The Seventh Sigil

by Margaret Weis

  “The pistols are stored in a compartment in the bulkhead just above your head, Captain.”

  Stephano looked, but he could not see a compartment. The monk spoke a word and blue magical light illuminated the wall, revealing a secret cabinet.

  “The pistols are loaded,” the monk continued. “I will have to remove the warding constructs—”

  A bat rider appeared outside the shattered window, and another bat rider swooped down beside him.

  “Brother, duck!” Stephano warned.

  Green fire blasted through the window. The monk cried out and reeled backward. Blood and rain streamed down his face. He staggered and Stephano caught hold of him.

  “Rigo, light the lamp!” Stephano ordered, lowering the wounded monk to the deck. “Bring it over here. And keep your head down!”

  Rodrigo activated the lamp’s magic with a word. Crouching low, he brought the light to Stephano. Rodrigo took one look at the monk’s face in the lamplight and sucked in a horrified breath.

  “Oh, God!” he whispered.

  One of the monk’s eyes had been pierced by a large, jagged splinter of wood. The other eye was dark with blood.

  “I can’t see!” The monk started to lift his hands to his face.

  “Lie still. Don’t move,” Stephano said to the monk. Taking hold of his hands, he gently lowered them. “I’ll get help.”

  Green light flared, and Stephano could feel the yacht take another hit and make a stomach-dropping dive. Stephano and Rodrigo froze, helpless. Finally the driver managed to bring the yacht under control and they leveled out. Stephano breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Rigo, stay with him. I’ll go fetch the others.”

  Stephano started to stand up, but Rodrigo seized hold of his arm, dragging him back down.

  “Look!” Rodrigo held the lamp over the monk.

  A large stain, black against the red of the monk’s robe, was slowly spreading over the monk’s chest. Stephano tore open the monk’s robes to examine the wound. The lantern wavered. The beam of light stabbed all around the yacht’s interior.

  “Stop shaking, Rigo. Hold the lamp steady,” Stephano ordered curtly.

  Rodrigo swallowed and made a valiant effort to hold still. A projectile of some sort had entered the monk’s chest. The monk’s head lolled, and his body went limp.

  “He’s dead,” said Stephano, as he sat back on his heels.

  The gray clouds reflected the green and red of the flaring attacks as the yacht rolled despite the driver’s struggles with the wyverns. His fellow monk was still alive, still fighting. Another flash of red light accompanied by an extremely loud explosion was followed by the sound of a bat screeching in its death throes.

  “They won’t be able to hold them off,” said Stephano. He stood up, then staggered across the deck to the cabinet, nearly falling as the yacht took another hit. “Rigo, I need those pistols. Can you see the warding constructs he was talking about?”

  Rodrigo lurched toward Stephano, stumbled and crashed into him. “I can see them, but they’re—”

  “Good! Work your magic and get rid of them.”

  “I can’t,” said Rodrigo, keeping one arm braced against the bulkhead.

  Stephano glared at him in frustration. “Damn it, Rigo, you have to!”

  “You saw the kind of fancy magic these monks use!” Rodrigo protested. “It would take me a week to unravel—”

  “Hush!” Stephano ordered.

  Rodrigo froze. They could both hear the sounds of a desperate struggle right outside the door. They heard another blast, loud screams, and the shrieking of fear-crazed wyverns. And then they could feel the yacht begin to descend. No more red flares of light. The fight was apparently over.

  “What’s happening now?” Rodrigo whispered. “Can you tell?”

  Stephano could see through the hole the tops of trees rising up to meet them.

  “They’re going to try to land,” said Stephano.

  Rodrigo gulped. “What do we do?”

  “I have an idea,” said Stephano, thinking as he spoke. “Block the door with that crate!”

  “Is that going to stop them?” Rodrigo asked. “The crate’s not very heavy.”

  “No, but it will slow them down.”

  Rodrigo dragged the crate across the deck and pushed it against the door. Stephano retrieved the lamp. Holding it, he placed himself directly in front of the gun cabinet.

  “Get behind me,” he ordered Rodrigo. “Out of the line of fire.”

  “Meaning you’re going to let them shoot at you. You can’t be serious!”

