The Lost City of Ithos: Mage Errant Book 4

by John Bierce

  “Just due diligence on my part. Oh, and she has, apparently, grown quite close to your spellbook. I admit, I was doubtful of its utility at first, but it saved your life in Imperial Ithos. I suspect it will grow to be the sort of item stories get written about, so I would suggest you think of a name for it. A… more fitting one than Talia’s suggestion, perhaps.”

  “What did Talia suggest for it?” Hugh asked.

  Kanderon gave an exasperated snort, the wind of which ruffled Hugh’s hair.

  “She’s been calling it Mackerel. Worse, the aggravating little creature responds to it. Mackerel is hardly an appropriate name for something that will eventually grow to be a legendary magical artifact.”

  Hugh started giggling at that, only to break into yet another fit of coughing.

  Kanderon gave him an exasperated look, but levitated the waterskin over to him again.

  “Did we win?” Hugh finally asked. “Did we get the Exile Splinter?”

  “We did, yes, in no small part thanks to you.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  Kanderon gave him a long, searching look. It was a bit strange, looking at her from this angle.

  “I’m not intending to use it again, if that’s what you’re asking. The risk of attracting the Cold Minds is too high. At Midwinter, when Skyhold’s Vault can next be opened, I will seal it away within.”

  “Why did you use it in the first place? Surely there were faster, less… cruel ways to destroy Ithos,” Hugh said.

  Kanderon took a long time to answer, and sounded a bit hesitant when she finally did answer.

  “Possibly, yes. Ithos was one of the best defended great cities ever to exist— only Havath today rivals its defenses. We still might have come up with some other solution, but those were desperate times, Hugh.”

  He chose his next words carefully. “I don’t trust her, but Qirsad accused you of just wanting to perpetuate the system of great powers, to keep the chaos going to serve your own power. She said that’s why you destroyed Ithos.”

  Hugh had expected Kanderon to grow angry at that, but instead, the look that crossed her face was pensive, almost sad. She gave him more water to drink before speaking.

  “That was the greatest part of why I first flew to battle against the Ithonian Empire, yes. My foes accused me of being a cruel, power-thirsty monster over the century and a half I stood against the Empire, and they were right to do so. I opposed them because their system threatened my own power, my own territory. I like to think I’ve changed over the centuries, and that my opposition to imperial aims has transformed from a selfish to a philosophical one. It has, at least, become a genuine belief in the deep and fundamental instability of empires and the disproportionate chaos they leave in the wake of their collapse compared to nations or city-states. Has Alustin told you of my work sponsoring new liches?”

  Hugh nodded at that.

  “It is part of my effort to bring a little more stability to our world without conquest, without imperial expansion. Liches are far more stable over the long term than most great powers, and they’re far more resistant to those with imperial aims. I choose my candidates for lichdom carefully, Hugh. I look for those who will not be tyrannical, and who will tend to the needs of their demesne’s inhabitants. I don’t always get it right, but, well… I can destroy a lich as easily as I help to create one. Even easier, truly. Liches are stubborn, hidebound, and slow to change in many ways. Immortality removes much of their mental plasticity. It can often result in unrepentant monsters, but it can also result in nigh-incorruptible defenders. Create enough of the latter, and perhaps it will help to change the system of great powers, to alter the balance for the better. It will be centuries yet before my efforts will likely come to fruition.”

  Part of Hugh marveled at how far into the future Kanderon planned.

  “One of my foes could spend hours reciting my misdeeds, and I could spend hours lecturing you on my philosophical opposition to empires, Hugh, but neither lie at the heart of why I destroyed Imperial Ithos.”

  Kanderon went silent, staring off into space.

  “Why did you do it?” Hugh finally asked.

  “Revenge, Hugh. Ithos attacked my nest, atop the mountain now known as Skyhold. I lost my original wings in that attack. My mate was blinded. And our nestling… the Ithonians killed our child, Hugh. It wasn’t an unprovoked attack by any means— I’d spent so many decades being a thorn in their side, and I committed monstrous wrongs of my own. None of that mattered to me, then. The only thing that mattered at all to me was that my child was dead, and I would see her killers pay. Have you ever seen an illustration of a sphinx nestling, Hugh?”

  He shook his head.

  “They’re gangly, clumsy, ugly creatures, who can’t go three steps without tripping over their own wings. If I were to attempt to be objective about it, I might have to admit to my daughter having been even scruffier and awkward than most. But she was the most beautiful thing in the world to me. And the Ithonians took her away from me.”

  Hugh felt Kanderon’s massive frame shudder, but out of rage or grief he didn’t know.

  “All these centuries, and it still hurts as bad as it did then.”

  Kanderon was silent for a long time after that. Hugh didn’t press her, he just watched the stars patiently.

