The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  Yanth snapped his fingers. “Dagger.”

  Trev caught the direction his thoughts had taken. “Yes. But you’ll need two.”

  Both lieutenants shot out the door and an instant later were back, prying wrapped silver wire from the hilt of one fine dagger with the blade of another. “How long?” Trev asked.

  In the tower, Andrew Sabir was moving toward Kait from around one side of the table, and Anwyn, holding his torture implements, was approaching her from the other.

  Dùghall didn’t waste time listening to what they were saying. He was fighting to get his most perfect ring, a plain circle of refined electrum, over his knuckles. He’d lost weight over the past months, and the ring had been loose on his finger, but his joints hadn’t gotten any smaller. He said, “The length of your longest finger, all three of them.”

  By the time they’d broken off the wires, he’d gotten his ring free. He quickly attached the wires to the ring and twisted the three of them together, then fanned out the ends to form a crude tripod. He stood the little tripod on the floor and nibbled skin off of his lower lip. The tiny fragments of skin he dropped into the center of the ring. This was going to be crude. Terribly crude.

  He crouched over the tripod. Focusing his will and his attention completely on the little band of electrum, he said:

  Follow my soul, Vodor Imrish,

  To the Dragon soul of Mellayne,

  To the usurper of the body of Domagar,

  Faithful child of Iberan gods,

  And from this body expel the intruder.

  Bring no harm to the intruder,

  The Dragon Mellayne,

  But give his soul safe house and shelter

  Within the unbroken circle before me—

  Unbroken that it may guard

  Mellayne’s immortality, and

  Protect the essence of life and mind.

  I offer my flesh—all that I have given

  And all that you will take,

  Freely and with clear conscience,

  As I do no wrong,

  But reverse a wrong done.

  He felt fire along the tendril of his spirit that linked him to Domagar. He wanted to scream, but he held himself firm. And within Domagar’s mind, he felt first astonishment, then raw terror. White heat burned away the anchors by which the spirit of Mellayne the Dragon held itself within the body it had taken; white fire pursued that spirit back along the threadlike path that connected Domagar to Dùghall. And when Mellayne’s spirit blasted through Dùghall, flailing for any crevice or crack in him that would give it purchase, that angry fire surrounded it and absorbed it and burst from Dùghall’s chest in a blazing stream that poured into the ring. The fire spiraled around, and the room filled for an instant with fog and the scent of honeysuckle and the oppressive weight of a wordless scream.

  When the air cleared and silence returned, light rose from the bottom of the tiny Mirror, crawled up through the center, and circled into the ring, forming a little pool in the center. A perfect replica in miniature of the Mirror of Souls. Mirror of Mellayne, Dùghall thought.

  “Ah, gods,” Ry whispered. “It’s doing what Kait’s Mirror did.”

  “Indeed.” He looked into the viewing glass, and discovered that it had not gone black. Domagar’s body, then, had not fallen to the floor in a lifeless heap. Domagar—the real Domagar—was looking around the room, his gaze flicking from the men to Kait to the torture instruments, then back to Kait again. “The boy has his own soul back. The ring houses the soul of a Dragon. Watch now,” Dùghall said, and everyone stared into the viewing glass.

  Kait had her back to the balcony, the blackness of the gulf beneath her clearly visible. Anwyn and Andrew closed on her slowly, playing with her. Through Domagar’s eyes, both of their backs were visible. Domagar had picked up a handful of knives.

  “Stop,” Domagar said, and Anwyn answered with a sigh.

  “She won’t hurt herself—she isn’t so stupid as that. We may let her survive, but if she throws herself over, the fall will surely kill her.”

  “I said stop!” Domagar shouted. He lifted the knife and aimed it at Andrew, who had started to Shift into a four-legged nightmare.

  Kait didn’t seem to realize she had an ally, though. She gripped the rail with both hands and shouted, “I won’t stop.” And threw herself over the edge.

