Dormael looked down at his shackles, appearing to realize that his wrists were still held by them. He frowned, and D’Jenn felt his song murmur as the metal snapped and fell to the stone. Dormael brushed his hands together, taking the clothes and beginning to dress.
“Coz, you might want to clean up a bit,” D’Jenn said, indicating Dormael’s blood-spattered skin.
“Oh, right,” Dormael murmured. He closed his eyes, and D’Jenn felt his magic move again. The blood lifted from his skin and flaked away into the air, until Dormael no longer looked like a vision out of some nightmare. His eyes, though, remained haunted.
“Inera got away?” Dormael asked, looking at D’Jenn. D’Jenn nodded back. He noticed Dormael’s avoidance of Allen’s question—are you alright?—but declined to say anything. Allen caught his eyes and relayed a meaningful look. D’Jenn gave the barest hint of a nod in response, acknowledging that he saw it, too.
“Eindor’s bloody eye,” Dormael cursed. “She’s working with that…with that gods-damned vilth. She’s one of them.”
“Gods,” Allen said. “You mean a necromancer, like the one in the mountains?”
“Worse,” Dormael said. “She’s more powerful than Jureus was by far.”
D’Jenn nodded. “I remember what her gift was like before. It’s changed—it’s broader, stronger, and infused with that energy, whatever it was.”
“Don’t they eat dead bodies, kill people right and left, that sort of thing?” Allen asked.
“All of those things, and worse, I suspect,” D’Jenn said. “The Conclave doesn’t know much about them. They have a strict kill-them-wherever-you-find-them policy. Most of what we know comes from eyewitness accounts of past vilthinum activities, and some of it is…questionable. I’m surprised to see her alive.”
“Imagine how I feel,” Dormael muttered. “Besides, I’m not sure she is totally alive.”
“Who is she?” Allen asked.
“An old friend,” D’Jenn answered, unsure if Dormael would have wanted him to reveal anything.
“I was in love with her once,” Dormael said, as if he were announcing it to himself as much as his brother. “She was…different, then.”
“One would hope,” Allen said. Dormael gave him an evil look, which Allen ignored.
“I’m glad you’re alright, though. D’Jenn was worried about you,” Allen said.
D’Jenn just gave a derisive snort in reply.
“Good to see I’m so loved,” Dormael smiled.
“What was she doing here?” D’Jenn asked. He walked over the scene, surveying the ruins of the Greater Circle on the ground, and that of the Circle on the wall. “These markings—I’ve never seen their like.”
“She was…she was torturing me for information. She wanted the armlet. She wanted Shawna,” Dormael said, his shoulders slumping beneath the weight of the admission. “When I refused her, she summoned up a demon that would have worn my skin and taken my identity—at least, I think it was a demon. She mentioned her master. There can be no question. She’s one of them, through and through.” Dormael’s eyes grew darker with each word, until he was staring at the remains of her mysterious Circle as if he wanted to smash it.
“How do you know that—the thing about the demon taking your identity?” D’Jenn asked, suddenly interested. Little was known about the denizens of the outside planes. Where had Dormael learned about them? He loved his cousin, but if D’Jenn hadn’t read about it, then Dormael certainly hadn’t.
Unless one could read it from the thighs of a laughing girl, or the bottom of a cup.
“It’s not important,” Dormael said. He’d spoken a little too quickly, moving to pull his shirt over his head. He was hiding something, but D’Jenn had no idea why.
It must be the day for fucking secrets. Everyone is keeping something from me.
D’Jenn almost said something, but decided to let the matter lie. After all, Dormael had just been tortured—and from the amount of blood, D’Jenn was surprised the man could even stand, much less anything else. For all the gore that had covered him—and what covered the spot under which he had hung—he should have been bleeding from a thousand cuts. Instead, he looked whole.
Too whole, he realized as his eyes caught something that almost floored him.
“Dormael, wait,” D’Jenn said, reaching out a hand to forestall him from pulling the shirt over his head. “That bruise you had—it’s gone!”
