Nightblade

by Liane Merciel

  Aimlessly he roamed the town's muddy, rutted streets. He had no destination in mind, but it seemed only fitting, when he looked up from the shadowed roads, to find himself standing in front of the alehouse where he'd met Ena and her companions the night before.

  Isiem pushed open the door. This tavern was quieter than the other: there were no raucous songs and precious little laughter, just the grim silence of men and women drinking to forget their days of backbreaking labor.

  Through the gray huddle of the crowd, Isiem spotted the familiar splotchy dome of Ena's fire-scarred head. She sat alone, near the back of the room, nursing a dented metal tankard. The wizard made his way to her table, drawing out a chair on the opposite side.

  The dwarf scowled reflexively as she looked up, although the scowl faded into a look of almost comical surprise once she recognized him. "What are you doing here?"

  "Drinking," Isiem said.

  Ena shot a pointed look over the empty space in front of him. "Need a drink for that."

  "I'll get one later." He glanced at hers. It was a dark, oily-looking brew, decidedly unappetizing. "What would you recommend here?"

  "Leaving," the dwarf replied with a humorless chuckle. She hoisted the tankard and took a long draught, setting it back down with a thud. "But if this is all you can afford, the grog's not bad. No, that's a lie. It's awful. But it's strong enough that you won't care it's awful after the first swig." She cocked a bristly eyebrow at him. "I meant what I asked, though: what are you doing here? Never knew you to take much comfort from a bottle."

  "I never have," Isiem replied. He seldom touched wine, and never drank to excess; stoicism was too deeply ingrained from his years at the Dusk Hall. All Nidalese were taught from childhood that pain was not to be numbed, but embraced as the gift of their god. And while that particular piety was more often repeated than obeyed, the habit of sobriety had stayed with him.

  "Then why go to a tavern?"

  "I wanted to think."

  "Funny, that's what most people are trying to escape." Ena drained her tankard and banged it on the table until a harried-looking barmaid came to replace it. She flipped the woman a silver shield, waved away an offer of change, and set to work on the new one. "What'd you want to ponder? Pay a copper for your thoughts."

  "Do you even bother to carry coppers?" Isiem asked, amused. The coin she'd given the barmaid had to have been triple the worth of the swill she was drinking.

  Ena snorted. "No. Do you?"

  "I can't recall the last time I had use for one."

  "Well, I'm surely not paying for your secrets in gold. Suppose you'll just have to tell me for free."

  Isiem's lips twisted into a skewed, half-conscious curl, somewhere between grimace and smile. He directed it at the tabletop, tracing over some of the old scars in the wood with a fingertip. Confiding his uncertainties to Ena felt uncomfortable, like making a confession to a priest outside his faith ...but carrying those doubts in silence was harder still.

  "I had—have—a friend who probably knows more about Mesandroth Fiendlorn than any man alive," he began. "He's one of the archmage's descendants, maybe the last one alive with any gift for magic. Separated by centuries, of course, but that seems to matter less with Mesandroth than most."

  "You think he'll help us?"

  "He has suggested that he might."

  "Do you trust him?" When Isiem didn't answer immediately, Ena nodded knowingly into her tankard. "Ah. So it's like that."

  "He's Nidalese."

  "So are you."

  Isiem shook his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the tabletop. Someone had begun carving his name into the wood and never finished the job. Later patrons' beer had spilled into the letters, cementing dirt and soot into a filthy, illegible black inlay. It was a strange form of immortality; he wondered if the original carver would have been pleased. "I am and I'm not. I left. Ascaros stayed. He's in Ridwan now, binding shadowbeasts. That's not an easy task, and not one trusted to the impious. It means he's powerful and stands high in the favor of the Umbral Court."

  "Do you think he'll betray us? Betray you?"

  "I don't know," Isiem replied. "When we were students, I kept his secrets and he kept mine, but that was over a decade ago. Old loyalties fray quickly in Pangolais, and the Umbral Court does not tolerate apostasy. If he's one of them now, then yes, I would expect him to try to bring me in."

  Across the room, a halfling was loudly berating a toothless old man who was nearly as short as he was. The old man's nose was redder than a crushed raspberry, and his hands trembled with the delirium of the longtime drunkard, but the halfling was giving him no mercy. Isiem couldn't tell why the halfling was so upset, but his screeching gave them cover to talk more candidly.