  “My mate and I gathered our allies, and we built the Exile Splinter. I constructed its physical frame, my mate constructed its core, and our allies crafted the spells within it and the spells that would carry it to its target. I attuned my aether crystal during the Exile Splinter’s construction, Hugh, as you attuned yours constructing the Stormward around Theras Tel. It took us three long years to build, and cost the lives of five of the thirteen of us. Including my mate. But build it we did, and I don’t doubt that those who died would still have gone through with it even had they known it would cost their lives, for we all hated the Ithonian Empire that much. None of us cared a whit for the consequences. And after Ithos was gone, we found replacements for the five we lost, and we founded Skyhold. Not as a place of learning, but as a fortress, dedicated to hunting down and shattering the remnants of the Ithonian Empire. Our hate, our vengeance… it justified everything to us in those days. Even looking back on all the atrocities we committed, Hugh, do you know what my greatest regret is?”

  Hugh just shook his head.

  “Building the Exile Splinter cost us more than just some of our lives. It cost us many of our memories, Hugh. I don’t remember much of my life before the Exile Splinter. So much of it is just… gone. Friends and enemies, wonders and horrors, all simply gone. Worst of all though? I can’t remember their names, Hugh. My mate, my child. I can’t remember their names. I see their faces in my dreams still. I still remember the long, silent flights I would take with my mate. I still remember how messy my daughter would get when I fed her, and how she would struggle to get away when I cleaned her. But I don’t remember their names. That’s why I wanted the Exile Splinter back. Not to keep it out of the hands of those who would abuse it, or to use it again, or for any higher purpose. I wanted it back out of hope that it might restore my lost memories.”

  Kanderon was wearing an expression that he couldn’t place at first, simply because it was so foreign to his image of her.

  She was sad, yes, but she was also nervous.

  Kanderon Crux, the Crystal Sphinx, the last living founder of Skyhold, the killer of the Ithonian Empire, was afraid of how he would judge her for her actions.

  “Did it work?” Hugh asked.

  Slowly, haltingly, Kanderon shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Kanderon,” Hugh said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

  Kanderon smiled at him sadly, but also with visible relief.

  “Thank you, Hugh. In truth, this is no great shock to me. I don’t think I ever really expected to get those memories back. Some prices cannot be unpaid. In some ways, I think it might be a relief, to not have to mourn any longer.”
>
  Kanderon seemed like she wanted to say more, then sighed. “I have kept you up too long, Hugh. You should sleep. You’re far from healed yet.”

  Hugh had a thousand more questions he wanted to ask, but Kanderon simply adjusted his blanket with her magic and tucked her foreleg in a little closer to her. The warmth quickly had Hugh’s eyelids drooping.

  “Kanderon?” Hugh asked, struggling to stay awake.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what, Hugh?”

  “For taking care of me.”

  There was a long pause, and Hugh’s eyes drifted shut. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was Kanderon’s voice.

  “Always, little one.”

  There were very few beings on the continent that could sneak up on Kanderon Crux. Vanishingly few who had ever lived who might do so, in fact. But if one of them had done so that night, if one of them had crept up on the great sphinx— crept past the vigilant watch of her Librarians Errant, crept past the defensive wards of the camp, crept past a ward circling the sphinx that kept others from hearing any sensitive words spoken within from escaping, they might have heard something odd. Something that tickled their ears, just at the very edge of their hearing.

  If they had been brave or mad enough to sneak even closer, they might have been able to start making out the sound. Even more perilously close, close enough that they might reach out and touch the sphinx with their fingers, and the sound would finally resolve itself into a low, deep, rhythmic rumble. A sound that would be familiar to any farmer or sailor, royal chef or scribe.

  Sphinxes are not cats, any more than they are birds or humans. But they share traits of all three.

  And that noise— that low, gentle rumble— was most certainly one of the traits sphinxes share with cats.

  Kanderon Crux, the Crystal Sphinx, the Doom of Ithos, once known as the Calamity and as the Mad Sphinx, was purring.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Setting the Stage

  Duarch Icola was in a truly vile mood as she entered the Conclave’s chambers. She didn’t show it on her face, of course— she never showed any emotion she didn’t want to.

  The wiser of the palace servants, however, had learned to read the tone of her footsteps as she strode the halls. Today the bronze fittings on her white-leather boots struck against the marble floors like hammer blows. None of the senior servants were to be seen anywhere near her. Not that Icola would abuse her power against her underlings just to vent her anger, of course— but one could hardly blame them for fearing running afoul of the tempers of the mighty.

  When Icola entered the Conclave chambers, she found, unsurprisingly, that she was one of the only members to restrain their anger at all. Her counterpart in ruling Havath, Duarch Locke, was furious, snapping at everyone who approached him. The avatars of the Intertwined, the seven liches whose demesnes wove together to form the bulk of Havath City, were visibly perturbed— which was astonishing in and of itself, for liches were far more capable of restraining their expressions than those made of flesh and blood. Those of the great powers of Havath who could fit into the Conclave chamber were arguing with each other, and with the representatives of those great powers at the borders or those simply too large to fit within the conclave chambers.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t a full Conclave. The generals, provincial representatives, and archmages would have turned the chamber into a full-scale riot, but they were seldom invited to meetings this important.

  Icola took a moment to contemplate the marble and bronze chamber, with its fluted columns, great windows overlooking the city, and its spellform defenses cunningly concealed amongst the decorative bronze inlays.