“I know,” Dormael sighed. “She used her powers on me, D’Jenn. She…healed me somehow. Do you see that jar on the table?”
D’Jenn looked to where his cousin was pointing, eyes alighting on a glass jar with a thick cork in the top. Lights swirled around inside of it, revolving in an endless parade around the edge of the glass. D’Jenn had never seen anything like it.
Allen walked over to the bottle and picked it up off the table, gazing into the water at the lights. He shook the bottle, causing both Dormael and D’Jenn to start back in surprise. One just didn’t go about shaking magical things—some of them blew up! D’Jenn relaxed when nothing happened, and shook his head as Allen walked over to them.
“The little sparks didn’t get shaken with the rest of the water,” Allen said as he walked up. “Watch.”
And again, as Dormael and D’Jenn both made protesting, fearful noises, Allen swirled the bottle in a circle, causing the water to spin. The lights continued their slow revolutions of the glass, as if the water wasn’t even there. Dormael and D’Jenn both gave Allen meaningful scowls, but Allen only answered with a smile.
“What?”
“Nothing,” D’Jenn said. “Just that shaking that thing around might have killed us all. Nothing to worry about.”
Allen smiled.
“Like this?” he asked, shaking the bottle again.
“Give me that!” Dormael said, snatching the bottle from Allen’s hands as his brother laughed. Dormael handed the bottle over to D’Jenn and went back to straightening his clothing. D’Jenn raised the bottle to his eyes.
He gazed into the water, watching the sparks of light revolve around the bottle in contented circles. It was sort of beautiful, if you didn’t take into account that it had been used by a vilth, and was most likely made with necromancy. Their hypnotic spin was pleasant to look upon, but the gods only knew how the things had been created. For all D’Jenn knew, they were the souls of suffering children.
Shawna would like that one—he’d have to make sure and tell her.
“What did she do with it?” D’Jenn asked, still gazing into the bottle.
“She fed the lights to me,” Dormael replied, his expression becoming uncomfortable. “There were more of them before—I think they are expended with each use. When I swallowed them, they…well, they healed me. Stitched my cuts together like they’d never happened. I had no idea that vilthinum were capable of such things.”
“Why in the Six Hells did she heal you?” Allen asked.
“Because,” Dormael said, “I was close to death. She did it multiple times.”
The casual way that Dormael said it gave D’Jenn the chills. Allen’s jaw worked again, his expression becoming angry. The room was silent for a tense, uncomfortable moment.
“Let’s get back to the surface,” Dormael said, his tone grim. “We need to get back to the Conclave as quickly as we can.”
“Indeed,” D’Jenn nodded. “The reason we knew you were missing is that I needed to find you. Some new information has come to light.”
“No kidding,” Allen said, gesturing around at the carnage.
“What new information?” Dormael asked.
“It’s about Victus,” D’Jenn sighed, the words tasting like bile even as he said them. “He’s been using us. He’s been using everyone.”
Dormael looked as if he wanted to object, wanted to argue. Something in his eyes, though, told D’Jenn that maybe he’d seen so much horror today that one more thing was just a rock on top of a mountain. Dormael sighed, and nodded his h
ead as his shoulders slumped again.
“Of course he has,” was all he said.
“We need to get back, get you looked at,” D’Jenn said.
“No,” Dormael grunted, shaking his head. “If Victus is using us, as you say, then whom can we trust? You and I both know that the only reason we came here was for his help.”
“I don’t know,” D’Jenn said. “I just…don’t know. Something will present itself, though. We’re only stuck if we let ourselves be stuck.”
Dormael narrowed his eyes.
“Victus used to tell me that,” he said.
“Where do you think I got it?”
“Regardless,” Dormael said, “Inera wanted Shawna, wanted the armlet. If I can be taken off the streets of Ishamael, wounded or not, then what else are they capable of doing? What plans are they hatching? We need to get back to the Conclave, find Bethany and Shawna, and figure out our next move.”
