Ward Against Disaster

by Melanie Card

  “A book of the dark arts.” Florino ran a finger over the symbol burned onto the book’s cover. “This is written in the language of Vys. It means Death. I doubt anything so mundane as riths will be found in such a book.”

  “It’s for our other investigation, the reason we came to Dulthyne in the first place.”

  Florino’s expression darkened. “The murdered maid.”

  “Yes. I need you to translate a spell for me.”

  “Which spell?” He flipped open the cover.

  “I’m not sure. The woman who murdered the maid is a creature made from the dark arts. I need to know if there’s a spell in this book that would create such a monster.”

  “So your necromancer friend can reverse it.”

  “Yes.” She had no idea if that could be done.

  “And you think there’s something in this book?”

  “Yes.” Please let it have answers.

  “Tell me about this monster.”

  “She seems just like you and me, except she was once dead,” Celia said, the lie sliding over her tongue, leaving a bad taste.

  Florino flipped a page. “And now she isn’t dead.”

  “Exactly.”

  “There’s nothing else?”

  Celia shook her head. She didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t noticed anything that made her different from when she was alive, save that she shouldn’t be alive.

  “Is this creature faster and stronger than a man? Does she have an insatiable bloodlust? Does sunlight burn her eyes?” Florino flipped another page, his attention locked on the book.

  “No. She isn’t a vesperitti. She’s something else. Is there a spell that makes an undead person alive who shouldn’t be alive, but doesn’t turn them into a vesperitti?”

  He turned another page and set his finger at the top line.

  “Is that it?”

  His ink stained finger moved to the next line and the next. Slowly, half inch by half inch.

  “Is it?”

  “No.” He turned to the next page. “And this doesn’t look like a match either, although I’ll need to read a little farther down the page to be certain.”

  Celia shifted.

  Florino pressed a finger to the page and glanced up. “This could take a while.”

  “How long? This is important.”

  “Come back in the morning, or is it morning already?”

  “It’s early.”

  “Then this evening.”

  “This evening?” She couldn’t just leave the book with him. And yet, it wasn’t safe to leave Ward alone for so long. Sooner or later—and with her luck it would be sooner than later—he’d notice she was missing and come looking for her. She couldn’t be caught with Florino translating a book she said she’d destroyed. “You’re sure you can’t find it right now?”

  “I know this is important. I’ll work as fast as I can, but you hovering nearby won’t make it happen any faster.”

  Damn. She really had no choice in the matter and was going to have to risk leaving the book with Florino. “Fine. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, so please, can we keep this between us until we know for certain?”

  Florino took Celia’s hand and squeezed it with calloused fingers. “I’ll work as fast as I can. For the maid.”

  “For the maid.” And for herself. Please let there be an answer.

  Sixteen

  Ward woke just before dawn, or rather, he gave up on trying to sleep. He’d tossed and turned all night, dreaming of Allette attacking that maid and watching the stone floor and walls weep blood. If he couldn’t figure out what was keeping the rith anchored to this side of the veil soon, he was going to have to disobey the Seer of Dulthyne and go after Allette. She was the greatest danger. He might need his imagination to see magic and no one else might be able to see his magical strength in his aura, but he brought Celia back, which meant he had something.

  And that something had to be enough to banish this rith and kill Allette.

  He shoved out of the bed and splashed water on his face, but it did little to refresh him. Through the open window, the peaks of the Red Mountains were starting to turn pink and the sky was starting to lighten. A logical, detached part of his mind recognized that it would be a beautiful summer day, but the rest of him, the part strung too tight for too long, twitched with the need to stop any more deaths.

  Out in the sitting room, a door opened and closed. It didn’t sound like the one to Celia’s bedroom, which meant it had to be the door to the hall. Nazarius. Another problem Ward didn’t know how to deal with.

  He opened his door. Nazarius stood in full Quayestri uniform in the center of the sitting room, while Jotham sat on the stool in front of the desk. Celia leaned in the doorway to her bedroom, her dark hair cascading around her shoulders, her shirt wrinkled from sleeping in it.

