The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  A sign.

  Dùghall sagged forward and said, “The foulest of enemies can still give the sweetest of gifts. I know where they are, and I know what the Dragons are going to do with them.”

  Hasmal watched Dùghall’s eyes—they were the eyes of the man he’d come to think of as a friend. No stranger stared out of them. Hasmal told the soldiers, “He’s fine,” and the men resheathed their swords and dropped back. They slumped to the floor, whispering to each other and laughing nervously.

  Dùghall sat up and wiped sweat from his face with the back of his hand. He turned to Alarista and Yanth and Jaim. “Bring me all of the viewing glasses. I want to see if any of the remaining Dragons are near where Kait and Ry are imprisoned, or if any of them are working on their immortality spell.” Then he turned his attention to Hasmal. “We’re out of time. They’re going to link Kait’s and Ry’s souls to the spell that starts their immortality engine. The magic they’re doing will obliterate both Kait and Ry—not just here in this life, but eternally. They’ll cease to exist ever again. I’m going to find a Dragon that is close to them. You’re going to have to remove him from his body, then convince the true inhabitant of the body to release Kait and Ry from their cages. Meanwhile, I’ll find a Dragon who is working on the immortality engine, remove him or her, and convince the body’s rightful owner to smash it.”

  “Then we won’t be able to watch each other,” Hasmal protested. “We won’t be able to pull each other back if one of the Dragons takes us.” He didn’t say that Dùghall was already so weak and worn so thin, the next Dragon he captured would surely be able to overmatch him.

  “We’re out of time,” Dùghall said again. “If we don’t stop them now, I don’t know that we can stop them at all.”

  Hasmal saw foreknowledge of doom in Dùghall’s eyes. The old man thought he was going to die, and he was going to go back anyway.

  Alarista and Jaim and Yanth brought over the viewing glasses. Dùghall spread them out between himself and Hasmal, turned sideways so that both of them could see the images dancing in the glass. He stared at them for a long moment. Then he let out a sharp breath. He picked up a viewing glass that showed a pair of hands working with tiny tools on a delicate piece of machinery. “This one is mine,” he said.

  He stared back at the other glasses. Hasmal stared with him. “Look at that,” Hasmal whispered, pointing to one of the glasses.

  Through one pair of distant eyes, he saw Ian, dressed in guards’ clothing, his face grim, stalking up a long white corridor.

  Dùghall squinted at the image and nodded. “I see him.”

  “Pity we can’t kill the traitor from here.”

  “We can’t,” Dùghall said shortly. “Look for something we can affect.”

  He viewed Crispin Sabir, differently dressed than when he and Ian had met the man in the inn, but unmistakable. Through the pair of eyes that looked at him, he also caught a glimpse of occupied cages just at the edge of the image. They faded out of view, but he said, “That one, don’t you think?”

  Dùghall said, “He was at the cages, but he looks like he’s leaving.”

  “Then I’d better get him quickly.”

  “He’s with Crispin Sabir—he’s surely one of the most dangerous of the Dragons.”

  “But this one knows what we need to know.”

  Dùghall nodded. “You’re right. Go, and may Vodor Imrish be with you.”

  “And with you.”

  Hasmal was only vaguely aware of the soldiers stepping into place behind him and Dùghall, only distantly aware of Alarista and Yanth and Jaim moving near. They would watch him for changes, he knew; they’d tell the soldiers if the soul that came back in Hasmal’s body wasn’t his, and then his body would die. . . .

  He pushed through the fear that enveloped him and sank into the trance that let him follow the slender thread of energy that connected him to his chosen body. He was chanting the words of the spell, but he didn’t hear them as words; he felt them as a path that led him closer and closer to the enemy with whom he would soon do battle.

  Abruptly the darkness of the path he walked cleared, and he looked out through the eyes of another man. He was walking beside Crispin Sabir, close enough to drive a knife into his back. But the body would not respond to him, of course. He could see what the alien body saw, hear what it heard, feel what it felt, know what it knew . . . but he could not force it to respond.

