by Marc Turner
Mottle cleared his throat. “Perhaps Mottle may assist in resolving this unsightly altercation. If the consel would indicate the man in question…”
Garat stared at him for a few heartbeats before turning back to the plains. “There,” he said, pointing. “The boy in Sartorian colors.”
Boy? Ebon could see him now—a spotty youth with brown hair, several ranks back from the walls. Ah yes, Falin, the consel’s brother. I had forgotten.
“Simply done,” Mottle said. He gestured with one hand, and the boy was plucked from the ground and lifted to the battlements. Ebon retreated to make space.
Falin’s skin was a ghastly gray hue but for patches of dried blood across his forehead and cheeks. As soon as his feet touched down on the fortifications he sprang at the nearest figure—the consel—his fingers curled into claws. Garat’s backhand blow caught him on the chin and sent him sprawling. Falin was back on his feet in an instant. Ambolina stepped in and seized his wrists. The boy thrashed in her grip, but the sorceress simply lifted him into the air and held him a handspan above the ground. Ebon wondered at her strength to keep him dangling there.
“Rope, damn you!” Reynes said to the soldiers round him. His cinderhound barked excitedly.
An archer came forward with an arrow string that he used to tie the boy’s wrists together. Ambolina then lowered him to the battlements again. Falin struggled against his bindings, the cord quickly cutting through his flesh to the bone. The youth’s arrival was drawing a crowd of Pantheon Guardsmen, but Reynes’s order sent them scurrying back to their stations.
“Falin,” Garat said. “Can you hear me?” There was no grief in his tone, only anger. When Falin did not respond, the consel struck him across the face. “Answer me!”
“I hear you,” the youth replied, his voice barely a whisper.
“Why, Falin? Why would you attack me? Why would you join our enemies?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t … I tried to resist…”
“Resist? Resist what? What are you talking about?”
It was Ambolina who answered. “All life has left him, Consel, yet his soul remains chained to his flesh by a power the like of which I have never seen before.”
Mottle clapped his hands together. “A thread of death-magic, yes? Connecting the boy to whatever power has resurrected—”
“Someone is controlling him?” Garat cut in.
“Like a puppet’s strings, yes?”
The consel swung back to the boy. “Who? Who is behind this?”
“I—I do not know.”
“Lies!” Garat struck him again.
“Please—”
“Silence!”
Ebon stepped forward. He had been intending to offer the consel his condolences, but it seemed that was not necessary. “What happened to you, Falin? At the camp.”
The boy fixed him with his corpse-empty gaze. “I remember a spear…,” he said, raising his bound hands to his forehead. There was no mark on his skin where he indicated. “I felt blood in my eyes. Falling … There were shadows round me. A gateway of bones. Then something seized me like when I was lifted onto this wall.”
A heavy silence followed his words. Ebon caught Mottle’s eye. “Snatched from the threshold to Shroud’s realm? What power could do this, mage?”
The old man’s eyes glittered. “To keep from death’s Lord what is rightfully his? Only a power to rival the gods.”
“But the force that holds him—a thread, you called it…”
“Precisely. A most remarkable construction. Magical energies are by their nature resistant to the imposition of order, yet the sorcery that holds the boy is breathtaking in its mastery, brilliant in its—”
“Where does it lead?” Ebon said.
“Why, to the forest, of course.”
“Can it be broken?”
Ambolina spoke. “That would serve only to release his soul.” She turned to Garat. “Shroud would then claim him. The boy cannot be brought back.”
“Do it,” Garat responded without hesitation.
“As you wish.”
“Not here.” The consel was already spinning away. “Bring him.”
Ebon held up a hand. “Wait. Mottle, go with them.”
Garat said, “That will not be necessary.”
“Nevertheless, we should work together in this…”
The consel paid him no mind. Guardsmen sprang from his path as he strode to the steps to the guardroom. Behind him, Ambolina hoisted the boy over her shoulder and made to follow. As she entered the stairwell, Falin’s head struck the stone lintel.
