by Steven Poore
His eyes twitched open and he looked up at her, though she wasn’t certain he could actually see her. “Aliciana,” he breathed. “I could not restore you.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. I’m not Aliciana. I’m Cassia. I brought you . . . I brought some food.”
The warlock closed his eyes, and for a moment she believed he had fallen asleep again, but when he reopened them they focused upon her more quickly. “Cassia. Of course. Cassia.”
There was a long exhalation before he spoke again. “What is it?”
“I brought food, sir. I wanted to . . . to see how you were.”
“Tired. Does Leili know you are here?”
Cassia shook her head. Malessar coughed. It could have been a laugh, she thought.
“You have a taste for danger, girl,” he said. “Was Caenthell not dangerous enough?”
She managed to smile. “Perhaps Leili could have beaten the mists back with her wooden spoons.”
“That would make an excellent story,” Malessar said.
Unsure how to proceed, she brought the bowl over and found more cushions to prop underneath him so he could eat without spilling stew all over himself. The warlock tutted and sighed as she worked, but he was evidently too weak to fend her off. The effort exhausted her as well, and she slumped onto the mats by the side of the bed.
“You were fevered,” Malessar said. The bowl balanced precariously on his lap. “We believed the curse had ensnared you. You should still be abed.”
She could not dispute that. “You . . . Craw . . . you put me in that long room. When I woke up . . .”
“You could not stay there.” Malessar smiled. “But not only that.”
He was far more observant than he had any right to be in such a weakened condition. “No, sir.”
“Questions. We both have questions, for which there are no easy answers.” He stared into the bowl and then dug in with his bare hands.
Cassia sat and waited, uncertain where to start. If she should start.
“Sir, are the curse wards secure?”
“Hmm . . .” He chewed and swallowed. “For the moment. I had no idea the energistic power contained behind them had become so . . . overwhelming. So malevolent. I was extremely lucky to counter it with what Artrevia could lend me.”
“But how long will that last?”
There was a longer silence. “I have no way of knowing.”
“There were ghosts at the fort,” Cassia said. “Ghosts of soldiers. They rallied with me and fought back the mists for a while. We kept the fire burning.”
“As Craw said. You did well. I felt your assistance.” Malessar turned his gaze upon her. “And that is remarkable – again, worthy of a story in itself. Craw has given you his attention. No small feat.”
Cassia’s skin crawled. The dragon had seen her mind, seen her association with Baum and Meredith, and her place in the plot against the warlock. Craw had seen more besides, yet had not revealed any of it to either Cassia or Malessar. She felt as though she was on the edge of a precipice that she could not see. A step backwards could be safety – or it could plummet her into the void.
Malessar can sense that. I have to tell him.
Mention of the wraith-like soldiers reminded her of how she had almost died at the fort outside Karakhel. The touch of the mists had drained strength from her body. “The mists . . . that was what the wards held back?”
The warlock shook his head. “No. The merest outriders. Harbingers of the twisted revenants in the kingdom beyond.”
She shuddered, unable to conceive of anything worse than the numbing, leeching mists. With every minute the dramatic scale of her escape became clearer.
“And if the wards fail . . . ?”
“I shall have more warning,” Malessar said. “I was remiss in my duties. I shall not be found wanting again.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant, sir.”
“No.” The warlock sighed. “If the wards fail then those outriders will be the least of anybody’s problems. The revenants of Caenthell will burst forth and spread across all of the North. And then into Hellea. And then . . .” He pushed the bowl back towards her, his appetite apparently gone. “Then the world will be ruined.”
q
Cassia soaked up the light the same way basking lizards and flowering plants did. In the early mornings, before the sun rose too high, she worked through her forms on the rooftop, restraining the speed and rhythm of her movements to preserve her strength. At first she managed only a few minutes before fatigue had the better of her, but even over the first week of exercises she noticed a vast improvement. She was still weakened by the effects of the fever and her exertions in the mountains, but she could recover from that. Given time.
Time. The one element she could no longer be certain of.
Leili was happy to feed her as much as she could eat. Sometimes she felt like an over-stuffed doll, bursting at the seams, but she would always be hungry again by the time the next meal was placed in front of her. Malessar, still confined to his chamber, received the same treatment. The prickle of sorcery that she felt emanating from that wing of the dhar grew more noticeable with each passing day. The warlock had cast a spell of healing and sustenance upon himself, and as he regained his strength the magic itself became stronger and more powerful, thus hastening the process of recovery. It was a dangerous loop to set in place, but Malessar felt he had no choice. His attention had returned to the problem of the curse wards around Caenthell. They had to be strengthened. Redoubled. Made so tight that humanity would have another thousand years of grace before the spells had to be reinforced once more.
“But what will happen then?” Cassia asked.
The warlock had almost smiled. “That will be my problem, not yours.”
But time was not an ally.
Cassia had not broached the subject – she dared not, despite all she knew – but it was obvious Baum could not be allowed to succeed in his quest. The principles he stood for would destroy the North, not rebuild it. Meredith must never come into his inheritance. And he will hate me for it.
Wherever they were, they would be drawing closer. Baum was set upon confrontation. He might still listen to her – she could not do anything that would remove herself from Malessar’s side.