“Agreed,” D’Jenn nodded.
“This just got a lot more interesting,” Allen smiled. When D’Jenn and Dormael gave him a disgusted look, he shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that—I’ve been lounging around the Conclave for days, now. You promised excitement. I’m just glad it’s finally here.”
“You’re an idiot,” Dormael said, but laughter bubbled at the edges of his tone.
“You wanted to bring me along,” Allen pointed out.
“True enough,” Dormael said. “Let’s go. I’m ready to get out of these gods-damned tunnels for good.”
D’Jenn made sure to take the bottle of lights with them as they left the corpse-strewn room behind.
The Crux
Maarkov sat staring over the rocky ledge, watching the storm move northward through the Runemian valley. The sun peeked from the edge of the far horizon, a tiny sliver of its backside as it retreated to the west. Thunder rumbled from the storm in the distance, and Maarkov could still see rain sheeting down from the clouds.
The wind in the mountains was cold, though Maarkov knew there was no reason for him to care, other than comfort. He could wade through a snow drift on the Sea of Moving Ice, and it would not kill him. His eyeballs could freeze, his blood could freeze, and his body would go on living—or moving, anyway. He wasn’t sure if alive was a word he would have used to describe himself anymore.
Could eyeballs freeze? He’d have to ask Maaz. They could burst, or squish—he’d seen that before. He’d never seen them frozen, though.
Maarkov packed a pipe full of flaky tobacco, and got up to tread over to the fire for a burning twig. The strega—now a veritable troop—stood silent sentry in the clearing, staring out in all directions. The things made his skin crawl. The utter silence, the stillness, the lack of anything resembling a self behind those dead, milky eyes—there were a million reasons he hated the things. The boy who had watched his family be killed in the hinterlands of Soirus-Gamerit was among them, his lanky body now gray, his eyes empty. The whole family was here, in fact—together in life, together in un-life.
Maarkov watched the things, silent as rotting statues. The problem was when they got moving. All of a sudden the things would just move—all in the same manner, all without uttering a sound. Maarkov found himself staring at them, waiting to see if something would trigger them. But they only stood, deep cloaks flapping in the cold mountain wind, like statues made of rotting flesh.
Every time the wind eddied, Maarkov was assaulted by their sour fucking stench.
“There’s an old superstition in Dannon,” he said, unable to stand the silence anymore. Maaz paused in his silent brooding and looked up at his brother. Maarkov cleared his throat. “The older tribes believe that the last thing a person sees is burned onto the back of his eyes, and if you pluck them out, you can see what they saw.” Maarkov stared at the boy—the strega that had been made from the boy, he corrected himself—and wondered.
“What’s your point?” Maaz asked.
“The boy, Maaz,” Maarkov sighed. “Do you think that the sight of his family murdered, his mother being eaten—do you think that’s burned onto the back of his eyes?” He remembered the way the boy had looked at him, as his mother’s blood ran hot into Maarkov’s mouth. The mealy texture of her flesh, and the boy’s horrified expression—that was what Maarkov remembered.
Maaz gave him a disgusted look, then turned one on the boy. He spat in the general direction of the things and turned back to his brother, giving Maarkov a look that was deeper than disgust—pity, maybe. Maarkov doubted it, though.
“Maarkov—why in the Six Hells do you care? The boy is gone. The strega is nothing but a thing.”
“I was just thinking about it is all,” Maarkov grumbled. “Do we have to sit here with the fucking things standing in the trees like a bunch of silent ghosts?”
Maaz gave him a flat look.
“Do they bother you, brother?” he asked.
“They do.”
The shadows grew long while Maaz stared at him. His brother’s eyes were like twin beads of glass reflecting the light of the campfire, no feeling moving beneath the lenses. His cloak hid most of his face, but his posture told Maarkov what his expression would be. After all—they had spent all these long, arduous years together.
“You understand that they are nothing—no thoughts, no desires. Nothing. They are not going to come for you. In fact, if we are stumbled upon, you may be glad they are here,” Maaz said.