  “That was odd,” the man whose body he occupied said.

  “What was?” Crispin glanced at him and frowned.

  “Suddenly my vision seemed to double for a moment, and I could have sworn I heard . . . a voice inside my head. Just for an instant.” He chuckled nervously.

  Shut up, shut up, shut up, Hasmal thought. He chanted the spell that would focus his energy and allow him to draw the Dragon soul out of the body it had stolen. He focused on recalling the body’s rightful soul from the Veil. Faster. He needed to go faster.

  “Stand right there,” Crispin said, his eyes cold and hard. “And don’t move.”

  Spin the spell. Call the soul lost in darkness, bring it home. He tried to ignore the fear that consumed him. If he could keep his mind on what he was doing, he could pull the Dragon out of this body right under Crispin Sabir’s nose, and the rightful owner of it could turn on the man and kill him.

  But he couldn’t feel the familiar rush of the rightful soul returning to its body, the oncoming warmth of gratitude, the hope that something would suddenly make sense. No displaced soul answered his call. And the soul in the body he occupied wasn’t losing its grip on its stolen flesh.

  He pulled his focus in tighter, maintaining only the most tenuous link with his body. Kait’s and Ry’s chance of survival rested on his ability to restore this body’s rightful soul, and on his ability, once he had done so, to convince the man to release Kait and Ry before fleeing the Dragon city.

  “Quickly, tell me everywhere you’ve been today,” Crispin told the man.

  “I reported from the barracks for special duty. We went to pick up those skinshifters you sent us after—”

  “What happened while you were there?”

  “I blocked the girl’s escape, she slapped me, she ran.” He shrugged. “She didn’t hurt me when she slapped me, didn’t even try to. I thought it was strange at the time, but then I didn’t think no more about it. Someone else brought them in. I been guarding the door outside their cages until you came to get me. Sir.”

  Sir? Why would one of the Dragons call another of the Dragons sir? Or speak with such a heavy docksider accent?

  In that instant, it clicked. No soul came because no soul had been displaced. Kait had marked a guard, but the guard wasn’t a Dragon; he was just a soldier called from his barracks to do a job. Hasmal pulled away from the body and started following the fragile line he’d left for himself back to his own body.

  Nevertheless, he felt a jolt the instant that Crispin touched the soldier. Something big and ugly came racing along the energy line behind him. He fled toward his own body, and heat and weight and rage rolled after him, growing and billowing and consuming everything, using his energy and his life force to follow him.

  He slammed into his own flesh and his eyes flew open and he started to erect the shield that would protect him from the thing that followed him, but he wasn’t fast enough. The thing, the spell, the hunter that Crispin sent after him was in the shield with him, and the shield would keep Alarista or Jaim or Yanth from even trying to save him from it.

  He screamed, “It’s got me!” and saw the soldiers raise their weapons, and saw Alarista’s face twist with horror, and then the fire consumed him, and pain flashed through his eyes and his nose and his mouth and his ears straight into his brain, and the world filled with a rushing sound, as if a white-hot ocean had suddenly upended itself and poured its full weight down onto him.

  He felt himself stretching, twisting, being pummeled by a current of fire. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t
hear the sound that ripped itself from his tortured throat. He thrashed and fought.

  And suddenly he was free of the pain, alone in darkness, cold, blind, deaf.

  His ears started working first.

  “—don’t know if you can hear me yet, so when you can, please nod your head. . . . I’m still waiting. . . .” He heard a long, irritated sigh, then silence. After a few moments, the voice broke the silence again. “One more time, then. My name is Dafril, and I’ve captured you. You’re going to tell me everything I want to know, either now or later, but I promise you, you’ll have an easier time if you cooperate with me. I don’t know if you can hear me yet, but I know that you’ll be able to in a moment, so I strongly suggest that when you can, you nod your head. I’ll only be patient for so long, and then I’ll start sticking pins under your fingernails because I’ll stop believing that you might still be deaf from the transfer and start thinking that you’re malingering. You can’t get away, you can’t protect yourself, and you will tell me what I want to know. . . .”

