“Hello, Loren,” she said. “I can only imagine how much you have missed me.”
forty-three
LOREN TURNED AND FLED FOR her life. Her feet pounded down the path back towards camp, jostling her shoulder and making her wince as she plunged into the trees.
“Oh, Loren,” called Auntie. “Why have you always been so coy?”
She risked a glance back over her shoulder, but the weremage had vanished. Loren whirled, seeking her out in the jungle, but saw nothing.
“Why—how long?” she called out. If she could get Auntie to talk, she might be able to tell the woman’s location. “When did you kill Niya and take her place?”
“You stupid, stupid girl.” The voice came floating from her left, and Loren turned. Still she saw nothing. “It has always been me. From the very first time when you made your moon-eyes at me upon the Seat.”
“That is a lie,” said Loren at once. “You were kind. You were even … you acted as though you—”
“As though I wanted you?” Auntie laughed, long and cruel. “As I said. A stupid girl. So stupid, you very nearly betrayed the love of your life for a pair of strong arms.”
She was trying to circle around, to come between Loren and the path back to camp. “Chet!” screamed Loren, breaking into a spring and ignoring the pain in her chest. “Chet!”
The jungle was silent. For a moment she wondered if Auntie was still there, stalking her, or if the weremage had decided not to chase her, and instead to go back for the camp. She must reach it first. If Auntie hurt any of the others—
Auntie leapt out of the trees, right in front of Loren, who tried to skid to a halt. But the weremage’s hand darted out and seized her shoulder. Loren cried out with pain and fell to her knees. Auntie sneered down at her.
“The mighty Nightblade,” she said. “How long I have waited to bring you low, but I could not have imagined how sweet it would be—almost as sweet as the taste of you upon my lips.”
“Why?” gasped Loren, as Auntie continued to squeeze her wound through the bandage. “Why all of this?”
“Oh, it was hard, it was so very hard, Loren, not to kill you until now,” said Auntie. Without removing her grip, she knelt, her face only a few inches from Loren’s. “Even the delightful charms of your eyes, darkness take them, did not still my wrath, my desire to taste your blood upon my knife. But I knew I must be patient. I knew I must wait. For I knew in the end you would bring me to Damaris.”
Her free hand pulled down her collar. Then Loren saw that she still had Niya’s ruined throat, the mass of scar tissue that spoke of a grievous wound.
“She gave me this. She gave me this because of you. I lay in that sewer for days as I tried to stitch my own neck together, and still it is ruined. Because of you.” Her voice was little more than rasping breath now, sweet and pungent in Loren’s nostrils. “That is why I needed you, needed you both, you see. But while I waited, while I followed you as you bumbled your way across Feldemar in search of her, I decided that you would be mine before the end.”
Loren struck all at once, hoping to surprise her. Her fist slammed into Auntie’s ruined throat, and the weremage coughed violently just before Loren crushed her nose with her forehead. She fought to gain her feet, but Auntie recovered, sweeping her legs out from under her with a vicious kick. Loren crashed down upon her back, screaming as agony lanced her shoulder.
Auntie leapt atop her, drawing something from her pocket. She threw in Loren’s face—a fine powder, burnt orange. Loren gasped without thinking and felt it enter her lungs. Her body seized up, arms twitching, and then they ceased to move at all. She fell utterly limp, her limbs refusing to answer the call of her mind, as Auntie grinned down at her.
“A poison,” said Auntie. “It may kill you in time, if I use enough of it. For I will use a very great deal, Loren, a very great deal. But mostly, I will use it to hold you in place. Because I do not wish for you to go anywhere, Nightblade—not while I carve you up, a piece at a time.”
She drew a knife from her boot and held it up. Loren would have recoiled if she could, if her body would obey any of her commands. It was the knife from her dream. Old, rusted, dirty, far below the quality one would expect of a merchant—but just right for a madwoman who lurked in the sewers of Cabrus.
Yet Loren could not even scream. Only her eyes obeyed her, and even that was sluggish.