  “Not shoot at me. Shoot at the cabinet and destroy the magic. It’s the only way to break those damn constructs. When the magic is gone, you yank open the cabinet and grab two pistols. One for you and one for me.”

  Rodrigo blanched. “Me! You know I can’t hit anything!”

  “You can hardly miss at this range,” said Stephano grimly. “Just make sure to point the barrel at the bat rider, not at me. Or yourself.”

  Rodrigo groaned. “Oh, God!”

  A bat rider tried to open the door, only to find it blocked. He struck the door with something, probably his foot. The first blow shifted the crate. The second knocked the door open.

  From his vantage point, Stephano could see two Bottom Dwellers in the driver’s box. One was driving the yacht, trying desperately to calm the wyverns and not having much luck. The other bat rider stood warily in the doorway. He wore the demonic-looking armor and was carrying one of the short-range green fire weapons.

  Stephano waved the lamp back and forth to draw the man’s attention. He shouted, raised his hand as though he held a pistol, and took aim.

  Startled, the Bottom Dweller shot at him.

  Stephano leaped to one side. Fiery contramagic streaked past him and struck the cabinet right where he had been standing. The warding constructs flashed blue, then started to disappear as the green-glowing contramagic ate away at them.

  Rodrigo desperately tried to open the cabinet. The magical constructs were broken, but he discovered a manual lock. Such locks were generally no problem for Rodrigo, who was accustomed to doing a little harmless snooping around the palace. Judging by his muttered imprecations, he was having difficulty with this one.

  The Bottom Dweller drew a second weapon and aimed it at Rodrigo. Stephano flung the lamp and hit the soldier in the arm, disrupting his aim. The lamp broke, plunging the cabin into darkness

  “Rigo!” Stephano called urgently.

  “Got it!” Rodrigo cried.

  A small sizzle of blue electricity flared around the lock, sparks flew, and he pulled open the cabinet door. Several pistols were mounted on one of the cabinet walls, along with powder flasks, and ammunition. Rodrigo took down a pistol and tossed it to Stephano, who caught it and dove for cover underneath the table. He hoped the monk had been right when he’d said the pistols were loaded.

  Barely taking time to aim, Stephano pulled back the hammer of his pistol and fired, just as the bat rider fired his weapon at him.

  The soldier grunted in pain and clutched his leg as green light flared, and a wave of heat washed over Stephano. The wooden tabletop went up in flames. Stephano beat a hurried retreat, crawling across the deck. He knew he had at least hit the Bottom Dweller, but unfortunately, not critically. Even as blood was running down the man’s leg, he was reloading his weapon.

  Rodrigo, white-faced, held a pistol in his shaking hands. “Don’t make me kill you! Don’t make me! Don’t make me!”

  The Bottom Dweller raised the weapon and aimed it.

  “Rigo! Shoot!” Stephano yelled.

  Rodrigo shuddered, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun went off. Rodrigo fell over backward and the Bottom Dweller staggered as the bullet slammed into him. Stephano dashed across the deck to the cabinet and grabbed another pistol. He turned to shoot, caught a glimpse of tree limbs flashing past the window and realized that the yacht was falling much too fast. W
ith a horrific, wood-splintering crash, the yacht slammed into the trees, flipped over on its side, and went tumbling, rolling through the branches. Tree limbs snapped and cracked.

  Stephano lost his grip on the pistol and crashed into what had once been the ceiling and was now the deck. The yacht continued to fall. Rodrigo slid on his belly past Stephano. The body of the dead monk tumbled past Rodrigo. The Bottom Dweller slammed into the table, which was bolted to the deck and was the only object in the yacht that wasn’t in motion. Then the terrifying plunge through the trees suddenly ended. The yacht came to a bone-jarring stop.

  Stephano lay on his back, too shaken to move. Dim light filtered through the wreckage. He looked for the door and saw it hanging open above him. Through it he could see nothing but leaves and branches. The yacht shifted and shuddered and Stephano sucked in a breath, expecting another fall. The yacht was apparently only settling, for it stopped moving.

  “Rigo,” Stephano called softly.