  Ena leaned closer so she could be heard above the din. "And our mission? The nightblade?"

  "He might try to retrieve the weapon for his own use, or to advance in the Black Triune's favor. I doubt he would give it to the Kuthites without something in exchange. Ascaros was never particularly devout. But if the weapon exists and is useful, it might hold value as a bargaining chip, so that is a possibility."

  "Could we stop him?"

  Isiem's hand stilled over the illegible name carved into the table. He shrugged his long ivory hair off his shoulders. "Maybe. When we were students, he was less skilled than I. But ten years is a long while, and he's had the benefit of an extraordinary teacher in that time. One of Mesandroth's own servants."

  "And he stayed in Pangolais, while you went into exile." Ena toyed with the chain of her amulet, winding it around her fingers and dropping it again. She never lifted the blue crystal into view, though. In this place, it would have been unwise to flash cheap costume jewelry, let alone enchanted gems. "Who's got the advantage on that count?"

  "Most likely he does. Field experience is of no small value, and I've had plenty of practice since leaving ...but I doubt Ascaros has been idle in the intervening years. He's had access to the Dusk Hall's libraries to continue his studies, the intrigues of the Umbral Court to sharpen his wits, and the trials of Ridwan to hone his mastery of the arcane."

  "That's good," Ena grunted. One of the tavern workers had finally chased the shouting halfling and his hapless victim outside; the dwarf lowered her voice to compensate.

  Isiem did the same. "Good?"

  "He's not stupid and he can handle himself." She took another drink. "I say invite him to join us. Could be that all he wants is a chance to escape Nidal, like you did. Maybe that's why he's reaching out to the exile. And if I'm wrong, and he means to turn against us, we'll deal with that when it happens."

  "Are you comfortable with the chance of being wrong?" Isiem asked.

  Ena shrugged. The seamed corners of her eyes crinkled in a suggestion of a smile that didn't quite reach her mouth. "Your friend will choose as he chooses. That's on him. It's not in my control, nor yours."

  "It is within our control to allow or foreclose certain choices, though."

  "So it is." The dwarf looked into her tankard, swirled the last few drops around, and set it aside. She stood, dropping a final silver coin into the mug, and straightened the cloak on her shoulders. "But where would you be today if someone had closed off that choice for you?"

  Alone in his room the next day, Isiem unraveled the copper wire and hooked it around his fingers. Outside, twilight was waning into night. He had not lit any candles, and the fine web of copper was almost invisible between his hands.

  He breathed into the gloom, seeking the tranquility he needed to shape his magic. When he found it, the wire shivered in his grasp. Isiem twined his spell around its vibrations, amplifying them into the ether until they could carry his words across the world.

  What are your terms? Tell me, and we will consider them. I will not go to Ridwan.

  Again it seemed that Ascaros had been waiting for his message. His old friend's reply came swiftly: It's "we" now? Curious! We must discuss this. But if you won't come to Ridwan ...

 
; Without more, the sending ended.

  Isiem disentangled the wire from his fingers and wrapped it back into its ball. Exhaustion weighed down his shoulders, although he had done nothing all day but study his books and cast this single spell.

  The prospect of sending yet another message to Ascaros was wearying. It seemed that the shadowcaller intended only to toy with him; Isiem wondered whether he had ever had any real intention of helping. It seemed unlikely. And while Isiem had no claim on his friend's loyalty anymore, that disheartened him all the same.

  He put the copper strand back into the divided pouch that held his spellcrafting tools. As Isiem slid the glimmering metal into its pocket, however, he felt it suddenly vibrate. An instant later, Ascaros's voice filled his mind. The shadowcaller had woven his own sending.

  If you will not come to Ridwan, what of Barrowmoor? Tomorrow. Midnight. Meet me.

  Isiem hesitated. The rocky hills of Barrowmoor, located in the desolate high reaches of northern Nidal, were widely considered taboo. The horselords of old were buried there, encrusted in charcoal and bone, and it was said that they did not rest easy. In Pangolais, they derided such superstitions as the foolishness of unlettered provincials—but they never set foot near Barrowmoor, either. There was nothing there, other than those ancient graves, and no reason for any civilized Nidalese to go.