“I want you awake for all of it. I want you to feel every bit of it—every cut. And I want you to remember all the while, Loren.” She leaned down, her lips brushing against Loren’s ear. “I want you to remember that you almost chose me. That you almost gave yourself to me, in every way, instead of the boy you claimed to love.”
“Loren!”
Auntie whirled. The voice was Chet’s, but it came from a distance, somewhere off through the trees. He called out again. He was closer now. He was coming this way.
No, no, sky above, no, thought Loren. Run Chet, please, darkness take me, run.
Atop her, Auntie gave a furious growl—but then she froze. She turned and looked down at Loren, an evil look in her eye.
“You told me that Chet knows you. That he understands you. You are wrong, you know. Let me show you.”
Light flowed from her eyes once more, and her body began to shift. Her blonde hair turned black and grew out, and olive skin turned to white. The transformation ended, and panic seized Loren’s breath—for she stared into her own eyes. Auntie had taken on her likeness—indeed, she looked identical, for they wore the same dark brown trousers, the same white shirt, though Auntie’s was somewhat too large, for it had been tailored to Niya’s larger frame.
“Come with me, girl,” said Auntie, and Loren shuddered inwardly to hear her own voice from that mouth. “I would not want you to miss a thing.”
The weremage leapt up and threw her arms beneath Loren’s, dragging her off to the side of the path. She rolled Loren beneath some bushes there, and ripped some branches from the trees, throwing them over her body. But she knelt and moved the branches slightly so that Loren could look out.
“You can see me, can you not, girl?” whispered Auntie. “I would not want you to miss a thing.”
Then she rose and turned, just as Loren heard Chet approach from down the path.
“Loren!” he exclaimed. “There you are. I heard you call my name, and I feared something was wrong.”
Sky above, no, thought Loren. She railed at her body, screaming for her arms to move, but they would not comply.
“Wrong? What could be wrong?” said Auntie. She waited for Chet to come to her, so that she could be sure Loren would see them. Chet stepped up to her, and Auntie slid her arms to lace her fingers behind his neck. She drew him close and gave him a long, passionate kiss. Loren wanted to close her eyes, but even that was beyond her power. “Nothing can be wrong when you are with me.”
“I am flattered, though that has not proven to be the case in recent days,” said Chet, giving her a wry smile.
Chet, look to the left, thought Loren. Please, please. Look to the left. See me.
His head jerked up, and a mad hope filled her that somehow he had heard her. But he looked the other direction. “Where is Niya?”
“After she showed me the clearing above, she went off on her own. She said she would make for the camp in a while. I am surprised you did not see her—but glad as well, for it means I have you alone.” Slowly her hands slid down his chest, and then around his waist. He responded by wrapping his arms around her and leaning in for another kiss. “And while we are here, and alone …” Her hands slid around to his front, toying with the buckle of his belt.
Chet drew back, laughing with embarrassment. “I—Loren, what are you doing? We are in the open jungle.”
“And why should that matter? No one is near to see us.” Auntie smiled up at him and cocked an eyebrow. Her lips had a wry twist, and her eyes shone with promise.
That is not my smile, Chet, screamed Loren. You know it. You know my e
yes. Look at them!
But he only glanced back over his shoulder, a silly grin stealing across his face. “What if Niya should return and look for you?”
“She will not,” said Auntie. “I told you, she makes for camp.” When he still seemed hesitant, she kissed him again and finished removing his belt while their lips were still locked.
They fell to the floor of the path, tearing at each other’s clothes. Soon Auntie rolled Chet onto his back and sat atop him. Their low, hushed moans soon mingled with the sounds of the jungle, while Loren could do nothing but watch.
And then she blinked.
At first she did not notice, and then it happened again. She tried once more—and her eyelids responded.
Loren tried to move her hand. Her fingers twitched.
Could the poison be wearing off already? Auntie had made it sound as though she would be frozen for hours. Surely the weremage would not have left her here if the paralysis would wear off so soon.
Once again, Xain’s words came to her. The remedies of the apothecary have little effect upon a wizard who eats magestones, and the same is true for poisons.
