“You aren’t really a healer,” Kvepi Debess said abruptly, chewing on a meat pie, a napkin tucked in his collar. Reisil shot him a startled look, washing down a mouthful of buttered bread with a cup of milk. It was the morning following the apprentice test.
There had been a grand celebration in her honor the night before. Most every Kvepi had attended, offering toasts and praise. She couldn’t remember ever having felt so happy. In the midst of it, she had caught herself. What was she doing? The wizards had done so many horrible things—the list of their crimes seemed endless. But that all seemed so far away. She found herself reveling in their compliments, wanting them to think well of her. They were such a change from the ahalad-kaaslane. The wizards had every reason to be suspicious of her, every reason to despise her for killing so many of their own, and yet they welcomed her. And the ahalad-kaaslane, who had had every reason to welcome her, to trust her, had chosen instead to ostracize her.
“Did you hear me?” Kvepi Debess asked gruffly.
Reisil pulled herself back to the present. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not really your talent. Oh, you are reasonably good at it. I expect that has a lot to do with your tark training. You know the bits of the body and how they work, and so you make the proper repairs. Still, you don’t have the same kind of instinct for it that I’ve seen in other healers.”
Reisil stared at him. Not a healer? But of course she was. She’d trained to be since she was ten; even after becoming ahalad-kaaslane she had thought of herself as a healer. The Lady had said it too: Heal my land. Heal my children—human and animal.
“Now Uldegas, he’s a proper healer. Quick as a thought, he is. What did you think of the way he healed your burns?”
Reisil stared down at her pale hands and wrists. The tan was gone from them, but so were the burns. And Kvepi Uldegas had done it with hardly a glance, then retreated back to his workshop with little more than a grunt in response to her thank-you. She couldn’t have done it that easily.
“A battle mage maybe. Or weatherworker. Earthworking is a possibility too. Larger magics. The difference is that healing takes fine, small magics, and you’ve proved you can do that, but the larger magics take the talent to withstand, to hold, to channel it to a purpose. Uldegas never could, even before the banishment. You’ve demonstrated a talent for that. Of course, some depends on whether you can create the proper spells—”
“Why are there no women Kvepis?” Reisil interrupted suddenly, wanting nothing more than to shift the subject. And it was a question that had been gnawing at her for weeks.
“Eh? Women Kvepis? Don’t have ’em,” Kvepi Debess replied.
“Why?”
He shrugged a broad shoulder. “They exist. Fewer than men. Don’t know why. Whieche side of the guild mostly. Haven’t had one in the Nethieche since I can remember.”
“You destroyed most of the Whieche, didn’t you? And anyone else who wouldn’t follow you. The Karaliene said that, the night Kvepi Mastone summoned the Demonlord.”
His gray eyes fastened on her. When he answered, his voice was unchanged, conversational, congenial. “We did. Women are unpredictable. They do all right for a while, and then they start getting ideas. Start paying more attention to wanting children and such instead of concentrating on the magic. Get soft. Too bad, too. A lot of decent women with power.”
Reisil swallowed, setting her fork back on her plate. “So why bring me here?”
“You’re one of us. Proved it with that killing on the Vorshtar Plain, and then again with the men we sent after you. Impressive. Most women don’t have the heart. Always arguing against necessity. But not you. You think things through, see what’s what, and you don’t hide from it. Always got to remember your purpose and stick to it. Sometimes it means hard choices. But you know that.”
As he spoke, Reisil felt as if a hand were squeezing her throat. Her food sat in her stomach like cold lead, and her hands shook. She wanted to protest, to defend herself from his praise, but all she could remember was killing the assassins—wizards. The predatory anticipation, the thrill of power, the terrible joy.
She looked down at her plate, no longer hungry. Was he right? Was she really one of them? All these weeks she’d been content to pretend so: wearing the robes, learning how to use her magic, delighting in the warmth of their welcome. They all seemed so kind and generous, so . . . benign.
But they weren’t. These were the same people who’d destroyed Mysane Kosk. They’d kidnapped and raped Ceriba. They’d created the plague. Here in the stronghold, they practiced and perfected their magic. But to what end? Regaining power. Harvesting Kodu Riik. And they didn’t care who had to die in the process.
Reisil wondered for the first time what the wizards did in their laboratories and workshops.
“Ahem. Kvepi Debess?”
Kvepi Kaisivas stood in the doorway. His hair was damp from the steady rain falling over the valley stronghold. He rocked back and forth from his heels to his toes, an air of suppressed excitement surrounding him.
“Kaisivas, what brings you to my workshop this fine day?”
“Good news. There’s been a sighting. Tapit’s just gone out. Took two teams, the source is so powerful. At least two of them. I thought you’d like to know.”
Kvepi Debess slapped the table with a pleased bellow. “Wonderful! How long did he think?”
“You never can tell. But Tapit’s getting to be very good. By tomorrow or the next day, I should think. They’ve not shown a lot of movement since discovery, and they are not too far away. You’ll want to prepare.”
“Indeed I will, indeed I will. Well, this is good news,” he said when Kvepi Kaisivas had departed. His thick, blunt fingers tapped the table. “Just about ready. Been waiting, don’t you know, just not sure exactly when. You can help, of course. Be good for you to see the design of it.” He glanced at her, brows raised.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reisil said.
“Ah, well then, I’ll show you. Finish your lunch.”
The cold lead continued to sit heavily in her stomach, and she shook her head. “I’ve had enough.”