  “I’m here … I think…”

  Stephano looked over his shoulder to see his friend lying on his belly, his arms outstretched, his feet against the blood-spattered wall.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I bit my lip,” Rodrigo said plaintively. “And my arm hurts. What about you?”

  “Bruises and cuts, nothing serious. Where are we?” Stephano asked, still whispering. “Can you see out the window?”

  Rodrigo gingerly turned his head.

  “I think we’re on the ground. The yacht is tilted at an angle, leaning against a tree trunk.”

  Stephano was about to try to raise himself off the deck when he heard sounds coming from outside—a groan and someone moving about. Whoever had been flying the yacht—presumably a Bottom Dweller—was still out there.

  “Lie still!” he hissed at Rodrigo.

  Stephano shifted his head to locate the gun cabinet and silently swore. The pistols were there, mounted in the gun cabinet, but he couldn’t reach them. The cabinet was now about twelve feet above his head.

  “Odhran!” the driver—he assumed the man was the driver—called.

  Stephano was startled. Gythe had claimed the Bottom Dwellers spoke to her in the language of the Trundlers, and this one had a Trundler name. He recognized it because one of Miri’s innumerable cousins was called Odhran. Stephano cast a glance at the Bottom Dweller in the cabin. His body was wrapped, unmoving, around the table.

  The driver called again more urgently, “Odhran, cabru le!”

  Stephano knew a few words that he’d picked up from Miri. These words were among them, good words to know in any language: “I need help!”

  Rodrigo’s eyes were wide.

  “What do we do?” he mouthed.

  “Play dead,” whispered Stephano.

  “I can do that,” Rodrigo muttered. “I’m halfway dead from fright already.”

  Stephano kept looking at the door, his eyes half closed, peering out through his eyelashes.

  The Bottom Dweller said something else, something about his legs. Stephano wasn’t sure, but he thought the man was pinned inside the driver’s box. A head appeared in the open doorway. The Bottom Dweller had removed his helm and his large eyes squinted in the dim light, trying to see. When he saw the body hooked on the table legs, he groaned and shook his head.

  He called Odhran’s name for a third time, then muttered something and shifted his attention to Stephano and Rodrigo. Stephano closed his eyes and held his breath.

  A flapping of bat wings came from outside the yacht. The Bottom Dweller drew back his head.

  “Captaen! Thar anseo!”

  Through the open door, Stephano could see a mounted bat rider hovering in the air above the yacht.

  “There’s another fiend outside,” Stephano told Rodrigo softly. “Don’t move!”

  “Don’t worry!” Rodrigo gasped.

  The bat rider descended, out of Stephano’s view. He could hear the man outside, talking to the driver. Stephano had trouble understanding, but he caught enough to gather that the driver was trapped inside the box and the captain was attempting to free him. The latter asked about Odhran, to which the driver said something Stephano couldn’t hear due to the rustling of leaves and cracking of branches. After a lot more noise, the captain was successful in freeing his comrade, and the next thing Stephano knew, both men were peering inside the door.

  Stephano closed his eyes. The captain called Odhran’s name again, and Stephano waited tensely for him to climb into the yacht to investigate. After several heart-pounding moments, the captain drew back from the door and said something to the driver.

  Stephano recognized the word, marbh. Dead.

  The captain left the doorway.

  “I can’t stand this. I’m going to be sick,” Rodrigo murmured.

  “No, you’re not,” Stephano whispered savagely. “They’re still out there.”

  He waited a moment, listening. “I think they’re leaving. Don’t move yet.”

  Watching through the open door, he saw the bat rise from the ground, now carrying two riders. Stephano waited until the bat was out of sight, then drew in a breath. He didn’t realize until then he had stopped breathing.

  “Can I be sick now?” Rodrigo asked. He was in pitiful condition, his face smeared with soot and blood from where he’d bitten his lip, and his jaw swollen and bruised. When he moved his left arm, he winced.

  Stephano could feel a large lump growing on his forehead, and realized that a painful gash across his nose was bleeding profusely.

  “Wait until we get out of here,” he said, as he helped Rodrigo to his feet.

  Kicking aside some broken boards, they crawled out of the wreckage. Once out in the open, Rodrigo ducked behind a tree, and shortly after, Stephano heard the sound of retching.

