“But Kirah was there, too!” exclaimed Bram. “She climbed into the mirror before we left Thonvil. That damned creature snatched me up before I could find her, and now Lyim’s got her.”
Dagamier looked insulted. “I had no way of anticipating your aunt’s uninvited presence when I created the vial.”
“But why would you agree to create such an item when you knew I had vowed to stay until the job was done?”
“Guerrand asked me to,” she said without guile. “He knew I was proficient at summoning monsters. Your uncle told me he wouldn’t activate it until Lyim was dead. He wasn’t supposed to crush the vial prematurely by falling on it.”
“He wasn’t supposed to die, either!”
“Yes, he was,” she countered grimly. “Did you understand your uncle so little you didn’t recognize the fatalism that prompted him to accept this mission? I believe that from the moment he received the summons to Bastion, Guerrand believed he would soon die.”
“But why?”
Dagamier’s rigid shoulders lifted in a shrug. “He just knew. I don’t understand how, exactly—he didn’t confide in me. It was one of the reasons he was so set against your going with him. He didn’t want you to prevent what he saw as his duty. His fate, if you will. That’s what I believe, anyway.”
Bram turned away to ponder that. In hindsight he recalled phrases, worried glances, attempts to persuade him to save himself first.
“I didn’t get the chance to avenge Guerrand, or even bring him back for a decent burial,” he said to himself in a ragged, mournful whisper. “He must still be in the courtyard under tons of rubble.”
“You knew of the Dream?” she asked. “The one where he repeated Rannoch’s leap from the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas.”
“Of course!” Bram returned. “He was more than my uncle and mentor, he was my closest friend.”
Dagamier looked reflective. “Guerrand was a bit obsessed, I think, about the minor nuances between the philosophies of the Orders, at least as far as they concerned him. He was haunted by the fear that he might ever feel compelled to turn to the black robes.”
Dagamier’s words were less than complimentary, yet Bram did not take offense. There was no condemnation in her tone, only a stoic observation. “Mourn him if you will, Bram, but also take heart in the knowledge that he conquered his fear at the last.”
Nodding gently, Bram closed his eyes and called upon the strength of Chislev to heal his aching heart. Even before training with Primula, he had believed in the natural cycle of life, birth, growth, death—even reincarnation. But never had it touched him so closely. Not with Nahamkin, good friend that he’d been. Not even with his own father, Cormac, whose pyre he’d lit to send his spirit skyward. That seemed so long ago now.
With a faint trace of a smile, Bram looked up at Dagamier. “Maybe Guerrand will be reincarnated as a sea gull. He would like that, I think.” Dagamier actually gave a gentle smile in return, and her pale face was transformed in the cold breeze.
“Are you always so insightful, Dagamier?” he asked suddenly. “I would not have guessed it from Guerrand’s descriptions of you.”
Dagamier raised a brow in bemusement at his gaff, though he could see she was not really insulted. “Guerrand and I had an.… interesting acquaintance,” she murmured thoughtfully. “We seldom agreed, but I always respected him. Well,” she amended with a memorable smirk, “at least after a time.”
“I know he felt the same,” Bram said solemnly. An awkward silence descended.
“What are you going to do next?” Dagamier asked at length.
Bram’s face took on a determined look. “Go back to Qindaras to kill Lyim and get Kirah back.”
Dagamier stepped up to the railing that ran along the top of the steep drop-off in front of Bastion. She folded her hands before her with a primness that defied her sensual dress. The wind blew the skirt of her black robe open to briefly reveal well-shaped, milky-white legs. “How long has it been since you’ve slept or eaten?”
He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Too long, I’m sure. Strangely, I don’t feel hungry, but I suppose it would help me to think more clearly.”
“Exactly.” She sniffed the air with good-humored disdain. “A bath probably wouldn’t hurt either. Come on.” She motioned toward the door leading into Bastion. He followed her into the observation area.
