by Grace Draven
“In the spring of the black moon, before the Waste seized the lands between the Kor Mountains and the ice sea, thirteen kings gathered on Gladia’s Knoll to destroy the false god Amunsa. Of these thirteen, only one was from the lands of the sun. Birdixan. Bound by blood and light, they swore to…”
Silhara groaned and held up a hand to stop her. “The gods save us from bards with runaway quills. We’ll still be here at dawn before this dead scribe gets to the point.” Martise’s slight smile lessened the tiredness in her features. “You’ve a fine voice, Martise, but I want to go to bed soon. Let’s summarize.”
He began ticking off relevant points with his fingers. “A few thousand years ago a dozen mage-kings gather to kill off one false god who sounds like Corruption’s sibling. They invoke blood-bonding, the strongest and deadliest of ritual magic. One of the kings, Birdixan, chooses to act as martyr and sacrifices himself in the ritual. But how?”
She shrugged. “We need the missing pages.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He drummed his fingers on chair arm and cursed under his breath. He’d have to go back to Iwehvenn and find those pages. If he was lucky, they’d still be where he dropped them, in the lich’s ruin of a library. If his luck held, he’d make it out of the stronghold for the second time, alive.
Along with his apprentice.
She massaged her lower back. “Whatever ritual the kings used, they were successful. There is no Amunsa listed in the later histories, no ruins of temples built to him, not even in the North.”
Silhara caught her stifling a yawn behind her hand. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her lids drooped to half-mast despite her best efforts to look alert. He’d worked her hard the past two weeks, adding more and more responsibilities, expecting more out of her. She was still here, and making a significant contribution to the running of his household. He was both pleased and annoyed.
“We’ll travel to Iwehvenn.” An incredulous stare met his declaration.
“We?” she squeaked.
“Yes, we.” He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t read ancient Helenese, and there are several pages missing from that book. There are likely more gone from the other books I took from Iwehvenn. I need you to make sure we’re gathering the right pages. I don’t fancy making a trip to the soul eater’s lair a second time. I damn well won’t do it a third.”
A convulsive swallow worked the muscles in her smooth throat. “How does one sneak past the Eater of Souls?”
He rose from his chair. Martise hastily followed suit. “I can cloak us both with concealment spells, incantations that will fool the lich.”
“I’ve heard he has great power and can sense a living man like a wolf smells blooded prey.”
“You’ve heard rightly. If ever a more deadly predator existed, I’ve yet to know of it.” He was tempted to touch her, graze his fingers over the gooseflesh rising on her arms.
“What if he attacks us?”
“Then we’ll fight our way clear.”
She spread her hands. “I’m neither warrior nor mage. I’d be of little use in a battle.”
His gruff laugh was roughened by weariness. “I don’t need a brute fighter, and my magery is stronger than a gaggle of priests combined. If you can read Helenese and read it fast, you’ll be of great use to me.”
“What if your magery isn’t enough?” Horror edged her voice, darkened her eyes.
Her reaction was justified. All Conclave acolytes were taught about those rare but vastly powerful and malevolent forces called liches or soul eaters. She knew what would happen if the Iwehvenn lich trapped them. Silhara was thankful she had such knowledge. He wouldn’t have to explain the danger or impress upon her the risks involved.
He held her gaze. “I’ll kill you before he ever touches you.” The blunt declaration made her flinch. For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to soften his words. “There are worse fates than a clean death.”
“I don’t suppose I can respectfully decline?” She gave him a weak smile.
“You can, but you’d have to leave Neith.” This, more than any brutal lesson he might mete out to her, would measure her determination. “If I have nothing for you to translate, I’ve no need of you and will send you back to the bishop.”
Myriad emotions passed in her eyes; fear, acceptance, a touch of anger and most of all, resolve. “When do we leave?”
His respect for her grew. She was terrified but willing to accompany him. A brave woman, and one wise enough to accept her fear. It would keep her alive. “Tomorrow.”
“So soon?”
“I want to get my hands on those pages as soon as possible. And I have a harvest to bring in to market next week. Playing cat and mouse with a soul eater wasn’t in my plans.”