  When Rodrigo returned, pale and disheveled, he was cradling his left arm.

  “Is it broken?” Stephano asked, concerned.

  “I don’t think so. I’m going to have an unsightly bruise,” he added.

  He paused a moment, clearly distraught.

  “Did I kill that wretched demon, Stephano?” he asked finally. “My eyes were closed. I couldn’t see.”

  “I don’t know, Rigo,” said Stephano, who was fairly certain Rodrigo’s shot had by some miracle actually hit the fiend. “Everything happened at once. If you did, you saved us. He would have killed us.”

  “I know,” Rodrigo said quietly. “But still … he was some demon mother’s son.”

  He sighed deeply, wiped his face again and looked around. “Do you have the faintest idea where we are? All I see are trees.”

  “The yacht flew over the city of Eudaine not long before we were attacked,” said Stephano. “We can’t be far from there. We were flying south, and we can tell by the position of the sun which way is west. So if we start walking that direction—”

  “Stephano, look,” said Rodrigo suddenly, pointing to a tangle of green leaves and gray branches and a splash of red.

  The body of the monk of Saint Klee lay in a heap a short distance from the yacht. The body must have been thrown from the yacht when it struck the trees.

  “We need to do something for him. We can’t leave him here. We should bury him,” said Rodrigo, his voice breaking.

  “We have no tools to dig a grave,” said Stephano.

  He walked over to the corpse. Taking off his coat, he draped it over the monk’s ravaged head. “God rest your soul, Brother, and give you peace.”

  “Amen,” Rodrigo said softly.

  He slumped against the trunk of the tree. Stephano eyed his friend with concern.

  “Sit down and rest. I’ll search the yacht. There must be food and water on board.” He glanced at Rodrigo. “We don’t want to spend the night here, I’m thinking.”

  Rodrigo shivered. “With two dead men? God forbid. But I’ve thought of a problem, Stephano. We gave the monk our word of honor as gentlemen we wouldn’t escape.”

  “I think he would release us fr
om that promise,” said Stephano. He was silent a moment, then said somberly, “We will have to go to the monks, tell them where to find his body.”

  “That means they’ll arrest us again!” said Rodrigo. He looked back at the corpse lying beneath Stephano’s coat and sighed. “You’re right, of course. The poor fellow must have a proper burial. I suppose the monks will bury the demon, as well. We should leave them a note, tell them his name was Odhran. Strange that his armor didn’t go up in flames, like the first demons we encountered.”

  “Good thing for us it didn’t,” said Stephano grimly. “The same happened with the Bottom Dwellers that died on Braffa. Their armor didn’t destroy the bodies. I wonder why.”

  “Maybe because they’re not taking time to add the magical constructs that caused it to catch fire,” said Rodrigo, adding in thoughtful tones. “That could be significant.”

  “For what reason?” Stephano asked, trying to sound interested.

  His mind was on other things, such as wandering about lost in the wilderness without food or water. He was glad to see Rodrigo thinking about something else, taking his mind off their terrifying experience. “I’m going inside the yacht to look around. Keep talking.”

  Stephano made his way back to the wreckage of the yacht, shifted some tree branches and climbed inside. Rodrigo’s voice floated through the cracks.

  “They went to great lengths to make us think they weren’t human. They were fiends from hell with faces out of nightmares and bodies that were destroyed by magic fire. They wanted to demoralize, terrorize. But now they don’t care. And maybe they’ve stopped caring because it doesn’t matter anymore. The flaming corpses, the murder of the nuns, the attack on Westfirth, the destruction of the Crystal Market, the seizure of the Braffan islands and the attempt to bring down the palace—they are rushing headlong toward some dire ending.”

  Stephano considered this highly likely. “All the more reason I need to go ahead with my plan to take the fight to them. That assumes, of course, we’re not languishing in some dungeon.”

  Rummaging about, he found blankets, a bag of dried sardines, complete with the heads; dried fruits that were so shriveled up he couldn’t recognize them; and bread that looked as if it had been baked sometime during the Dark Ages. If this was what the monks lived on, no wonder they were so thin.