  The truth hit Hasmal hard. Not only had he failed to win Kait and Ry a chance at freedom, but he had also given himself into the hands of his enemies. He’d failed his friends, he’d failed Alarista, he’d failed the world, he’d failed himself.

  He opened his eyes, and found himself staring into the cold blue eyes of Crispin Sabir. He was tied to a table, his wrists and ankles bound to the sides, heavy leather straps over his chest and knees. Dafril, the voice had said, but the only one in the room was Crispin Sabir. He realized that the Dragon who occupied Crispin’s body must have named itself.

  Dafril.

  He felt despair. He had no weapons to fight with, his enemy had shielded him so tightly that he could not feel the movement of magic in his own body, and his friends didn’t even know what had happened to him. He would never see Alarista again, never hold her in his arms, never tell her that he loved her, or that for the brief time that he’d had her she’d made his life complete. He would die knowing that he had failed her; that he had failed all of them.

  And then he recalled the wax on his fingertips. And he remembered the tiny talisman embedded in that wax, held there so that he could press it into Dùghall’s skin if a Dragon forced Dùghall from his body. The talisman was already linked to a glass, the glass sat beside Dùghall, and the instant it embedded itself in living flesh, it would come to life, showing Dùghall and Alarista and Yanth and Jaim where he was—and giving them their chance to capture the Dragon Dùghall suspected led the others.

  Hasmal almost smiled.

  Come a little closer, Dafril, he thought. Just a little closer. I have a surprise for you.

  Chapter 53

  Through one of the viewing glasses, Alarista had watched the clever hands working on that delicate bit of machinery suddenly take a hammer and smash it to pieces. Through the other, she had seen the Dragon Crispin turn on the man beside him, and the flash of light that followed was so brilliant that it illuminated the tent in which she sat. In that blazing light, Hasmal had disappeared, and at the moment he vanished, the glass through which she had observed Crispin had gone dark; the man through whose eyes she had been watching was either blind or dead.

  She’d screamed, “That can’t happen! Magic can’t do that!”

  Yanth had rested a hand on her shoulder, and she had felt it trembling. Yanth—the fearless swordsman—trembling. He’d said, “It’s Dragon magic. You can’t know all of what they can do.”

  She stared at the place where Hasmal had been, and knew he was right. No telling the horrors the Dragons could unleash if they weren’t stopped.

  Dùghall had returned from his successful battle with the Dragon who had been working on the machinery, but he was gray with exhaustion, and so weak he couldn’t even sit up. He lay on the floor of the tent, blinking slowly, unresponsive to Alarista even when she told him that the Dragons had somehow captured Hasmal.

  So now she crouched over the viewing glasses, looking for anything that might help her help Hasmal, or Kait, or Ry. Whatever had kept her from seeing through Kait’s and Ry’s mirrors had gone away; she could see what they saw again, but nothing she saw meant anything to her. They lay in their cages watching each other. Occasionally from the corners of their eyes she could make out the movement of guards, but the guards kept their distance, and Kait and Ry focused on each other. They were speaking to each other, she realized at last, though so carefully that their lips barely moved. She could hear nothing they said. And their eyes were so nearly closed that to each other they appeared asleep.

  She looked into the other viewing glasses. Nothing useful. Nothing even curious. Pictures of vast white rooms, of elegant silks, of fountains and long corridors and delicate gardens—all pretty. All utterly meaningless.

  Alarista wanted to smash the glasses, or tear screaming through the tent and out into the warming spring air; she wanted to shake someone, anyone, and demand that he find some way to bring back Hasmal. Instead she forced herself to stillness, and willed her mind to patience, and she watched. Something would happen—now or later. Something would change, and if she was ready and patient and watchful she would catch that moment when it happened, and she would be able to act.

  * * *

  Kait heard the voices by the door clearly enough.

  “You’re late. We were supposed to have been relieved half a station ago.” The guards had been complaining for a while that their relief hadn’t come, and toying with the idea of having one of the two of them go see what the holdup was. The one who spoke had been working himself into a real lather.