He extinguished three of the four lit candles on the table. The remaining one cast a nimbus of feeble light around him and Martise. “Put the books and papers away. We’ll deal with them when we return.”
Once in the corridor, he handed her the candle. The only point of radiance in the black hallway, the flame flickered and danced, lending Martise’s face a ghostly aspect dominated by her wide copper eyes.
“Get what rest you can,” he said. “And pack lightly. A change of clothes, no more. I’ll see you in the bailey an hour before dawn.”
She held the candle out to him. “Don’t you need this?”
Blackness hid his amusement. “I’m used to traveling dark paths, Martise. You need the candle more than I do.”
She nodded her thanks and ascended the stairs. He heard the floor boards creak above him as she made her way to her chamber. The candle was truly more use to her than to him. He could light his way with witchfire, but even that wasn’t necessary. He’d lived at Neith for almost twenty years and could navigate its winding corridors, with their buckled, broken floors, blindfolded.
The drowsiness plaguing him in the library had vanished by the time he reached his bedroom. The bright moon, suspended high in the sky, plated the balcony and chamber in silver. Corruption’s star hovered below it, casting its own baleful light over the grove and the flat plains beyond. Silhara sensed the god’s nearness, its predatory regard. Best not to sleep. He could only imagine the horrors awaiting him in what should be peaceful slumber.
“Do you have nothing better to do besides vex me in my sleep and sully my magic?” He recalled Martise’s words. “You know, pestilences to create? Villages to destroy? Dead hounds to resurrect?”
He prepared his huqqah for his delayed evening smoke and tried to ignore the empty laughter filling his mind.
Sully? I thought you would appreciate that small taste of power. My offering is limitless if you accept me.
Silhara puffed on the hose tip, watching as a trail of smoke floated out the window in ghostly swirls. “Your little ‘taste’ rendered my Gift worthless for a day. I’m not interested in what I cannot control.”
Again, the god’s amusement scraped the inside of his skull. We are much alike, sorcerer. Yield, and you will have supremacy over all magery. Your Gift will seem a child’s toy compared to a sword, and you will wield that sword with the might of a god.
The matal tobacco, sweet when it first filled his mouth, burned acrid now. So tempting. He could not deny the persuasion of Corruption’s words. His Gift, the one thing that made him whole, made him equal to those who might otherwise spit on him in the streets, was a blessing. Manifesting while he gasped for air and writhed against his executioner’s grip, the power of the Gift had changed his life, given him a place above the teeming filth and violence of Eastern Prime’s docks.
Conclave, already wary of his Gift’s potency and the skill with which he wielded it, would panic were he to accept Corruption’s offer. Both priesthood and sorcerer knew Conclave would be the first casualty of Silhara’s newly acquired godhood. His eyes closed. The pleasurable images of the famed Redoubt nothing more than rubble and the priests, especially the Bishop of Asher, imprisoned or executed, played across his mind’s
eye.
Do you not see? This is nothing for you with my help. No more effort than crushing a bothersome gnat.
Corruption’s voice caressed and cajoled, and Silhara swayed in its embrace. The memory of a dream replaced the fantasy of Conclave’s destruction. A moonless sky over a black ocean and the leviathan traversing its dead waters. He opened his eyes, suddenly desperate to reassure himself the moon and her attendant stars still reigned over the night. Below him, the grove slept undisturbed. Alive and growing, the trees were testaments of his will to survive and conquer.
His lip curled into a sneer as the god’s star flickered. “Gods who are poets.” He exhaled tendrils of smoke in the star’s direction. “As if we aren’t already overrun with such useless men. You speak of sword-wielding, of kings and wealth and power unmeasured. But your price…” He shook his head. “They call me a carrion mage now. To yield to you will make me nothing more than a foul tick swollen on the blood of the world.”
Who knew you to be so noble?
Silhara laughed, his humor as insincere as the god’s. “What nobility is there in being a false god’s puppet?” His laughter died abruptly. “I will destroy you.”