  Quite a few of the occupants of the chamber were eying her, waiting for her to be seated beside Locke so the meeting could begin, but she strode along the outside of the great round chamber, until she came across one of the westward facing windows.

  Havath City stretched out for miles below her. It was not only the greatest city on the continent, but also the wealthiest, most peaceful, and even the cleanest. Great marble palaces lined its wide boulevards, mixed with immense, perfectly groomed parks and gardens, none of which had a single blade of grass out of place. Even the slums on the edge of the city were clean, orderly, and well tended. No one went hungry in Havath City. It never rained when the Duarchs and the Conclave decreed it wouldn’t, and it never failed to rain when they decreed it would.

  Ringing the edge of the city were seven great bronze-armored statues, towering above the palaces of the city, save for the Conclave itself.

  Far in the distance, past the great walls of the city, Icola could see the grain-covered plains extend to the horizon in orderly, neat squares, laid out sensibly, laid out rationally, with no quarter given to the chaotic whims of nature.

  It was all orderly, it was all neat. The Havathi Dominion existed to bring prosperity, to end the reign of fear and uncertainty that the selfish, feuding great powers brought to Anastis.

  Kanderon would not be allowed to challenge that vision. Kanderon would not be allowed to end Havath, just to preserve her own power. Kanderon and her backers were a blight on the Council, and she had finally given them an excuse to move against her without violating the compact the Council had forced on their factions.

  She could not be trusted with the Exile Splinter. She could not be given a chance to crush the dream of a better future for the Ithonian continent, for Anastis itself.

  She could not be allowed to ruin yet another proving ground for the multiverse.

  Icola sighed and gathered her temper. She would need every ounce of self-control she had to deal with the fractious Conclave.

  It was time for the Havath Dominion to go to war once more.

  On the banks of Lake Nelu, in the first hours of dawn, just as the light of the lake was being replaced with the light of the dawn, the Heir of Ithos crept from the water.

  The light still burnt their eyes even while closed. The heat was overwhelming, though not so hateful as the light. After all, heat is what they had been promised by the Wise Ones on the other side of the dark. They had promised that once they themselves were warm again, they would share that warmth with the Heir. They would make sure the Heir had all the food they could eat, all the clean water they could drink.

  And all of that with no one there to steal it. No one to fight them for scraps in the dark. No one that you had to huddle with to stay warm, but whom you could not fall asleep near lest they decide you were better used for meat than for warmth.

  Of course, they could not fall asleep against you either, for much the same reasons.

  And then the Heir had been the last one scrabbling in the dark. They had been alone. It had been good, until the last of the food began running out. The last of the old ones had filled the heir’s belly, but then they had not been there to make bad water good or make warmth out of nothing for the Heir.

  As much as the Heir could regret anything, it was eating the last old one. They missed the way it was safe to sleep against the old one for warmth without fearing becoming food. They missed the strange lights the old one could summon, and the mysterious warmth. They had tried to teach the Heir these things, but the children born in the dark could not learn the old ones’ magic. All those miraculous things were not what the Heir regretted most about eating the last old one, though.

  No, what the Heir regretted most is that they couldn’t remember the soft nonsense word the last old one had whispered as they brushed the Heir’s stringy, greasy hair with their fingers. It was a word that had described the Heir and only the Heir, and only the last old one had used it, and now the Heir could no longer remember that word.

  When the Heir was alone in the dark, they grew colder and hungrier until they were ready to give up.

  And then the Wise Ones on the other side of the dark had found them. Had spoken to them. Had taught them how to survive the cold. Had taught them so, so many things. So many tricks, so many
strengths. They taught the Heir how to become like the dark itself, that none might remember the Heir after they looked away.

  They taught the Heir how to sleep the sleep that was not sleep, that lasted forever and no time at all, so that the Heir could be ready when the time came.

  And most of all, they taught the Heir how to call them.

  They had warned the Heir how bright this place that was not the dark was. How warm it was. How much food there was.

  But they had also warned them how many others there were. How many others to fight for food and to make you not trust where you slept.

  The Wise Ones’ warning had proven right. The instant the dark had intruded upon the other place for more than mere moments, had grown close enough to that place of light for the Heir to finally awaken fully from the sleep that wasn’t sleep, the others had arrived, swarmed everywhere, and destroyed all of the hiding places and not-shadows of the dark.

  Three of them had seen the Heir. Two of them that were meat and a third that was not meat but still moved, who was small hung over the shoulder of the meat not wearing a shell of stone.

  The Heir had fled then, and they had forgotten the heir, save for the other that was not meat but still moved.

  The Wise Ones had promised the Heir that once they were called, they would take care of all the others that might steal the Heir’s food.

  And the Heir would be alone again, but they would be warm, and they would be full, and they would not need to fear thieves and hungry mouths in the dark anymore. They would not need to fear sleep when it was warm, would not need to fear light as a trap.

  The Wise Ones from the other side of the dark promised that when they were done, they would help the Heir forget the last old one, who somehow hurt them by not being there.

  And the Heir trusted the Wise Ones’ promises, because they had no bodies to betray the Heir with. And if there was only one thing the Heir knew about being human, it was sharing warmth. And the Wise Ones were so cold, and just wanted to be warm again.