  But that was precisely why it might be the only safe place in Nidal for him.

  Yes, Isiem sent back. I will meet you in Barrowmoor. Tomorrow at midnight. Alone.

  After a night of troubled dreams, Isiem woke early. He washed his face, rinsed his mouth, and broke his fast on day-old bread and a boiled egg—a sparse meal, but all he could force himself to choke down. Anxiety and excitement twisted together in his stomach. It was hard to think of anything other than the meeting at midnight. The words of his spellbook blurred into gibberish; he could hardly force himself to follow them.

  He did it anyway. Tonight, of all nights, he could not be caught unprepared.

  It was difficult to know how to prepare, though. The wizard's curse was that he had to study his spells in advance; unlike a sorcerer, whose magic was born in the blood, his power derived from meticulous preparation and conscious control of the arcane. It could not be altered once set, and it had to be prepared well before he expected to use it.

  Isiem wasn't sure what he might need to confront in Barrowmoor. There was a chance that Ascaros would betray him, of course; there might be a trap laid by the Umbral Court. But other dangers lurked among those numberless graves, and those were harder to foresee.

  Folklore made no mention of undead among Barrowmoor's black hills, which added to Isiem's unease. Deadly and powerful as the walking dead could be, they were in many ways a known threat. Vague tales of curses and blighted luck, on the other hand, told him nothing of use.

  After considerable thought, Isiem chose a complement of defensive spells. He had no desire to stand and fight in Barrowmoor. Concealment, deflection, retreat: those, irrespective of his adversaries, would serve the wizard best if events turned against him. He immersed himself in study, letting the day slip by.

  Beyond his spells, he had few defenses. Most of Isiem's equipment had been lost or destroyed shortly after his defection from the Dusk Hall, and a year's exile in Pezzack had given him little opportunity to replace it.

  The only significant piece he'd acquired was a simple platinum band set with five equally spaced rubies, each one dark and tiny as a miser's heart. He'd taken it off the bloody, broken fingers of a mercenary wizard that he'd found spying invisibly around Windspire. Once Isiem unraveled his spell and revealed him to the itaraak, they'd gagged the man, thrust a spear through his hands, and thrown him off the high stones of Devil's Perch.

  But not before Isiem claimed his ring.

  Crafted in Egorian, it bore the mark of House Leroung, but as far as Isiem could discern, it was not an infernal focus. For a Chelish wizard's tool, it was fairly innocuous. The ring held a single arcane spell, ready to be released at a command.

  It reassured him to have a retreat so close at hand. Rubbing a thumb over the ring's small rubies, Isiem removed a silver bowl from a wrapping of soft deerskin. The bowl's flat bottom had been polished to a mirror sheen. Around it, densely inscribed arcane runes rose in spiraled rings upon the bowl's walls.

  He stared at those sigils, lost in memories of similar runes written in the pages of gray-leaved books, until midnight was nearly upon him.

  A few minutes before the appointed hour, the wizard shook off his remembrances and picked up the pitcher that held his drinking water. He filled the bowl with clear water until all the runes along its sides had been submerged, then lit three candles in a semicircle around it. Kneeling on the floor, Isiem gazed down at the flickering reflections of light and water and silver and reached out to his magic.

  He wondered what Ascaros would look like now. He wondered if he'd even recognize his friend well enough to find him with the scrying spell.

  Isiem had never so much as glimpsed Barrowmoor. But as he channeled arcane energy into the mirrored bowl and its sunken runes, a ghostly image of that forsaken place began to appear in the water. There was no mistaking it for any other place in the world.

  Against a backdrop of moonlit mountains, a vast expanse of rough mounds stretched farther than the eye could see, bare and black and studded with bones. The smallest of the mounds were twenty feet across and ten high; the largest were three times that size. All of them were covered in lattices of ancient charcoal logs, eroded but intact, and many were crowned by crude towers built of more logs steepled together. It must have taken an astonishing effort for such primitive peoples to build those mounds, then burn entire groves of trees into charcoal and layer them over the graves of their lords in such elaborate patterns—but they had done it, and done it again, hundreds if not thousands of times.