Inside, she gave Bram directions to a small but comfortable guest chamber. “I’ll have water and other amenities for bathing sent to your room, along with a tray and wine. Send your bearer to notify me when you’re ready to talk again. We’ll need to discuss our strategy against Lyim before the Council of Three arrives.”
“They’re coming?” Bram dreaded having to report failure on all accounts.
Dagamier nodded. Her look was almost sympathetic. “LaDonna sent a missive. We have until tomorrow morning to prepare.”
Weary and heartsick, Bram trudged off to follow Dagamier’s directions. The reminder of Guerrand’s death brought on a new and unrelenting funk. When the bearer at last finished filling the copper bathtub and left, Bram turned to the meditation that always helped steady his nerves. But today, two passes through the mantra did not bring the relief that one typically did.
Shucking his clothing, Bram moved the food tray to the side of the tub and sank into the hot, sudsy water. He poured himself a glass of the green Ergothian wine and sipped pensively, recalling in vivid detail the events in the palace courtyard. He would have to have his wits about him when he spoke to the Council of Three.
But hot water and cool wine on an empty stomach began to relax him in a way the mantra had not. Bram hefted the bottle of wine, surprised to find he had drunk it all. The water in the copper bath had grown stone cold. He had completely lost track of time. Somewhere in Bastion, the black-robed wizardess must be anxiously waiting for his call.
Dagamier has been surprisingly kind, Bram thought to himself in the warm way wine induces. And not as hard on the eyes as he remembered. Unexpected thoughts of her flooded his foggy head. Bram squinted through bleary eyes, looking for the bell left by the bearer. Spying it at last next to his right arm, he managed to direct his hand to snatch it up. He just succeeded in giving it a ragged jangle before he lost sight of everything altogether.
The exhausted and inebriated lord of Thonvil had passed out in his bath.
* * * * *
Lyim sat slumped on a divan in the back room of the temple to Misal-Lasim. He had scarcely moved from it in the last several days. His severed right arm was bound in a clean rag. He felt like he had stepped back more than five years, to when he had a snake head for a hand. Aside from the initial agony of the conversion, the snake hand had been more inconvenient than painful. This wound, however, still throbbed. He was weak from blood loss.
But he had lost so much more than blood in the days since the palace’s collapse, which Salimshad had helped him to escape.
Lyim could hear the worshipers in the temple and knew without looking that the numbers in attendance had dwindled dramatically. Just then Salimshad pushed through the curtained archway that separated the back room from the temple proper. He lifted up the condor mask. Sweat glistened on his fine elven features in the torchlight.
“Did you hear the questions of your followers, master?” Salim demanded softly. He could tell from Lyim’s expression that the potentate had not. “The destruction of the palace and the loss of your hand before their eyes has caused many to lose faith in our cause. You must do something immediately, unless you intend to abandon your goal of destroying magic. You must rekindle the fire in their hearts, master, and reclaim their loyalty, or all is for naught!”
“They’re lucky all they lost was their faith,” Lyim said tonelessly.
“But you can regain everything!” protested Salimshad. “I scoured the ruins of the courtyard until I found the gauntlet. You can use it to rebuild, if that’s your desire.”
Lyim stirred from his self-pity to e
xclaim angrily, “Don’t you see? I’m handless again!” Lyim waved his stump, the new bandage showing spots of blood already. “I can’t wear the gauntlet without a right hand. Even if I could forget that Ventyr betrayed me to Guerrand.”
“She can no longer betray you to him.”
Lyim actually smiled, though it lacked conviction. “Thank you for finding the one bright spot in this whole disaster, Salim. Guerrand can no longer steal what is mine. In that context, his death may actually have been worth the loss of my hand.”
“You recovered your hand once before under much more trying circumstances,” Salim said.
“You’re talking about me using my magical skills,” Lyim accused him.
Salim shrugged. “As you yourself have said: ‘only a diamond can cut a diamond’. If you do nothing but sit in the back room of this temple until you die, you will have given victory to those who tried to destroy you. You might as well have fallen from the parapet yourself, instead of that mage sent to assassinate you.”