Ebon stared after them. He had known better than to expect thanks from the consel for his rescue at the camp, but still he’d hoped having a shared enemy might have given them common cause on which a partnership could be founded. Not so, it seemed.
To the east a beacon was being lit in one of the towers on the opposite side of the city. The wind tugged so hard at the flames Ebon thought for a moment they would be extinguished. Then the fire took hold and the beacon blazed into life. In the distance a handful of tents in the consel’s camp continued to burn.
Reynes spoke suddenly, his voice urgent. “Your Majesty. Seems to me whoever brought the boy back could do the same to ours. We’d best keep an eye on our wounded.”
CHAPTER 10
SOMEWHERE THE Spider would be laughing.
On arriving in the Forest of Sighs, Romany soon found that the goddess had deposited her even farther from Estapharriol than last time, and as a result she’d spent half a day wading through muck and leaves piled ankle-high on the forest floor. It seemed as if winter had come to the forest while she had been away, for the branches of the trees were bare. The threads of death-magic were everywhere, drawing the life force from every trunk, every knot of nettleclaw, every blade of grass. Did Mayot even know the effect the Book of Lost Souls was having on the forest? Such indiscipline! Power unleashed without thought as to the consequences, but what else had she expected from the old man?
Ahead a bough of one of the ketar trees fell, sending leaves swirling into the air. It was only as the echoes of that noise faded that the priestess became aware of the eerie silence hanging over the forest. She paused to listen. Nothing. No birdsong, no chittering from those loathsome ruskits, not even the whine of a needlefly—Romany had never imagined she would come to miss that sound. And the air! It made her eyes water and left a bitter taste at the back of her throat as if she were inhaling the foul haze of the leper pits in Mercerie. Worse still, it had spoiled her wine! Having waited a full sixth of a bell to quench her thirst, she had removed the cork to discover the acrid tang of vinegar. Such a deplorable waste! It took her most of the evening to walk off her outrage.
As the time passed, Romany thought back on the moments before she had parted from the Spider in the forest earlier. Her head had been filled with questions about Mayot and the Book, but the goddess, of course, had left before she could put them to her. The Spider did find time, however, to propose a wager as to how many of Shroud’s disciples Romany could bring down before Mayot fell. The priestess had scoffed at the idea, for what counted in this game was quality not quantity. She would leave Mayot to deal with the lambs in Shroud’s flock while she hunted down the big game. In the end the Spider had been forced to acknowledge the strength of Romany’s logic, but had nevertheless made it clear she expected an acceptable return on the time she’d invested in this enterprise. But as to how many of Shroud’s disciples constituted “acceptable” … The Spider had remained tight-lipped, naturally.
Dusk was falling as Estapharriol came into view, and it was fully dark by the time Romany arrived at the dome. The arched entranceway oozed corruption like an open wound. She paused on the threshold and peered into the passage, but could not pierce the gloom to see what awaited her in the dome. The wind was picking up, and the whisper of lapping waves emanating from the holes in the walls of the passage resembled the hiss of ghostly voices. Romany shivered. Shroud’s Gate
itself could not be more sinister than this macabre portal, yet it would not do for her to linger. When she confronted Mayot she couldn’t afford to show any hint of weakness.
She plunged into the shadows.
Inside, the dome was lit by moonlight filtering through the star-shaped openings in the roof. The light did not, though, penetrate the thickest wisps of death-magic that curled across the floor, leaving scattered pockets of darkness where the sorcery was strongest …
The priestess drew up. Spider’s mercy. A sea of bloodless faces stared back at her from the murk, their owners standing in evenly spaced ranks round the dais.
A trap!