  Ry and Ian screamed, “No!” and Hasmal shouted, “You can’t die!” And Dùghall dropped to his knees and stared at the tiny Mirror with its single captive. And he whispered, “Oh, Kait. Sweet little Kait-cha. I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 34

  Danya tucked the newborn baby into the sling and wrapped him close, hiding him away from the eyes of the villagers. In the middle of what should have been darkness, the sun still glowed, low on the horizon and dull red but ever-present now, having become the unblinking eye of a meddlesome neighbor. In the winter, she’d thought she would go mad from the unceasing darkness, but in darkness at least she’d found privacy. Now, in the undying light, she felt herself constantly watched—by the villagers, by the distant wizards who spied on her and the baby, even by the uncaring gods who’d abandoned her when she prayed to them.

  The baby squirmed against her scaly breast, nuzzling her. He made a faint, delicate mewling sound and drifted back to sleep, and she touched the softness of his cheek with one scaled finger. Red, wrinkled, delicate, lightly covered in downy hair, he was the most helpless thing she had ever seen. She’d never paid that much attention to the babies her cousins had—they’d seemed messy and loud to her, always spitting up or crying or pissing themselves, always needing to be held or fed or changed. She’d never planned to have a child; she’d looked at her place among the Wolves and decided magic and power would be enough for her.

  But this baby touched her; when he looked into her eyes, she felt herself become a better person than she’d been before. He gave her a part of herself that she’d never been able to find—a warmth and a depth and a patience that she’d never before needed. And he returned to her the assurance that she was human, if only somewhere on the inside. That wasn’t enough to soothe the pain she carried with her, but she thought it was a start.

  For the moment, at least, she could forget where the child had come from, and how he had come to be.

  She slipped down to the river’s edge and took a boat. The water was still, a mirror reflecting the lines and shadows of the tall bluff on the opposite shore, and the rich greens of the willows that grew down to the bank, and the glorious fuchsia of the stand of fireweed that covered the bluff’s crown like a brilliant, man-high head of hair. With the baby resting between her feet, she paddled gently across. She heard loons somewhere in the distance, their mad laughing call eerie in the silence. Behind her, a few of the villagers’ dogs barked, but the barking was lazy, unexcited. The villagers were mostly asleep, keeping to their winter rhythms as best they could. She would draw the least attention now, at what would have been the dead of night in a lower latitude.

  The boat slid across the river, disturbing the water only slightly in its passage, moving as silently as the huge pike that inhabited the lakes of the tundra. A family of ducks, the ducklings paddling in a line behind their mother, crossed Danya’s bow and took no notice of her. Their quacking amused her as she slipped up to the bluff and dragged the little boat ashore.

  She went to meet again with the spirit Luercas. In one of the hidden back rooms of In-kanmerea, the grand place of the Ancients, he waited—her savior, her friend, her link to the time when she had been human. This secretive trip fulfilled her promise to him—they had agreed in their last conversation, before advanced pregnancy made her too ungainly to travel across the river, climb the bluffs, and hike across the tundra to the hidden Ancient hideaway, that once the baby was born she would return to the shielding room, and she and Luercas would speak again.

  She’d missed him. Not as much as she’d thought she would, though she wouldn’t admit this to him. She’d engaged herself in
the village life, working to make friends, trying to find her place, and in many ways she’d succeeded. She’d created a sort of life for herself, even if it was poor and shabby, the sort of existence she would have scorned in her days as a Galweigh Wolf. At least she wasn’t alone. She had her friends—subhuman friends, true, but they cared about her.

  But Luercas was—or had been, before his death—human. He was her only human link, other than her son, and the only creature in this bleak, flat place who knew what she really was. He alone understood the station in the world she’d been destined to occupy before the Sabirs intervened. To him alone, she was something other than the scaly, Scarred monster who hunted and fetched and carried and took little children from one side of the river to the other. To him she was Family, and Galweigh, and a Wolf, a highborn young wizard who would have one day had the world at her feet.