Lyim paused, considering. “Tell me again why you think Guerrand’s nephew Bram may no longer be a threat to me in the city.”
Salimshad nodded. “When I was searching the courtyard for the gauntlet and your hand, I saw him being carried away by a fearsome-looking winged creature. I don’t know where it came from or why, but Bram was struggling to escape it. I have doubts that he would even have survived the creature’s entrapment.”
Salim removed the mask and set it on a shelf. “And what of his relation?” he asked cautiously. “Are you sure you can trust her?”
“Kirah?” Lyim snorted with a visible jerk of his shoulders. “You know better than to ask that, Salim. I trust no one. Besides, if she meant to kill me, she would have tried while we were pleasantly engaged.”
“She doesn’t blame you for her brother’s death?”
“Kirah is still in shock, I think. But I have reminded her that I was willing to save Guerrand, and he declined my offer. Kirah cannot deny the truth of that. She was there. She saw.”
The elf squinted into the shadows. “Where is she now?”
“She went to the marketplace for food.”
“Is that why you have kept her around when you can no longer torture her brother with the sight? Any of the novitiates would be happy to bring you food.”
Lyim shrugged again dismissively. “Kirah serves me in many ways. She comes in handy now that I can no longer wear Ventyr. I have no one else to wait on me since all the servants not killed in the destruction of the palace have fled. I have no power to draw them back, nor am I likely to ever again.”
Salimshad looked at him questioningly. “So you have given up.”
Lyim scowled at the elf’s critical tone. “It would take a miracle to persuade the citizens of Qindaras I am god-touched after they witnessed my vulnerability on the parapet, not to mention the destruction of the palace. A damned miracle …”
Suddenly Lyim’s dark eyes squinted with a new, evil light. “I think I may just know where to find such a miracle.” He stood and raced for the door, insight and energy coming all in a burst. “Meet me at the palace with a work detail of fifty diggers. I need some of the things from the storage rooms. And arrange to have someone put up notices and inform the priests to announce another rally at high sun in the ruins of the palace courtyard. Yes,” he said, “that should give me enough time.”
“What if the people won’t come?”
Lyim scowled. “Not everyone has turned against me so quickly. Enough will appear out of curiosity, and the rest will hear by word-of-mouth of the miracle Misal-Lasim will grant me at high sun tomorrow!”
* * * * *
For the third time in a week, the citizens of Qindaras were gathered in the courtyard of their potentate’s ruined palace. Bells rang all over the city, announcing the call to hear the potentate’s words. Priests at daily worship had been ordering the faithful to attend.
Kirah shivered in her borrowed cloak. Winter had returned to Qindaras with a vengeance after the destruction of the palace. She was waiting with the faithful and feckless alike for the potentate to address his people. Though Lyim had made it clear he expected her to stay close, Kirah had slipped away easily enough today. Salimshad had been preoccupied with preparations and preaching at temples since Lyim had given the order to assemble the citizens.
Kirah had been busy herself. She had to learn if Bram was safe. Someone had to have seen him in the city. Kirah was determined to keep looking on the sly until she found him. Yesterday’s trip to the market stalls had given her an opportunity. After collecting a few apples, she’d spent the rest of her time trying to find anyone who knew anything about Bram’s disappearance. No one she spoke to had remembered much detail about the mayhem in the courtyard that night. But she’d overheard Lyim’s elf say that he’d seen Bram being carried away by some hideous, magical monster. Kirah couldn’t credit that, though. Bram would not have used his own magic to run away from anything.
Kirah was less certain about herself. Everything had got so tangled since she’d been forced from the mirror in Lyim’s sculpting studio. Guerrand had been so angry. She’d never had a chance to explain. Now he was dead. Kirah squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t think about that. It hurt too much to contemplate that she’d finally got one person she loved, only to lose another.
Kirah opened her eyes again, determined to focus on the event at hand. Stalwart or stupid, citizens had obviously taken to looting, for even the ruins of the five hundred thirty-four domes had been scraped for their metal, however little the metal might be worth. Kirah could imagine nothing more desolate than the heaps of rubble: shattered masonry, broken rafters jutting up like great ribs, tumbled doors with hinges creaking in the cold wind.