And yet, how could that be? In the temple, the Spider had told her that the first of Shroud’s servants were only just drawing near to the forest. How had they made it here ahead of Romany? Had the goddess been deceived? The priestess squinted at the dais. Veiled in shadow, a gaunt figure sat hunched on the chair atop it. Mayot Mencada? She would swear to it. But that made no sense. If these people were Shroud’s minions, how had the old man kept his throne? And if not, who in the Spider’s name were they? The thought of the mage finding allies was just too implausible to contemplate.
Romany looked at the figure closest to her: a man of middling years with a high forehead and prominent jaw. His long, braided hair was swept back at the temples and held in place with silver pins. A handspan shorter than the priestess, he wore an ivory-colored robe buttoned up to the neck and decorated with intricate silver stitching. To Romany’s spirit-sight his outline blurred suddenly, and she started as his face was overlapped by a second countenance, its features contorted and stretched, its mouth gaping wide in a silent scream. As if a soul were struggling to free itself. Was the man possessed? Had some Krakal shade imprisoned him in his own flesh?
As quickly as the image had come, the second face vanished to leave behind only the stranger’s cold stare.
It was then that Romany detected the thread of sorcery burrowing into his chest. The tendril was not unlike the strands of her own web in its fineness, yet this thread channeled death-magic to the man in a sickly stream. She followed its path back to the dais … The Book of Lost Souls.
The pieces fell into place. Undead. The Spider had warned her that Mayot had been busy. He’s resurrected some of the Vamilians. Oh, my Lady …
On the bright side, at least she would not want for servants now.
Romany made for the dais. The undead parted to let her pass, then—she noted with a flutter of alarm—closed ranks behind her. She halted at the foot of the stairs. To her right were the steps that had been melted in Mayot’s clash with Lorigan Teele. Immediately below them, the molten stone had collected and cooled to form a misshapen lump of rock.
On the dais itself, Mayot had company. Flanking his throne were four Vamilians, two men and two women, wearing coats of golden chain mail. Behind them, seven young women were drawn up in a line. Unlike their kinsmen, they wore thin white mexin shifts that revealed too much of their faultless figures for Romany’s liking.
The sight of Mayot Mencada came as just one more shock. The old man looked to have aged a dozen years in the time Romany had been away. And it wasn’t as if he’d been a stripling before. He sat hunched over the Book, strands of lank white hair hanging across his face. His eyes were so dark and sunken they might have been holes in his head. The death-magic is consuming him. Would he even survive long enough to do battle with Shroud’s minions? Or would his enemies have nothing more arduous to do than pry the Book from his dead fingers when they arrived?
The air stank of urine.
Romany inclined her head. “My Lord.”
There was a pause before Mayot answered. “I thought you were gone for good.”
“A most distressing prospect, I’m sure. But you need agonize no longer. I have, as you can see, returned.”
“Why?”
“To assist you, of course, in your struggles to come. Were you aware that Shroud’s servants are even now approaching the forest?”
“And you think I need your help to destroy them?” Mayot’s sweeping arm took in the ranks of undead. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve found some new friends while you were away. It appears you have outlived your usefulness.”
Your gratitude overwhelms me. Romany looked round before adding just the right amount of contempt to her voice. “You would defeat Shroud’s minions with these?”
“Not just these. An entire empire now bends its knee to me.”
The priestess stiffened. “The Vamilians? You have raised them all?” The old man was exaggerating, surely. Romany had neither seen nor heard anyone during her trek to the dome, but it had been dark, and perhaps she had not been paying as much attention to her surroundings as she should have done.
A hacking cough racked Mayot’s frame. “All I need is a sliver of bone or a grain of ash on which to work the Book’s sorcery. Already my army numbers tens of thousands, and I have started recruiting others to my cause.”
Recruiting? An unusual choice of word, but there would be time later for Romany to think on it. “Numbers alone will not save you when Shroud’s servants come calling. The Lord of the Dead will have learned from your defeat of his knight. He will send his best.”
“And you believe my followers are not equal to the challenge?” Mayot gestured to one of the four warriors in golden chain mail. “You have heard of the Prime? No? They were elite Vamilian fighters. Centuries could pass without a single warrior rising to the rank, for the trials undergone to obtain such status were formidable. Already I have four in my power, and others will be found.”