Corruption mocked him. Will you? At what sacrifice? Are you willing to act as assassin to do it? Or martyr? What will you do, Silhara of Neith, to remain poor, reviled…and free?
Silhara put aside the huqqah and closed the shutters. His chamber, pitched into sudden blackness, became a crypt. “You ask the wrong question,” he said into the unbroken darkness. “Better to ask, what will I not do?”
CHAPTER TEN
If she managed to survive this journey, Martise intended to kill her former master the moment she was free. She paced past Gurn who waited with her in the bailey. Until recently, her dislike had been reserved for Silhara and his unorthodox teaching methods, but the Master of Crows had yet to deceive her. She’d known from the start he’d be a merciless teacher and had expected the worst.
Unlike Silhara, Cumbria had misled her. He’d warned her of Silhara’s mercurial nature and sharp tongue, of his power and his reputation. But he’d downplayed her role as spy. Adventuring had never been part of the plan.
“You need only do what you are unequaled at. Observe his actions, hear his words and remember every detail. He will betray himself. No man, not even Silhara, can hide all secrets forever.”
“Ha!” she snapped, ignoring Gurn’s perplexed look. So far, the Master of Crows had done a fine job of concealing anything that might bring Conclave justice down on his head. She’d seen no evidence of Corruption’s influence on him nor any interest in the god’s celestial presence. If Conclave ever outlawed orange-harvesting and book-stealing, Silhara was a dead man. Otherwise, she had nothing.
Nothing except a knotted stomach and the burn of fear in her throat at the thought of sneaking around a lich’s stronghold. The risks she took in coming here were worth regaining her spirit stone. But a lich? Cumbria didn’t mention Silhara’s fearless sense of purpose or that he had a soul eater as a neighbor.
His draft horse stood next to her and fluttered her shawl with a soft exhalation. Martise patted his neck and scratched a spot behind the bridle strap. The horse, a gentle dun gelding, was a far cry from Cumbria’s high-strung mounts. Saddled and loaded with supplies including Silhara’s crossbow and a pair of long knives, he too awaited Silhara’s arrival.
Martise looked at Gurn. “Do you think he’s still asleep?”
“I never went to sleep, apprentice. You should learn a little patience.”
With her back to the kitchen door, she'd missed his arrival. As usual, he moved on soundless feet. She bowed to hide her startlement. “Good morning, Master.”
His gaze skimmed over her shawl, long tunic and makeshift trousers. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept. Martise had spent the remaining hours before dawn cutting down a skirt and sewing it into something resembling trews suitable for riding.
Silhara wore his usual raiment of worn shirt, faded black breeches, and boots. His hair, free of its customary braid, fell straight and silky over his wide shoulders, framing a face sharpened by fatigue. Despite his shabby appearance and the weariness in his eyes, he had the air of an aristo—powerful, arrogant, sure of his place in the world. Martise sometimes found it hard to believe he was the son of a lowly houri.
She looked away, unsettled by the pleasant prickle dancing up her legs and across her lower back. She’d found him attractive upon first meeting, and even after, when he’d done his best to frighten her into abandoning her purpose here. Now, more accustomed to his ways and witness to his fair dealings with his dependents, she was even more drawn to him. She crossed her arms and silently admonished herself for such feelings. She had a role to play, an objective to achieve. The price of her freedom grew higher each day.
“What grim thoughts plague you so early in the morning, Martise?” His raspy voice snapped her out of her musings, and she straightened. “Have you fallen asleep standing there? I’ve asked you twice if you’re ready to leave.”
Her apology hovered on the tip of her tongue. “I’m ready, Master. I only wondered how long our trip might be.”
“Most of the day. We’ll camp about three miles outside Iwehvenn and reach the stronghold an hour or two before sunset. We’ll return to Neith in the morning.”
Alone with him for a day and night. More if she counted the return trip. Nervousness warred with a disquieting eagerness. “Then we shouldn’t delay.”
His lips quirked, but he didn’t reply. The gelding held still when he took the reins, swung nimbly onto the horse’s wide back and patted its withers. “You’ve grown fat on plains grass, Gnat. This journey will do you good.”