  “Good, you’re up.” Nazarius picked up a pile of clothes from the couch and tossed them at Ward. “Get changed, we’re on official duty.”

  The clothes hit him in the chest, and he grabbed them before they fell to the floor. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve foreseen where the item is that’s keeping the rith here.” Jotham’s gaze landed on Ward, and his expression darkened.

  “So we’re on official duty.” Nazarius threw another set of clothes to Celia. “It’ll help get us answers faster.”

  She caught them with ease and stepped back into her room.

  The back of Ward’s neck itched, a reminder that he was living a very dangerous lie. But he couldn’t argue with Nazarius in front of Jotham. He half closed his bedroom door. “So what are we looking for?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jotham said. “But it’s in the dead foreman’s footlocker at the mine.”

  Ward unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. The movement didn’t hurt his chest, and he took a quick glance beneath the bandages. The cut was already well scabbed over and there was no hint of redness or swelling. The edges of the scab had even dried and were flaking away. It was healing faster than he’d expected, although maybe it hadn’t been as deep as he’d thought and just felt deeper because of the rith’s chill.

  Nazarius’s voice rumbled. Ward jerked his attention back to the Tracker and the Seer in the other room.

  “Ward?” Nazarius asked.

  “What?” Ward pulled on the new shirt and navy doublet.

  “We don’t have all day.”

  “Of course.” His neck was driving him crazy. He flipped up the collar of his shirt to ensure the goddess-eye brand was hidden and strode into the sitting room.

  Celia snickered.

  Heat swept over Ward’s cheeks. “What?”

  “Your Inquisitor pin is upside down.” She stepped close and reached for his collar.

  A dip of his head and he’d be able to brush his lips against her cheek. The lock of hair that never made it into her braid accentuated the path to her lips, dark against her pale skin.

  Her knuckle caressed his neck, sending a shiver racing over him and his heart pounding.

  She glanced up, her pale eyes filled with warmth. Goddess, he’d never seen such warmth from her before. It heated the air between them, leaving him breathless.

  Someone cleared their throat.

  Celia’s lashes veiled her eyes for a heartbeat. When she looked back at him the heat was gone.

  “Let’s get going.” Nazarius opened the door, and Jotham strode into the hall.

  Celia turned from him, taking the hope that the warmth would return with her. “Come on.”

  “Of course.” But he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay with Celia and demand to know if she’d felt the connection, too.

  Jotham led them out of the citadel into the city. They marched through the winding white and gray streets, twisting down and down into the mountain. Here, witch-stone globes sat on posts on street corners or perched on the sides of buildings, throwing the lower part of Dulthyne into a perpetual murky twilight.

&nb
sp; Hints of sunlight shot through decorative holes in the ceiling three stories above, a reminder that more city sat directly over them. Buildings poured into one another with smooth lines making it impossible to distinguish where one began and the other ended. In reality the whole city was one big building, clinging to the side of the mountain and burrowing within.

  For the most part the streets were empty, but Ward got the sense of being watched through the shuttered windows lining the roads. Dulthyne felt wrong. It felt dead. This wasn’t how a normal city lived and breathed. There were no children, no animals, and no greenery in the streets. Silence pressed around them. Only a hint of water gurgling from fountains nearby disturbed the stillness.

  A shiver swept over Ward. There could be any number of reasons for the city to feel the way it did. The likeliest explanation was Talbot’s military law, but Ward couldn’t shake the sense that there was something more, something evil. What had incited the cult behavior in the first place? Was there even a cult?

  Jotham had said there was, but Ward had seen no evidence of one. There was evidence aplenty of a rith, which could be responsible for everything Jotham had claimed was cult actions.