  “Sergeant told me. Captain’s messin’ with the duty roster.”

  “Thought Rowel and Steedman were going to be here.”

  “Reckon they were. I was supposed to have today off, but they put your regular relief out on the wall an’ forgot to assign anyone to this duty until just now. I ran the whole way here.” The new guard had the hoarsest voice she’d ever heard. She wondered if he was sick, or if something was wrong with his voice box.

  “We’re supposed to have two men to this duty.”

  “Supposed to have a lot of things—ain’t seen gold nor promotion nor fine new uniforms, either. I transferred in from Lightning Company just today, and no more than got my kit under my bunk than they stuck me here by my lonesome, and damn me if it don’t go well. Told me I’m guarding skinshifters. I’d rather have the gods’ damned plague, but captain didn’t ask for my drathers. They give you any trouble?”

  “Them? Nah. Ate before we got here, slept our whole shift. Don’t get too close to ’em, you’ll be fine. Only reason you’d need a partner is to keep you awake.”

  “Hope you’re right. Maybe I’ll be as lucky as you were. Anyway, got a note from the captain to the two of you.”

  Kait heard the rustle of paper, then a disgusted snarl.

  “Brethwan’s balls, Eagan! Bastards have us eating now and straight back to barracks to sleep, and on duty again at Huld.”

  “Huld! We get only two stations to eat and sleep?”

  The voice of the new guard, commiserating. “I told you captain was messin’ with the duty roster.”

  “Futter the bleeding pig! He’s been a donkey’s ass since we got him.”

  The guards who’d watched Kait and Ry for most of the afternoon and evening left, complaining loudly about the captain and his policies as they went. When they were gone, silence returned, but only for a moment. Then the stealthy whisper of approaching footsteps set her skin crawling.

  Ry whispered, “He’s coming over. Got his head down and his face hidden. There’s something wrong about him, but I don’t know what. . . .” Then he growled and moved into the crouch that was the only position other than lying down that the cage would allow. “Any closer and I’ll kill you,” he said.

  Kait rolled and braced for whatever was coming.

  And saw Ian, his skin burnished the color of fine mahogany, his dark hair cropped close to his skull, and dressed in a guard
’s uniform, approaching quickly with something hidden in his hand.

  Fear flooded her veins and sent her heart racing. Ian could kill Ry or her easily; they were helpless in the cramped cages. The question was, which of them did he hate the most, and would either of them have a chance to talk him out of whatever he had planned?

  Ian glared at Ry. “The day I came here, I left a note for you morons telling you I had something planned that would help you. When I got back to the inn, you were gone and I’ve seen nor heard not a word from you until I hear from the guards that they brought in a couple of skinshifters. So I’ve been stuck here, working in this hell, pretending to be loyal to the Dragons and doing things I don’t want to think about to prove my loyalty, and all the time hoping that you would find your way back here to get your gods’ damned Mirror. We don’t have time to talk now,” he said, his voice still harsh and strange. “I set it up so that I’d be alone with you, but one of the Dragons could decide to come after the two of you at any time. I’m going to take you to the Mirror of Souls. Then I’m going to get the three of us out of here if I can.”

  “The . . . three of us?” Kait whispered.

  She glanced at Ry, who looked as dumbfounded as she felt.

  Ian looked at her. Pain flashed across his face, though he hid it quickly. “The three of us. You made your choice—you love him, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  He nodded, and bent to insert the key into the lock that held her door closed. “So that’s it. I’m saving you because I love you.” The chain that held her door closed rattled softly as he worked the lock. “And I’ll save him . . . because I love you.” He shrugged and avoided her eyes.

  “You sacrificed yourself to help us? Me?”

  “We don’t have time to talk,” he rasped.

  Something inside her hurt at that moment. She wished she had been able to love him. She wished she could be two people so that she could be with Ian and with Ry without betraying either of them, or that she had never met Ian, or that she could take his pain away. The magnitude of what he’d done for her unrolled before her in the few moments that he struggled with the lock that kept her caged. “Why did you come here?” she asked him.