The magestone she had eaten in Yewamba. It was still within her, burning the poison out of her blood.
She tried again, and this time her hand moved, jerking off of her stomach and landing on the dirt beside her. She heaved again, and it inched towards the path a little more.
Chet and Auntie were growing more passionate with every moment, and the weremage sounded nearly frenzied at their tryst. She looked down at Chet, smiling fiendishly at him. “Do you love me, Chet?”
“Of course,” he said, breathless.
“Do you know me?”
“I—what?” Distracted for a moment, he frowned up at her.
Slowly, painfully, Loren dragged her feet up towards her body, her knee bending up into the air. Her body jerked towards the path as she let the knee fall, but though the branches that covered her rustled, it was not loud enough to hear.
Without warning, Auntie slapped Chet’s face. “Do you know me? Better than any other?”
“Loren, what in the darkness below—”
“Tell me!” cried Auntie. Neither of them had bothered to remove their tunics, and she seized the front of his now. “Tell me you know me, better than any other in all the nine kingdoms.”
Chet shook his head and tried to push up on his elbows. “Enough, Loren. I do not know what you—”
Auntie jerked him up and slammed him back down on the ground, and then in an instant her old, rusted knife was in her hand. She pressed it against his throat.
No! cried Loren. She saw Damaris holding the knife in her dream, saw it part Chet’s skin, saw his blood splashing upon the ground. “Chet,” she croaked. One hand raised, shaking as it rose into the air, helpless. “Chet.” But he could not hear her.
“Tell me,” rasped Auntie.
Chet went white with fear. “Loren, what are you—”
Loren heaved herself out of the bushes, crashing down on the grass of the path. The sound drew Chet’s attention at last, and he looked over at her. His face became a mask of confusion, and then terror as he looked up at Auntie.
“Chet,” gasped Loren. “Run.”
Auntie smiled at her, a feral grin, and her eyes began to glow. She transformed back into herself again, keeping the knife pressed to Chet’s throat. Chet recoiled with a cry, but he could not move from under her with the blade pressing against his skin.
“Well met, lover,” said Auntie. “Are you not enjoying yourself? Am I not twice the bedfellow Loren is? She is little more than a girl, after all.”
Chet panicked and tried to snatch her hand away, but Auntie seized his wrist and slammed it back into the ground. She did not move the blade from his neck, nor did she stop her writhing on top of him.
“Oh, but you are no longer so excited,” said Auntie, pouting down at where they were joined. With a flash of magelight, she turned into Niya. “Do you prefer another? Do you think I did not notice you eyeing me from time to time as we rode together? Or was that only jealousy? No, you desired another still, did you not?” Another flash of magelight, and now she was Weath. “Yes, little Weath, your ‘friend.’ The one whose fragile little neck broke so easily, just before I pitched her from the walls of Yewamba.”
“Stop,” groaned Chet, turning his head as though he could sink into the ground away from her. “Please, stop it.”
Loren tried to rise, tried to crawl towards them, but her legs were still sluggish. Only her arms would obey her commands. Then she remembered her dagger. It was still in her boot. Shaking, she reached for it.
“Do not tell me you did not want her. You have had a greedy mind, little boy,” said Auntie, her cruel smile turning into a grimace of hate. “And you will pay for your every untoward thought.”
The dagger slid easily from its sheath. Loren hefted it, feeling the weight. The handle is the heavier end, she thought, turning it to hold it by the blade. Sky above, do not let me miss.
She threw the dagger. It sank into Auntie’s arm. The weremage screamed in pain and reared back—and her blade came away from Chet’s throat. He rose up and snatched her wrist, and then struck her in the face before wrestling her to the ground. With his weight he pinned her, driving a knee into her chest and holding both her hands above her head. She screamed again, but it turned into a harsh laugh. He shook as he held her down, his hands grasping at her throat.
Auntie glared hatred at Loren. “You promised, you sniveling little liar. You promised you would not throw the knife at me.”