Does that make me evil, as Malessar was evil, by opposing the resurrection of the North? Surely not. Malessar did wrong for a reason . . .
She stopped abruptly, halfway through one of the forms, and the tip of the staff thumped against the tiles.
I am missing something. Something important. The reason behind all of this.
She was halfway down the stairs before she realised it. The rising heat of the day pressed against her as she emerged onto the balcony by the warlock’s rooms. There was a pressure in the air, and it was not related to either the heat, or the spells Malessar had cast. There was not a single cloud in the sky, but a storm was building.
The doors were closed, but some of the shutters had been pushed wide. Cassia ventured a glance through the nearest and saw the curtains drawn around Malessar’s bed. It was frustrating. She felt she could not ask the questions she really needed to ask while he was still recovering his strength.
She checked the courtyard to make sure neither Narjess nor Leili were watching, and then entered the room once more.
She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. A journal? From so long ago? It would likely have been worn to dust by the passage of time. But Malessar had surrounded himself with pieces of art from the North. It made sense to Cassia that his private rooms would feature the most meaningful pieces. She had been too tired to study them last time. This time . . .
The most obvious places to start were the alcoves on the far wall. These held the carved figurines, the painted masks that may have been used in worship hundreds of years ago. They all looked far too delicate to touch, their colours dried out and long-faded. Cassia wondered how Malessar had transported them safely across the world.
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She was drawn to the alcove closest to the bed-curtains. This contained only one figurine, of a woman seated on a tall throne. She had been carved with a regal bearing, one hand raised in pronouncement, or in greeting. Cassia tilted her head to one side, considered the figurine again, and changed her mind. In farewell, perhaps.
The woman’s features were characteristically Northern, distinctive across the ages and highlighted by the way the artist had portrayed her with her hair pulled back into a long tail. A young woman, Cassia decided. A princess . . . or a queen.
I feel I should know her.
“You have not been sent to watch over me.”
She jumped to her feet, startled by the warlock’s sudden appearance behind her. He had come from his private washroom, she realised. He had not been asleep at all.
“No,” she admitted. His stare was sharp enough to strip away any deceit. “But . . . I had a question.”
The warlock stretched out one hand to touch the figurine gently upon its head. “I see. One of the difficult ones. Well, ask.”
“Caenthell,” she said. “Why did it happen?”
“Because I was a fool.”
For a long moment Malessar said nothing else. Then he sighed. “That is Aliciana. Daughter of Rosmer. Brightest flower of the North. The reason I made alliance with Jedrell.”
“You loved her?” Cassia felt the shock rip the breath from her throat.
“Ever since we were children,” Malessar said softly. “It would never have been allowed, of course. Not for a princess and the son of a mere half-captain. But for a princess and a mage of the court . . . oh, I bent myself to my future. I disappointed my father, and I apprenticed myself to Damius Scarlet. And I sent letter after letter to Caenthell, to tell Aliciana how I would return for her as the greatest sorcerer the world had ever seen. And she waited for me.”
His eyes clouded, lost in remembrance. “This figurine had a twin, once. Aliciana as the Mistress of Blades, caught in mid-form. Graceful and lithe. The sculptor was a genius.”
“None of the stories tell of this,” Cassia said. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but that unseen pressure weighed upon her shoulders. She needed to find an answer.
“Of course not. This is my story, Cassia. Jedrell was banished from Caenthell for daring to cross Rosmer. He came to me and told me Rosmer had promised his daughter to a Berdellan warchief. I was outraged. I could scarcely believe the High King’s temerity. But Jedrell calmed me. He had a plan, he said, a plan to take the throne for himself. And he promised Aliciana would be free to marry me. I will perform the ceremony myself, he said, when my lands are secure. Of course I believed him. Jedrell was a persuasive man, and I – I was still young and naive.”
“I had a vision of you and Jedrell at the Hamiardin Pass,” Cassia said. “Just before the end.”
Malessar nodded. “The sorcery lingers – for good or for evil, who knows? Jedrell forced Rosmer’s hand from the throne of Caenthell, kept Aliciana as a hostage to fortune, as we had agreed, and commenced his rule of the North and his conquest of the lands that eventually became Hellea.” He flicked one hand in a dismissive gesture. “History recounts all too much of that. And I, safe in the knowledge that he would not hurt Aliciana, journeyed to Kalakhadze to complete my studies. Time fled, and I buried myself in arcane mysteries. I was afire with the power of the gods. Pyraete illuminated everything that made up the world. Mortal life had no meaning for me, then. I did not notice my beloved’s letters had first become infrequent, and then ceased completely.”
He stared down at the figurine. “And then I learned the truth. And the gods themselves could not have held me back.”
Cassia heard echoes of Baum’s version of the story. He murdered every single man, woman and child inside the castle’s walls – burned them or tore them to shreds with his sorcery. His rage consumed the very stones themselves, and he pulled Caenthell down to the ground and left it as a smouldering, ruined grave.