Romany raised a hand to one of the invisible threads of death-magic. “And you control them through these? So … delicate.”
“You are welcome to try severing one.”
Yes, perhaps it was time to puncture the old man’s inflated ego. Only an imbecile went into battle against the Lord of the Dead with an army sustained on death-magic. Romany’s senses brushed the thread, seeking a flaw, a point of weakness. The brief contact left her feeling light-headed, for the Book’s sorcery devoured her power as soon as the two came into contact. And whereas the strands of her own web were ethereal in their elegance—how else could they go undetected, after all?—the Book’s tendrils had an almost physical presence, as if Mayot had spun matter from pure energy. Romany shrank back in wonder. Such power. Such artistry.
“As you see,” the mage said, “the threads cannot be broken.”
“Perhaps not by me,” the priestess conceded, “but Shroud’s servants…”
Mayot continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “The Vamilians struggle against my mastery, but in time they come to understand the futility of their efforts. And while their souls are cognizant, the flesh in which they are caged remains inert. Do you now comprehend the power at my command? An army with unquestioned obedience that does not tire, does not feel pain.” The corners of his mouth turned up. “Physical pain, that is.”
Romany gathered the ends of her frayed nerves. “And the forest, my Lord? The death-magic is destroying it.”
“A necessary sacrifice. The Book must feed.”
“And when you run out of trees?”
Mayot gave a thin smile. “You were unwise to come back, woman. I have not forgotten our unfinished business. Power is never given freely.” As he spoke, tendrils of sorcery flowed from the Book toward Romany. She was suddenly conscious of the press of undead at her back. “I am not so foolish,” he went on, “as to think your earlier interference was intended for my benefit. You are up to something, and I want to know what it is.”
Romany flinched as his sorcery engulfed her. The magic was not meant to harm, she suspected, merely to explore. Her skin crawled beneath its caress. Mayot’s strength had grown since their last encounter, but in matters of stealth and subterfuge the priestess was without equal. Her wards held firm against his inept assault, channeling his power away from her or turning it upon itself until it dispersed like shreds of cl
oud.
She adopted a haughty tone. “I see your manners have not improved since we last met.”
Mayot’s errant eyelid flickered. “You know I can break you.”
Having felt the touch of his sorcery, Romany recognized the truth of that. She could only hope that, notwithstanding his arrogance, the mage did not. “You saw me unlock the secrets of the Book, something you could not do, yet still you doubt my power. Twice now you have sought to test me, and twice I have slapped aside your clumsy questings. How many more times must I repeat the lesson before comprehension dawns?”
Mayot eyelid fluttered fast as a hoverbird’s wings. “You think you remain a mystery to me? True, my sorcery cannot pierce your shields, cannot even discern the nature of the magic from which they are woven, but that in itself tells me much. It is a singular skill to conceal yourself as you do.”
Romany masked her unease. Ultimately that train of thought would lead the mage back to the Spider, if indeed it had not taken him there already. Perhaps he was not as daft as she had thought, but neither was he half as clever as he believed himself to be. “It tells you that I value my privacy. Nothing more.”
At a gesture from Mayot, the four Prime put their hands on the hilts of their swords. The old man’s color was high. “I have other ways of making you talk. My undead servants have no secrets from me. Perhaps I will add you to their ranks.”
It was time to give the mage a touch of the whip. “And perhaps I will take back the power I have bestowed on you. It is not too late, you know.”
“I am tempted to put that to the test.”
“But you will not. For in spite of your bluster, you know you cannot triumph against Shroud’s minions alone. You need the breadth of vision only I possess.”
“So you say.”
“There is also the small matter,” Romany pressed on, “of the secrets that remain locked within the Book.”
“I can discover those for myself.”
“As you did the others?”
“You have opened the door, woman. I can walk through it in my own time.”