  They rounded a corner and before them stood a massive entrance with carvings curling up and around the sides and over the top. The entrance to the mines. The Vys symbols for death, darkness, and possession stained the walls on either side in blood, along with lines and shapes that made no sense. Workmen with buckets and brushes scrubbed at them. A few feet away sat a wheelbarrow with the mangled corpses of two dogs and a cat. The two guards on the entrance clutched the hilts of their sheathed swords, their expressions grim, their eyes wary.

  This could still be the work of the rith, but that presented new, troubling questions like how a mine foreman’s rith knew the magical, ancient language of Vys. There was power in those words. Even Ward, mystically blind, could sense the oozing darkness, the chill, and the absence of life emanating from them. Perhaps this was a warning. If the rith knew what Ward and the others were doing, wouldn’t it try to stop them?

  They needed to move faster, get whatever was anchoring the rith here, and banish it.

  Jotham shook himself, as if to slough off the power of the symbols, and led them up to the archway. Inside, there were no more doors, windows, or archways. Two witch-stone globes sat on tall pedestals on either side, their light reflecting from the smooth, curved walls.

  Black smoke curled from the cavern’s mouth and rolled across the ceiling to vents cut in the granite. Inside lay a mix of life and industry. On the left, half a dozen ponies were picketed before a long manger filled with hay. Men gathered near them, some filthy, some clean—likely depending on whose shift was done or about to start. They clustered around small cooking fires and sat on the floor or on sacks.

  Ward’s stomach churned. Any one of them could be possessed.

  On the far right, fires roared in massive ovens. The men attending the smelting pots were stripped to their waists, their sweat leaving runnels in the soot caking their faces, chests, arms, and backs. More massive vents had been cut in the ceiling above the furnaces, but the area was still enveloped in a smoky haze.

  One of the guards straightened and bowed. “My lord Seer.”

  Ward tensed.

  “Are the miners still in the sixth section?” Jotham asked.

  “Yes, my lord. Do you require a guide?”

  “I know the way.” Jotham strode past him with Nazarius at his side.

  No attack. At least not this time.

  Celia glanced at Ward. Did she understand that they were walking into a potential trap? But her expression was neutral, neither cold or hard. It wasn’t warm, either, like it had been in the Quayestri suite—but he’d probably imagined that warmth.

  They passed through the sweltering cavern to a wide passage at the back. Witch-stone threads glittered in the walls, pale and calm after the smelting fire. Moisture glistened in the light, the cool, smooth stone combining with the hot air. As they moved deeper into the mine, the heat eased even more and the roar of the fires died away.

  The long tunnel led to another cavern half the size of the first. Here the walls were also smooth as if they had yet to reach any of the mined tunnels. Carved pillars held an arched ceiling, also engraved in a symmetric pattern of squares and triangles.

  A low rumble groaned and the ground trembled. Pebbles in the corners danced across the floor, and Ward search for signs of the rith, bleeding walls or a sudden ferocious wind. He didn’t think one could be powerful enough to shake the ground, but given his luck he wasn’t going to rule anything out.

  “The quakes have been getting worse,” Jotham said, leading them to a passage at the back. “I’ve heard some of the older chambers are starting to cave in.”

  “Do you think it might have something to do with the rith?” Celia asked. “Quakes are a part of living in the Red Mountains. Brawenal gets them all the time.”

  “I haven’t foreseen anything either way.” Jotham shrugged. He sounded uncertain, but about the quakes or his visions, Ward couldn’t tell. Ward hoped it wasn’t about his visions. They were walking into the mountain on the faith of one of those visions.

  Jotham headed to a tunnel on the far side. They were just about at the archway when a squat middle-aged man strode out of it. His shaved head and plain, dirt-stained clothes suggested he was a miner. At his heels, a young man—about Ward’s age—fumbled with an armload of scrolls, his scholars’ robes tangling around his feet and hands.

  “But if you look at the maps—” the young man said.

  “The engineers have said it’s safe to dig. I’ve enough men, barely, but enough reported for work today, so I’m expanding the sixth tunnel before anyone else disappears.”