  Now . . . well, no world of wealth and glamour lay at her feet now. Only bluffs spongy with caribou moss and low-growing blueberry bushes and mouseweed and scrub willow. She made her way across them, and the baby began to cry; she sat on one grassy hummock and nursed him, awkward and frustrated with her body, wishing that she could be human again. If she had soft skin and full breasts, she could hold him without worrying that she might break him or scratch him with her claws, and she could nurse him without wondering if her milk was right for him, or if the magic that had so completely twisted her might have altered that, too, so that he would gain no nourishment from it. If she could only be human again, her body would fit his. She would be a real mother.

  He would grow up with his perfect body, seeing the malformed beast that had given birth to him, and he would never understand that once she had been beautiful, too. That once she had been someone desirable. He would grow away from her, he would become disgusted by her, his perfect love would one day gutter out and die when he came to understand that he was perfection and she was an abomination.

  It would have been easier to bear if she hadn’t been able to see herself as she had once been, mirrored in his tiny features.

  When the baby finished suckling, Danya rose and hurried to Inkanmerea. She hurt inside, and the shelter of the Ancients’ House of the Devil Ghosts would soothe her and let her pretend, as she strolled beneath its huge arches and through its fine halls, that she could be a woman again. She reached the main entrance and went down the dark stairs without faltering, her feet now familiar with the way. She hurried through the grand lobby, and down the huge hallways, and finally reached the room she wanted, the room that held the shielding device.

  She wrapped her infant firmly and placed him on the seat nearest the dais that held the Ancients’ magical apparatus, out of the range of the shield the device would create. He slept, his tiny face turned toward her. She could still feel the strangers touching him from afar, their magic stroking him, lulling him, caressing him. She could still feel them trying to touch her, too. But she maintained her magical shields, grateful that once she moved onto the Ancients’ device, she would have peace from their attempts at prying.

  She clambered onto the dais, and the apparatus came to life. Silence descended. Instantly, Luercas was with her.

  Danya, it’s so good to be with you again. I’ve been bereft without you.

  “When you came to visit me just after he was born, I thought you would stay with me. But you left again before I could even tell you how happy I was to hear your voice again. Why did you leave so suddenly?”

  Those who invade your child with their spirit-touch would gladly destroy me, and you with me, if they knew you were my friend. I wanted only to congratulate you on the birth. You were strong, and brave—and now you are free of the pregnancy at last. But I dared not stay after that. The wizards who watch you are powerful and many, and I am weak and only one.

  She reminded herself that Luercas had been the only one she could talk to honestly through the long months while the baby grew inside of her; he was the only one who knew the full tale of rape and torture and horror that had visited the unwanted infant upon her. He’d sympathized, kept her spirits up, reminded her that she would have her revenge on those who’d hurt her, promised her that one day she would see the Sabirs and the Galweighs bow before her while she passed sentence on them for their evils. She’d complained endlessly about the baby she carried, and about the prying wizards who constantly watched him and watched her, and Luercas had kept her calm, reassuring her that she would have her revenge on them, too. He’d cared about her in a way no one else could have. She didn’t think she would have survived the ordeal without him.

  But when he spoke of her being free of the pregnancy at last, her guts knotted and slight queasiness touched the back of her throat. She didn’t feel that way anymore . . . that she was free of it. She’d . . . she’d done something powerful, and terrifying and magnificent, and she’d survived. She’d come out on the other side of the ordeal changed—a fact that poor Luercas couldn’t understand.

  When she discovered that she cared about the infant she’d delivered, she felt as if she were betraying Luercas, which was ridiculous. Luercas wouldn’t feel betrayed when he discovered that she was coming to love her baby. He would support her, as he had supported her throughout her ordeal. “He’s a sweet little thing,” she said softly. Hesitantly.

  A sweet . . . Ahhh. Luercas paused for a long time. Of course he is. How could he be anything else?

  She wanted to think he understood, but the way he said that frightened Danya. “What do you mean?”