“She was swayed by Jedrell’s honeyed tongue,” Malessar said. “That is what I have told myself. I was in distant lands. She must have believed I had abandoned her. And when I returned, filled with the green fires of rage and impotent jealousy – they smiled at me. Be welcome, they said. Celebrate the birth of our son.
“I forswore my oaths and my allegiances – to my king, my home, and my god. What power I still had, I wrested from Pyraete and used against everything and everyone I had ever loved. And I burned them all to death and cursed the land itself. Is that answer enough for you, Cassia?”
But . . . Meredith lives. Jedrell’s bloodline. But if I tell him that – what will he do?
Cassia retreated to her own room – or, the long room that she was slowly coming to call her own. Leili had not allowed her to move back downstairs, and she suspected the old storage cupboard would now be firmly locked to keep her out. The weight across her shoulders had not lessened. If anything the pressure had increased, making each step more difficult than the last.
Why have you not told him the truth of who you are?
Craw’s words to her. She had still not figured out the dragon’s riddles.
Because he does not deserve that kind of betrayal, she thought. Because he has trusted me. And that’s more than Baum did, she reminded herself bitterly.
But it was not the whole truth. Not according to the dragon.
So what is the truth? How can I tell the truth if I don’t know what it is?
Turn your head to the side, girl.
What had Craw seen? There was a small mirror, set into a brass frame with a handle that curled like clinging vines, in one of the chests. Cassia rummaged through her belongings until she found it, and took it to one of the opened windows.
It was odd to think it, but she didn’t recognise the girl she had once been. That girl had been brash and dirty, more of a boy in many respects. Now she was tanned, her features more defined, as though she had grown into herself. Still a Northerner, of course, despite her dress . . .
With her free hand she scooped up her hair, pulling it back tight against her scalp. And she almost dropped the mirror in shock.
Aliciana. I look like Aliciana!
For a long moment she could scarcely breathe, so entranced was she by her reflection. By what Craw must have seen.
By what Malessar must see. Because he could not have failed to see the resemblance to the princess he had promised to marry.
She lowered the mirror. Unpleasant thoughts gathered at the edges of her mind. If both Craw and Malessar could see it, then so could Baum and Meredith. And they were the ones who wanted to get to Malessar . . .
Through me. Oh sweet gods, I must be the stupidest sheep in the bloody field.
The pieces fell into place before her, a tiled mosaic of conspiracy and naivety. The man who had pointed out Malessar’s ship to her . . . was the drunkard, Arca. The man who had directed her to Hellea’s great library, where she had initially encountered the warlock . . . was Arca. Arca, who had befriended her on the steps of the temple. Arca, who slept on the benches of the Old Soak – the tavern run by Ultess, who had once been a soldier in a company commanded by . . . Baum.
And the storm that had driven the ship away from Hellea, preventing it from berthing at Corba; could that have been Baum’s work? Sorcery intended to keep the warlock baited? To make sure Cassia landed at Galliarca with him?
It was too much to be called coincidence. She could feel the strings attached to her limbs, manipulating her.
He intended to put me in Malessar’s path. Because . . . because I resemble Aliciana. Because Baum has trailed him and watched him for hundreds of years. He knows how Malessar thinks, how he acts, how he tries to hold on to his humanity. How he loved Aliciana . . .
But if that was true, then that meant . . . she squeezed her eyes closed against the force of her thoughts. She could not believe how she had been played for a fool. Baum had never been interested in her father at all, or in his skills as a storyteller. It ha
d been her, all along.
And Meredith, too? But – he taught me! Protected me! I loved him!
That’s what they wanted me to think.
She became aware that she had collapsed to the floor. The mirror’s frame had chipped the bare boards next to her. The air throbbed like the beating of a giant unseen heart, disrupting her sense of balance.
Cassia dragged herself to her bed, fighting against the invisible pressure. This was sorcery too, it could be nothing else. And, suddenly, she knew the source of it.
The stone carving of Pyraete in the mountains had been moved to this room with the rest of her belongings. She had kept it safe beneath her pillow, where it came easily to hand every night and gave her sweet, disturbing dreams of the Heir to the North. Now, even before her hand reached under the pillow, she felt the warmth radiating from it.
She pulled the pillow away and recoiled. The stone carving pulsed, deep red veins within the rock beating as though it was alive. The figure between the mountains no longer resembled Meredith. Now it was aggressively angular, primal, clawing its way out from the peaks towards vengeance.
In that moment she knew it was not a good luck charm. It had not fallen accidentally into her possession. It was another part of Baum’s grand subterfuge. A signal, she thought. Like a beacon in the night, so they would always know how to find her.
The implication of that reached her an instant later. She scrambled to her feet, her limbs heavy and her senses dulled by the sheer weight of the sorcerous clarion, and grabbed at her sword-belt. There was no time to lose.
Malessar appeared on the balcony at the other end of the dhar just as she left her own room, struggling with the belt’s buckle. “Cassia! What is that? Something is flooding the air with sorcery!”
“They’re coming!” she shouted. “You have to get out!”
“Who? Who is coming? Cassia—”
The house shuddered, and she was almost thrown off her feet. The dull boom echoed between the walls, drowning out Malessar’s words. The pressure was so unbearable it hurt to breathe in.
