Maybe he can only witness the effects of my actions after they occur. Like a blind spider, he might not be able to see me, and he only knows I’m nearby after feeling the vibration of the web as I move through it. That would be a very important piece of information to have at my disposal. And it should be easy to test such a hypothesis.�
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“If you say so. But don’t count on me to help. I already have a lot on my plate. I just need the horn,” Mawyndulë said and held out his hand.
Trilos tossed the bag to Mawyndulë. “Here. But it won’t help you. It’s a fake.”
“What?” Mawyndulë flung the pack open. Inside, was a ram’s horn, old and cracked. “How is this possible?”
“Because even if Turin can’t see me, you are as easy to spot as a black bear after a heavy winter snow. Nyphron knew you’d be coming for it. Turin did, too. My brother likely saw what you were going to do centuries before you were strong enough to make an attempt. Maybe even before you were born. Knowing it was safe meant there was no reason for him to make an appearance.”
“No!” Mawyndulë shouted and threw the horn against the steps where it bounced three times, rattling its way to the bottom.
“Don’t make such a fuss. You’re closer to your goal than you were last night. Nurgya is dead, right?”
Mawyndulë nodded, although his face sported a full-on scowl. “Either by Mica’s hand or eaten by the ghazel.”
“Two down. What about Nolyn?”
Mawyndulë looked up the steps at the still-hazy light. “By now, he’s probably dead, too, or soon will be. I sealed his sword in its scabbard, and a horde of goblins was after him. In a few hours, there won’t be anyone but ghazel alive in this city.”
Trilos nodded. “Good. In that case, you might yet get your chance. When the news spreads that the emperor is dead and he has no living heirs, some ambitious Fhrey on this side of the Nidwalden will demand that the horn be presented. When it isn’t, he’ll petition to rule. That means notifying the non-Imperial Fhrey, the ones restricted by the Ryin Contita. Turin’s fragile peace between the two races will dissolve; the Nyphronian empyre will fall, and humanity will be reduced to cowering in hunted pockets. Endless skirmishes will leave everyone weak and ripe for the ghazel.” He made a tsk-tsk sound. “So much of my brother’s hard work will fall apart. Perhaps that’s enough cause for him to show himself. Either way is fine by me.”
“But it does me no good,” Mawyndulë retorted. “I need to blow that horn when I’m farther than a day’s journey from any other Miralyith. If Nyphron’s prohibition against travel across the Nidwalden ends, that’ll be difficult to do, even if I can locate the real horn.”
“You’re young. There’s still plenty of time.” Trilos, dressed in his shoddy monk’s frock, nodded and smiled. “We haven’t yet won the war, but today has brought some victories our way. That’s enough for now. How about some breakfast? This body is starved.”
Mawyndulë dropped the bag in disgust. He didn’t get the victory he wanted, but he was alive, and Nyphron was dead. He had that much, at least. “I don’t want to eat here. This place is going to be a bloody mess.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Trilos said. “I can’t exactly walk through a mob of goblins like this.”
“There are plenty of ghazel corpses in the square.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Invisible Hand Moves
Sephryn cried over the body of Nyphron. She did so for her son, for Nolyn, and for the emperor she had just killed. Lack of a soul did nothing to armor her against guilt and sorrow. She was jolted out of her grief when something fell at her side. It looked vaguely like a snake. Wiping her eyes, she saw a piece of string—a bowstring.
“I hope you’ll excuse the intrusion, but I thought you might need this.”
A blurry glance revealed a man in a common off-white tunic and tattered hood. He was tall, slender, and had a kind face.
She glanced at the string, then looked toward the palace. The Miralyith who killed her son was inside, but if she hurried, she could—
“Don’t waste your time. Seymour is already dead, and Mawyndulë isn’t a major concern.”
“What?” She pushed herself up.
“I’m sorry.” The man grimaced. “That was terribly blunt, wasn’t it? I just didn’t want you to run off to . . . oh, never mind.”
She took a staggered step backward. “That Miralyith killed Seymour?”
“No. He actually died several days ago. Arvis was right about the incident on Ebonydale. Someone has been using your friend’s body ever since. He’s the one who tricked you into killing Nyphron.”
“You know about that?” Sephryn wiped her eyes and stared at the man. He wasn’t a complete stranger. She had seen him before. He was . . . she struggled to remember. “You were in the market. The person who bought the bread for Arvis.”
“Yes. And I’m here now, Sephryn, to tell you that none of what’s happened is your fault.”