  He’s a helpless newborn, and adorable as such creatures go, and you had to go through hell to bring him into the world. So of course, when you look at him, you see a baby that you can love. You deserve love more than anyone in the world—you should be able to love your son. That is, to me, the saddest thing about this. And surely why he chose you. How could you ever stop him, when you’re so needy?

  “Luercas, you aren’t making any sense.”

  Your infant is destined to stand against everything you desire. He will destroy both you and your hopes and dreams, but he will do it out of what he will claim is love. And you will help him do it, because you truly will love him. Luercas sounded sympathetic, but Danya heard something else in his voice, too—something she hadn’t heard before, and couldn’t identify.

  “He’s a baby. How can he be destined to stand against me? Destined to destroy me? How can that be?”

  Look at him carefully, Danya. Look at him, not with human sight, but with Wolf sight. See him through your wizard eyes. He’s the product of two Wolves, changed by magics so overpowering that when they were released they woke the dead and freed spirits from traps that had held them a thousand years. Look at that tiny, helpless baby, and tell me what you see.

  Danya did as Luercas asked. She looked down at her son tucked safely between the arms of the nearest chair, wrapped in a blanket, and she closed her eyes and summoned Wolf sight. After an instant, the baby appeared in front of her closed eyes, but this time as a glowing spirit form, and not what she would have expected. His spirit form was already twice as big as the infant body to which it was attached. He radiated a serene glow, a pure golden light that flowed without flaw or blemish in all directions. And tapped into that glow were hundreds of multicolored tendrils, each connecting back to one more spy, one more meddler. The baby basked amid those foreign touches, content with the comfort of strangers.

  “He welcomes them, and they surround him,” Danya said. “He loves them.”

  Indeed he does. He loves everyone and everything, with the complete lack of discrimination you’d find in any idiot. He loves the Family that abandoned you and the villains who tortured you exactly as much—and in exactly the same way—as he loves you.

  “But he’s just an infant. As he grows, he’ll learn.”

  Luercas sighed, and said, Oh, how I wish that were true. Danya, my dear friend, I would give anything for that to be true, and for this child to be salvageable. But he isn’t. His soul is already set. It has been wa
iting in its current form for a thousand years, unchanged, hoping for a body like that one to come along. The soul in that body has not forgotten who he was, as the gods decree we all must when we are born into flesh form, so he recalls every bit of his life as a wizard in the days before the Wizards’ War. And he aims to pick up his life from the point where he left off when he died. His spirit claims noble goals—peace for the world, love for all creatures—but test his goals against what you know to be right, and tell me if you can allow him to succeed in what he’s come to do.

  “What has he come to do?”

  He has come to force humankind to open its gates to the Scarred—he’ll make Ibera welcome the monsters of Strithia, and the crawling vermin from Manarkas, and the skinless horrors of South Novtierra, and he’ll make them the equals of Family. He’ll prevent all wars, no matter how just. He’ll reward the Galweighs and Sabirs with riches and joy and long life. I tell you truly, under his hand no innocents will suffer unjust accusations, and that I must concede would be a fine thing, if it were not that under his hand, no guilty monster will suffer, either. He demands peace. Absolute peace, without thought of justice. Peace on his terms.

  If you permit him to become the man he will be, you will never have your revenge on the Families that destroyed you. You will never see them crawl. Instead, you will see them grow fat with riches. You will see everything they touch grow fertile and sweet. Rich harvests will burst from their lands, children will fill their halls, and gold and gems and caberra spice will spill from their overfilled treasuries. It will not matter to him that you are his mother, or that those he aids destroyed you. He will not care about your pain.

  “You can’t know that. He’s just a baby. He’s . . . helpless. Tiny. His future is as much a mystery as anyone’s.”

  If you think that, you play into his plans, and those of his friends, the Falcons. You know about the Falcons, don’t you?

  She had read about them in her childhood studies, but not much. There wasn’t much to read. “A secret sect devoted to the return of the Age of Wizards. Worshiped a dead god and a martyr. Much persecuted hundreds of years ago, utterly destroyed in the Purges two centuries past.”