  “But there’s a chamber right below it. Weakness in the floor—” The young man unrolled a scroll, dropped two from his collection, and hurried to gather them back up.

  The middle-aged man finally noticed Ward and the others, and stopped midstep. “My lord Seer.”

  “Mine Master,” Jotham said.

  “To what do I owe the honor?”

  The young man dropped into a low bow, which spilled his maps on the floor again.

  Ward bent and picked one up. “Let me help you.”

  “Yes,” the young man said, his voice soft. “Help me bleed, so you can become a blood magi.” He glanced up. A wicked smile curled his lips and blackness bled across his eyes.

  Ward jerked back.

  “Ward?” Celia knelt beside him.

  The young man blinked and the blackness and smile disappeared. “I’m sorry—” His gaze took in their Quayestri uniforms and froze on Ward’s Inquisitor pin. The color drained from his face. “Please excuse me. I’m so—” He shoved the maps back under his arm, squashing them. “My lords Quayestri. And, ah…lady.” Another quick bow bent his maps even more, then he scurried away.

  Ward’s heart pounded.

  The Mine Master barked a harsh laugh, and Ward jumped. “Next time I need to get rid of that nuisance I’ll invite you to visit.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the best use of my time,” Jotham said.

  The Mine Master glanced at his feet, but only for a moment of contriteness. “Of course, my lord Seer. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you still have Foreman Mills’s belongings?” Jotham asked.

  “His widow didn’t want them. I was going to toss them to the men once I’d gotten the engineers back to work. Why?” He glanced at Nazarius, Celia, and Ward, a mix of curiosity, disgust, and fear in his expression.

  Ward shivered. He’d thought being a necromancer had its uncomfortable moments, but being a Quayestri was turning out worse. He searched the Mine Master’s eyes for signs of the rith. They remained normal, but for how long?

  “Take me to them,” Jotham said.

  “Of course, my lord Seer.” The Mine Master led them down a narrow passage to a small area with a fountain in the middle and three other passa
ges branching into small chambers. They entered the chamber on the right. A large desk, covered with parchment, sat in the center with one cushioned chair behind it and three low stools crowded in front of it.

  The Mine Master grabbed a small chest piled with other chests and barrels, cleared a space on his desk, and set it down.

  “Thank you. We’ll be a few minutes,” Jotham said.

  It was an obvious dismissal from his own office, and the Mine Master couldn’t argue with the Seer.

  “I’ll be down tunnel six if you need me.” With a sigh, the Mine Master left.

  Nazarius reached for the chest. “It’s in here?”

  “That’s what I saw,” Jotham said.

  Celia inched closer. “What do you think it might be?”

  “The Goddess didn’t reveal that to me,” Jotham said, his words clipped.

  The ground trembled again, a shuddering not as strong as the first time, but Ward couldn’t shake the sense of dread churning in his stomach. “Just open it.”

  Nazarius gave him a sidelong glance, one dark eyebrow raised in question.

  “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we move on to more important things.” And the sooner people with black eyes stopped threatening Ward that he would succumb to the blood magic lure.

  He fought the urge to hug himself against that thought. Worrying about the lure would just bring it on. Once he’d banished the rith, he’d spend the night meditating, and then he’d be ready to face Allette.

  Nazarius eased the lid open as if expecting something to jump out, but nothing did. Inside was a jumble of handkerchiefs and gloves, stained and worn. Underneath were two sets of dice, one obsidian and one bone, some coin—a quarto and five quintaros—and a silver sun-moon pendant on a leather thong.

  Celia picked up the pendant by the thong, letting it twirl and catch the witch-stone light. “Divine protection.”

  “Both dark and light,” Nazarius said.

  The pedant was most commonly worn by soldiers, honoring both of the Goddess’s Sons, light and dark, since a soldier never knew whose grace might save him.

  “The mines aren’t the safest place to work, and given Dulthyne’s history…” Jotham shrugged.