  Even through the miniaturizing effect of Isiem's mirrorbowl, the age of the place was palpable. No mist softened its charcoal-encrusted barrows; no clouds dimmed the starkness of the starlight on its stones. Ancient as they were, the long-dead horselords had been Nidalese, and it seemed fitting that their graves wanted no pity.

  One figure moved among the barrows. Moonlight limned his raven curls and glimmered along the chains of silver and steel threaded through his formal black attire. His face was devoid of both color and emotion: white as freshly exposed bone, expressionless as a torturer's mask, it was the perfect visage of an Umbral Court agent.

  Ascaros.

  Ten years had changed Isiem's old friend. The last hints of vibrant red had drained out of his hair; the last traces of merriment were gone from his mouth. The boy had hardened into a cold, proud man, not tall but imposing nevertheless. All signs of weakness had been purged from him. Even the bandages that had once wrapped his withered left arm were nowhere to be seen. The shadowcaller held his black staff in a hand that looked as strong and healthy as the other.

  His eyes were the same, though. Isiem released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he saw that. If Ascaros's eyes had been the empty, infinite black of the shadow-claimed ...

  But they weren't. The sorcerer's soul was still his own.

  Unsettled by the intensity of his relief, Isiem withdrew his scrying. The vision of Barrowmoor faded back into water and cupped candlelight.

  He snuffed the candles, emptied the silver bowl's water back into the pitcher, and thumbed the rubies of his ring again. Then, with a thread of sweat prickling cold down his spine, Isiem spoke a word of magic and stepped into the infinite hanging nothingness of the ether.

  To Barrowmoor.

  Chapter Five

  The Sorcerer in Shadow

  Barrowmoor was cold.

  Not cold as winter was cold, or frost or wind or rain. It was an unearthly chill that reached up through the earth and seized at the soul, and made Isiem wonder if, perhaps, those ancient burial mounds were lairs of the undead after all. He could think of nothing else on Gola
rion that could create such a deadening freeze.

  If there were such hungry shades abroad in Barrowmoor, however, they kept out of sight. Ascaros walked alone among the charcoal-caged mounds. His umbral robes melded into the darkness, creating the impression that the sorcerer drifted bodilessly between the hills.

  As Isiem stepped out of a barrow's shadow into the cool gray moonlight, Ascaros saw him and lifted his black staff in greeting. Mirth edged the surprise in his voice. "You came!"

  No one else was in view, and Ascaros had not shouted, yet Isiem winced at how his friend's words carried through the barren hills.

  "I came," he agreed grimly, almost in a whisper. He thumbed the rubies on his ring, turning it around uneasily toward his palm.

  "Then you must truly need my help." Ascaros climbed down from the barrow he'd mounted, moving smoothly over the enormous charcoal logs. He stopped fifteen feet from Isiem, folding his pale hands around his staff. "Whatever for? Your sendings were so vague."

  "A necessary limitation of the magic." Isiem hesitated, looking around. He couldn't shake the feeling that unfriendly eyes were on them, and the fact that he could see none only added to his mistrust of the place. "Can we speak frankly here?"

  "Of course. Why else would I have chosen this place? It's scenic, but I know how reluctant you are to return to Nidal. With good reason. I would not go back to Pangolais, were I you."

  Isiem brushed the shadowcaller's advice aside with a wave. "Have you ever heard of a woman named Eledwyn? She would have been one of Mesandroth's apprentices."

  Ascaros's dark eyes narrowed sharply. His grip tensed on the staff, then relaxed slowly as he made a brittle, unconvincing laugh. "So. It's not my revered ancestor's work you want, but his underling's."

  "They're intertwined," Isiem said.

  "I know that." Ascaros sat on a charcoal log, arranging his robes over his knees and then resting the staff across them. Behind him, the ruins of a primitive talisman-tower thrust its broken outline against the moon. A handful of relics dangled from the tower's remains: skulls, painted gourds, and pale flint blades hung from ropes of ancient, dirt-knotted horsehair. "Yes, I know of Eledwyn. She was one of the first to rebel ...and one of the few that Mesandroth dealt with directly. If you're seeking her, you may be disappointed. I don't think you'll find much but grief and ashes in whatever remains of her workshop."