“You’re wrong! You have no idea. Oh, Grand Mother of All.” Sephryn plunged her face into her hands, then ran them through her hair, pulling hard on the strands. “I ruined everything—everything.” She looked at the blood-soaked stones of the plaza. “I couldn’t save my son. And I . . . I . . .” Her sight shifted to the fallen body of the emperor, lying with his back leg twisted unnaturally, his left cheek resting on the ground, eyes still open. “I’ve killed Nyphron!”
“Yes—yes, you did. You’ve had to pay the price for my own failings, but I want to do what I can to ease your pain. And I can do that, but you must listen and do as I say. And that means you can’t tell anyone what you did. In fact—” The man stepped forward, and unceremoniously jerked the arrow from Nyphron’s neck. The emperor’s head flopped back to its other cheek. “I’ll get rid of this, so no one will know.”
“What difference could that make? Do you think I care if I’m executed? I deserve what’s coming. I don’t even have a soul anymore! Do you know that? You don’t, do you? You can’t. You’re a human, but I have Fhrey blood and broke Ferrol’s Law. I thought that was just an invented legend. But it’s real, and . . . now I’m empty inside.”
“I’m sorry about that, too. I didn’t see what was coming until it was too late to do anything.” The man looked guilty as he tapped the tips of his fingers together awkwardly. “I failed you. I can’t see my brother, and I didn’t know what he was planning until he spoke to you. By then, too many plans were in motion, converging all at once, and I had so little time to react. You’re a good person, Sephryn. Your mother would have been proud of the woman you’ve become. You don’t deserve the fate that’s befallen you.”
He looked toward the palace gate. “You have to understand that an impromptu interference can have disastrous repercussions. Even speaking to you now is a risk—a huge one. He’s probably in that courtyard, which means we don’t have much time. But I must do what I can so the world doesn’t fly apart. I owe that to Nyphron, and Persephone, and Raithe, as well as, well . . . so many people, both living and dead.”
He smiled, and his face softened. “You were forced to do evil today, and while I can’t restore your soul—for there are tallies that cannot be erased—I can still reward you for such a great sacrifice.”
“I don’t want anything!” Sephryn blurted out. She felt sick. The nausea had returned. A general weakness was spreading throughout her body, which may or may not have been related to the loss of her soul. Tears, however, were in ample supply. They slipped forth once more as if from some inexhaustible well. “Nurgya died because I failed. I lost my soul because I’ve killed. Why would anyone reward me? And what could you possibly give me that I care about?”
“I know that you think your life is over, and that the eternity to follow will be worse, but it doesn’t have to be. If you listen to me now, if you can hold on for just a while longer, you’ll find redemption. Your life can be wondrous, and you’ll receive everything you always wanted. Everything that you dared to hope for. Everything you deserve after so many years of striving to bring about a better future—not for yourself, but for everyone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Nolyn is here.”
“No . . .” She shook her head. “That’s an impostor. I saw him change.”
“Yes, you’re
right about that. But the real Nolyn is also here. At this moment, he’s fighting for his life at the Grand Arch.” The man tilted his head to the east. “A call for reinforcements has been sounded. So that’s where most of the ghazel are heading. They’ll kill him unless you act quickly.”
Sephryn discovered that heartbreak, when severe enough, allows for a belief in miracles. She didn’t need proof of what the man said. “Tell me what I need to do. Please!”
“Two things. The first I already mentioned. You must make a solemn vow that you’ll never tell anyone that it was you who killed Nyphron. Not even Nolyn. If you keep this pledge and do the other thing that I’m about to ask of you, then you’ll not only save the emperor’s son, but the empyre as well. And doing that will move the world one step closer to becoming what it’s meant to be.”
“I swear. Now, tell me. What is the second request?”
The man smiled. “The same one I gave your mother at the Battle of Grandford, and you’ll be even more amazing than she was.”
Sephryn ran through the city, not to the east but north. She raced up Reglan Road, across Reanna Boulevard, to where it intersected with Maeve Avenue. She made her turn at the moneylender’s stone house with the signboard out front in the shape of two imperial coins. A wagon was parked out front. Underneath the cart, two dogs cowered. Sephryn imagined their master did the same inside his stone fortress. The city that had been poised to celebrate held its collective breath. She had seen few people on the streets. Most looked frightened, or at least confused. The rest were dead or in hiding. Bodies lay scattered. Sephryn ran past a woman in a nightgown who lay in front of her home, a ruby smear streaked across the door. A man and his three children formed a bloody puddle in the middle of Maeve Avenue. These were the early risers, the ones who had been off to stake out good seats for the day’s events. If the goblins didn’t kill everyone, the lazy would be rewarded for sleeping in.
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