A gust of wind fluttered the flames, and brought the smell of the things again to Maarkov’s nose.
“I know what they are, brother,” Maarkov said. “Do you think that I cannot feel the dust in my own body, the dry feeling of my flesh rubbing together as it moves? I think I can hear it sometimes—and I think I can hear theirs as well!”
“Nonsense,” Maaz said. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“I will take my bedroll away from the fire,” Maarkov grumbled. “I don’t like to sleep with those things standing over me, rotting away into the air that I breathe.”
“You don’t really need to breathe, it’s just a reflex,” Maaz said, already looking again into the flames.
“And whose fucking fault is that, Maaz?” Maarkov said, rising to his feet. “Why must I go on breathing, paring nails that don’t grow, feeling only discomfort from the temperature? Why must I persist?”
Maaz let out an all-suffering sigh. “Maarkov—”
“Why must this go on, brother?” Maarkov growled. “I should have been dead years gone. Years and years. Each passing day, I care less about this…this everything. When will you release me?”
Maaz swallowed his words, but avoided meeting Maarkov’s eyes. He stood above his brother, chest full of heat, waiting for him to say something. Maaz just stared into the flames, those glassy eyes of his reflecting their dancing patterns across the unfeeling lenses. The silence stretched on.
“Would you leave me, then, brother?” Maaz asked, right at the moment Maarkov was about to turn away. “Would you leave me now?”
Maarkov’s teeth settled together, his jaw muscle clenching.
“Will you leave me now?” he said, eyes full of tears. “Are you going to leave me here?”
Maarkov looked down at his hands, the sword still clenched in his bloody fingers. His father’s eyes stared up at him, glassy and unfeeling, the accusation frozen forever in his expression. That would be the look on his face in the Void, the one the gods would see. Maarkov’s father would slip into the Void and all the gods would laugh at the look on his face.
It was all his fault—everything was always his bloody fault!
“Are you going to leave me now, brother?” Maaz asked, clutching to his arm.
Maarkov stared at his brother, the hunched shoulders beneath the black cloak. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped on the precipice of speaking. The lump in his throat wouldn’t budge, and the words wouldn’t come out around them. Something held them in his chest with fingers of iron and ice.
Maaz suddenly sat up, look
ing toward the road.
The strega all moved at once.
Maarkov almost cursed out loud as he jumped, an instant of terror that they were coming for him taking wild root in his heart. When the things ran silently into the woods, he relaxed, but screamed a few curses on the inside. They got him every single time, even though he told himself over and over again that next time he would be ready.
Every single gods-damned time.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Maaz smiled.
“Why, we’re going to have a few more friends over for dinner,” he said. “There’s a caravan coming through the pass.”
With that, he rose and disappeared into the dusky blue shadows between the trees.
Maarkov felt disgust rising in his stomach. More strega would be joining them—no doubt that was what his brother had meant. Maarkov cursed and went for his bedroll. His brother and his pets could have their fun, he wanted no part of it tonight. He dragged his blankets further into the woods, near the rocky ledge that overlooked the valley.
The screams reached him an hour later, but he ignored them.
***
Bethany had run down so many darkened corridors, through so many intersections, up and down so many flights of dusty stairs that she was completely turned around. Her magic had long since abandoned her to the dark, and her heart was racing too fast to summon it up again. She couldn’t get her mind to still her beating heart.
She sobbed, unable to get the screams of the burning man to stop echoing through her thoughts. The way he’d screamed—No! Please!—bounced back and forth in her ears until she tried putting her hands over them, but she couldn’t keep the noise out. Even the sound of her own sobbing couldn’t drown it out.
Bethany felt certain that she was deeper under the Conclave than she had been before. She had run down several staircases, feeling her way along curving walls, and stepping with as much grace as her pounding heart would allow. She was pretty sure that she’d only run up once—or maybe twice, she couldn’t remember. All she had known was that she needed to get away.
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