“Shut up!” screamed Chet. “Shut up, you vile … you—” He shoved her hands away as she tried to fight him off, pressing her face into the dirt.
“Oh, is this all you wanted?” sneered Auntie. “To be in control? You should have told me. Take me, then, if you wish.”
“You—you took me, you took me without—” Chet’s eyes were wild, his lips drawn back in a snarl. He seized the hilt of Loren’s dagger and twisted it, drawing a fresh scream from Auntie. “I will kill you.”
“I believe you,” said Auntie. “What are you waiting for?”
“Chet,” groaned Loren. “Chet, wait.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “Wait? You tell me to wait? You saw what she did, Loren. You know what the King’s law commands.”
Loren tried to rise to hands and knees, but her legs would still not obey her. “You are not a killer, Chet,” she said. The words came thick and slow upon her tongue, for the poison had not entirely left her. “Remember what happened on the shores of Dorsea, how Xain—”
“He killed a prisoner at his mercy,” cried Chet, his voice rising to a great shout. “How dare you? How dare you call this the same?”
“The law is clear,” said Auntie, giggling. “And I have violated it so very badly.”
“Shut up,” growled Chet.
“Let the Mystics take her,” said Loren. “Bring her before the King’s law.”
Chet looked at her for a moment. She thought she saw the fury fading from his eyes. But at last he shook his head, and she saw that the anger was not gone—it had only turned to icy, a terrible, bloodless rage.
“We are the King’s law,” he said. “This is not revenge, Loren. It is justice.”
He was right. Of course he was right. Every child in Underrealm knew the law, and she would not have blinked at the sentence had anyone else carried it out. But to see Chet with the blade in his hand, death in his eyes … she could not bear it.
“Very well,” she said softly. Her gaze from him, and she looked at Auntie instead. The weremage looked back, her eyes twitching, her teeth showing in a smile, as though she had never been happier. She was still smiling when Chet lowered the dagger and slit her throat, sending her blood gushing across ground. A burbling laugh poured up through her lips, along with blood. Even as Loren watched, the flesh of her neck began to knit back together.
It stopped when Chet raised the dagger again, and plun
ged it through her eye into her brain. Her body spasmed once, and then lay still.
After a moment, a final glow came from the weremage’s eyes. Slowly she transformed one final time, Weath’s face shifting and melting away. But she did not become the seductive, olive-skinned beauty Loren had first met. Instead her skin turned lily-white, her face a little older, perhaps the age of Loren’s mother. The hair that replaced Weath’s copper was not white-blonde, but frizzy and black. A woman Loren had never seen before lay there dead, and Chet rolled away from her, covering his face to hide the tears that spilled forth.
forty-four
They did not bury her. Loren could scarcely bear looking at the corpse, and asking Chet to touch it was out of the question. When Loren could rise at last, she went to his side and tried to hold him. But he recoiled from her touch, pushing her away and shaking his head. So she merely sat by his side, trying not to look at the stranger who lay dead before her.
In time Chet’s tears subsided, and he rose to his feet. Loren stood too, if more slowly, and together they made their way back towards the camp. Annis and Gem saw at once that something was wrong, but when they asked, Chet only shook his head and went into his tent. Loren told them nothing she did not have to—only that Niya had been Auntie all along, and that she had attacked them, and now was dead. From the moment he heard the weremage’s name, Gem’s face went pale, and his eyes wide.
“Dead?” he whispered. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” said Loren quietly.
His look grew distant, and he turned from her. In a moment he, too, vanished into his tent, leaving Annis and Loren standing there, staring at each other, not knowing what to do, or even where to begin.
That night, Loren ate a meager meal. Afterwards she went to the tent she shared with Chet.
Something compelled her to stop a pace away from it. She stared at the flap for a long while. And then she turned from it, and slept in the tent that had once been Niya’s.
Uzo and Shiun returned the next day. Loren was hardly surprised when they told her that Damaris had ridden south with too many guards for them to engage. So little had gone well for their party this far in the mission, that this latest lack of success seemed almost expected.
Weremage: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 5) Page 28