Martise’s eyes widened. “Gnat? His name is Gnat?” She stared at the mountain of horseflesh, heavily muscled and big-boned, with a girth that would make riding astride a challenge, and he stood at least seventeen hands high.
Gnat swung his large head in her direction, as if questioning her incredulity. Silhara stared down his nose, the expression made even more imperious by his high seat on the horse’s back. “I didn’t think ‘Butterfly’ suitable.”
A betraying flutter rose in her throat. “No,” she said, eyes tearing with the effort to hold in her laughter. “I suppose not.”
A flicker passed through Silhara’s eyes—so quick, Martise almost didn’t see it. She grinned and passed a gentle hand over Gnat’s soft nose. “Your name, big lad…no one would ever guess.”
Next to her, Gurn gave a short bark of laughter and signaled he’d lift her onto Gnat’s back. His hands were wrapped around her waist when Silhara stopped him.
“Put her down, Gurn. You’re not going with us. She needs to do this without your help.” He leaned down and held out his hand. “Take my forearm, Martise. Use it as a brace to mount.”
She stared at the graceful hand for a moment. Her fingers tingled in anticipation of the hint of power transferred from his touch—the presence of his Gift, so strong it leached through his fingers. She clutched his arm, gasping softly at that lightning contact and swung herself up behind him. She landed solidly on Gnat’s back, only to slide toward the other side. Her hands clawed at Silhara’s shirt and arm to keep from falling off.
“Foolish woman,” he snapped. “Find your seat before you yank us both off this nag.”
“I’m trying.” She managed to pull herself upright. He grunted when she wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed. Legs splayed wide over the horse’s broad back, she didn’t even think of what she did, too intent on staying in place and not hitting the ground that looked so far below her.
“For someone so small, you’ve a grip surpassing Gurn’s. You’re crushing my ribs.” He shrugged against her hold.
She let him go, almost falling off Gnat a second time.
Silhara’s low growl of frustration echoed in the bailey. “Hang on to me. Just not like a strangler serpent.”
“Sorry.”
“Of cou
rse you are.” He frowned at her over his shoulder. “Now are you ready?”
“Yes.” She swiped at the damp tendrils of hair stuck to her forehead. Even in the chill morning air, she’d managed to break a sweat with her efforts. This time her hands rested lightly against his sides, feeling the flex of muscle as he guided Gnat through the bailey. Gurn kept pace beside them, nodding as Silhara gave instructions.
“Check the southwest corner of the grove. I think one of the trees is diseased. If it can’t be saved, cut it down and burn it.” They waited until Gurn unlocked the bailey gate. “We’ll return tomorrow. If we don’t, send Cael to track us.”
Gurn frowned at the last. So did Martise. If their luck held, they’d return to the safety of Neith and find Cael in his customary place beneath the kitchen table. She smiled, despite her trepidation. When did she start thinking of Neith as safe?
She bid Gurn goodbye, squeezing his outstretched hand as they passed through the gate. Before them, Neith’s lands lay shrouded in a ghostly cloak of ground fog. Only the tips of the tall plains grasses rose above the murk, fluttering like fireflies as they caught the bright edge of the rising sun. Silhara guided Gnat down a gradually sloping path that curved around the manor in a half-circle and brought them to the gated courtyard with its cemetery of broken stone. At the gates, he spoke a few brief words. The lock snapped free and slipped on its anchoring chain until it clanged against the metal. Hinges sang their anguish as the gates swung open. Another cited spell, and Martise watched the gates slam shut. The chain took on serpentine life, twisting and looping itself around the bars before the lock closed with a loud click.
More undulating fog obscured the main avenue, rolling across the path in wispy tides that broke against the solaris oaks lining the way. Droplets of dew hung from the trees’ gnarled branches like jewels, falling occasionally to splash on Gnat’s coat or Silhara’s shoulders. Unlike the bishop’s more skittish mounts, the draft horse plodded down the road, his hooves clopping a steady rhythm.