The bells had stopped pealing, but the echo over Qindaras continued for many moments. When it finally ceased, the potentate scrambled like a common chimney sweep to the highest point on the rubble that a man with one hand could reach. Even at this distance, Kirah could clearly see that the stump of Lyim’s right arm was still wrapped with a rag.
Kirah noticed with the eyes of a lover that Lyim looked exhausted. She knew his was a soul completing a long march into madness. She was powerless to stop him—or stop herself from wanting to stay with him.
“Citizens of Qindaras!” Lyim cried. He managed to silence the whispers and cries from the crowd. “We are standing in these ruins today, a reminder of our transgressions. I have spent the two days since the palace’s destruction in fasting and prayer to Misal-Lasim. He has revealed to me that our lack of faith brought down this centuries-old palace just as surely as if we’d torn it down with our hands!”
The wind whipped at Lyim’s loose clothing as he paused, letting the crowd absorb his words. “We were chosen by Misal-Lasim from all the people of the world to fulfill a mission. But we grew complacent, lazy, from the evidence of Misal-Lasim’s goodwill in restoring Qindaras, and we failed! Misal-Lasim destroyed the palace and recalled the harsh weather to show us the error of our sinful ways!
“But the news is not all bad! Misal-Lasim has given us a second chance, anew lease. We must recommit ourselves to the destruction of magic, as so many of you did just days ago, in this very place. To that end, we will march on the greatest storehouse of magic in this world, the Tower of High Sorcery! United, we can destroy it. Misal-Lasim’s favor will be ours once more!”
The potentate’s cry to arms was met with a mixture of cheers from those who had never lost faith, and the jeers of those who had.
From somewhere in the crowd, a man shouted, “How do we know this quest is blessed by Misal-Lasim? Our homes were not destroyed, only yours!” Guards posted throughout the crowd heard the speaker, however, and surged forward with raised poleaxes to punish the man for his insolence.
“Let the man speak!” Lyim decreed. The guards dropped the man’s arms, but remained by his side. Lyim asked him to repeat his question; the man nervously complied.
Lyim considered onl
y briefly. “I, too, have asked such questions. But I have faith. Faith enough to prove the power of the god we serve. Behold!”
Lyim closed his eyes for many moments in concentration, then raised the stump of his arm high. “I wish for the restoration of my hand so that I may better serve the will of Misal-Lasim!”
With his left hand Lyim stripped away the bandages. His face twisted in pain, and he grabbed his wrist with his left hand. Fresh blood spurted from the stump, then stopped. The skin at the wrist, shriveled and crusted, started to stretch. Nubs of finger bones appeared and grew, then raw red muscle and exposed veins crept across the bones, finally forming into the shape of a hand. The agony on Lyim’s face receded as flesh spread over the new bones. With gritted teeth, Lyim flexed the newborn fingers, formed a fist, and held it aloft.
A hush fell over the crowd. Slowly, the crowd began to chant. The sound was a rolling, gathering thing, until the courtyard vibrated. There was not one dry eye in the ever-growing crowd. “Aniirin! Aniirin! Aniirin!”
Kirah, though moist eyed like the rest, had seen enough magic to recognize a wizard’s wish spell. But the good citizens of Qindaras were certain they had witnessed a miracle. Perhaps they had, Kirah mused. Lyim had reestablished their faith in the beat of a charismatic heart. He might march to the Abyss to further his goal of destroying the Art, but after today’s demonstration, it was clear the citizens of Qindaras would follow him there.
Bram knew that something was wrong the moment he opened his eyes. Different, anyway. He was tucked up in a warm bed in dry clothes. The last thing he remembered, he’d been bathing, drinking a bottle of green wine. Recalling the taste of the drink, he shivered, causing his head to throb. A knock rang out on his door.
“Come.”
Dagamier strode in, her face an unreadable mask.
The Seventh Sentinel Page 24