“Then follow me.” He shoved his chair from the table, picking up a fruit tart to carry with him. He led her past the door to the little square room where she trained and through the maze of clutter in the workshop to an oversize door at the far end. It stood eight feet tall and six feet wide with neither handle nor hinges visible. Kvepi Debess paused, turning around and frowning at the room as he brushed the crumbs from his beard. “Going to have to clear a path,” he muttered.
He opened the door, placing a hand on the center and whispering several words. Light flickered around his hand and then ignited a flurry of symbols. They spun outward to the edges of the door in a scrolling spiral, fading as quickly as they flared. As the last illumination died, the door popped open. Kvepi Debess pushed it wide. Ahead was a short corridor that opened into a large workspace.
She followed him into the oval chamber, equal in size to the room they’d just left. The threshhold consisted of a band of silver etched with arcane symbols. The band extended upward around the entire entry. A path of yellow jasper inset into the gray rock floor circled the room. A cross-path in the middle led to a wide yellow puddle in the center, where stood a group of tables piled with a variety of materials. Along the left-hand wall were three cages, perhaps nine feet tall by twelve feet wide. “Get used to staying on the path,” Kvepi Debess ordered. “Haven’t closed the seals yet, but once I do, stepping off will be quite dangerous. You’ll also not be able to cross back over the threshold without the proper incantation.”
Reisil nodded, her stomach churning. There was something all too familiar about the room. Reisil stopped to stare at the three cages. The bars were close set and appeared to be made of silver. There were symbols etched into the bars, wrapping them in a lovely scrollwork.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Kvepi Debess called from inside the centra
l work area as he shifted items around on a table.
“What—?” Reisil swallowed. “What are they for?” But she already knew. These bars were kin to those holding the Iisand beneath the palace in Koduteel.
“Nokulas.”
“What do you do with them?” She flinched when Kvepi Debess came to stand beside her, admiring his handiwork.
“Each bar contains forty-three spells. Then the floor has another twelve. I’ve been working on this for more than a year, with the help of some apprentices.” He sighed. “What I wouldn’t do to have my old reservoir of power back. Things went so much faster then. But Pahe Kurjus isn’t to be gainsaid. Lucky we discovered the nokulas. Once contained, they are immense sources of power. Stronger than any artifact any of us have created since the banishment. And their power renews constantly. Never need to be fed. Not one of those we’ve taken has died so far.” He shook his head in wonder. “They are perfect. They are the answer to our every need.”
The words struck Reisil like hammer blows. She remembered her disgust and horror at the sight of the Iisand, at his palpable malignance. But now she felt something different. Pity. And guilt.
“You know they used to be people and animals,” she heard herself saying, her lips barely moving.
“Of course. One of several good things to come out of Mysane Kosk. We believe that some were our people, which accounts for their discrepancies in power. With luck, there will be more benefits.”
Reisil’s hands turned so that her fingernails cut into her palms. She felt as if she stood on the deck of a storm-tossed ship, the world spinning around her. And when it stopped . . . The blood drained from her face. She didn’t want to look at what she’d see. She didn’t want to think about how complacent she’d become, ignoring the wizards’ evil because they complimented her and made her feel good.
“Here is what we need to do,” Kvepi Debess said, retreating back to the work area, oblivious of her distress. Reisil followed with jerky steps.
~What have I done?
~You are here where you are supposed to be, came Saljane’s swift answer, as if she’d been waiting for the question.
~But . . . I am the same as they. I left the Iisand caged. I wanted to kill them all.
~And now?
“She said heal Her land, heal Her children—human and animal. She said there was more to do than I knew,” Reisil whispered.
“Eh? What’s that?” asked Kvepi Debess absently, pulling out a roll of parchments and flattening them on a table.
~She meant the nokulas. I’m supposed to find a way to save them. Heal them.
~You are a healer.
~Kvepi Debess says not. He says my magic is better suited for battle.
~Your magic is what you make it. In one hand a flower is poison. In another, it is life. You came to learn. You have learned.
More than she expected, Reisil thought, cold purpose settling over her. More than the wizards expected. And not enough. She still didn’t know how to cure the plague or the nokulas.
“Look here. The threshold and surrounding floor isn’t quite complete. Left some blocks undone. With your help, I can finish it quickly. Where’s that quartz of yours?” He looked around as if expecting to see it underneath a stack of pens and parchment. “The training room, of course. Off you get, then. No, confound it. Better I go. You won’t be able to get back through the door.”
Off he bustled, muttering and ticking off items on his fingers. Reisil returned to the jasper path to look at the cages.
~There must be fifty or sixty workshops in the mountain.
Did they all keep nokulas inside? How was she to find them all? And what about Bethorn and Felias? Sodur had said they’d disappeared here. Had the wizards taken them? Were they even now prisoners?
~We must leave. We must go to Mysane Kosk. You cannot free them. Not now. There was a decisive, imperative note to Saljane’s voice.
~We can’t just walk away and leave them here. And what can we do at Mysane Kosk? I still don’t know how to stop what’s happening, and I can’t destroy it. I’ve got to find another way. Maybe Sodur was right. Maybe the sorcerers are the answer after all.
~You cannot release the nokulas here before the wizards stop you. The sorcerers are not the answer. You are. It’s time to trust yourself. You must go to Mysane Kosk.
Reisil’s attention sharpened on Saljane. ~Why? What do you know?
Saljane was quiet a moment. ~You are stronger than you were. You have seen what the wizards are. You are not one of them. They seek only power. Now you must go to Mysane Kosk and see what it is.
Reisil stared at the cages. The spells on them were more complex than she understood. Much as she didn’t want to agree with Saljane, faced with such magic, she knew she couldn’t free all the nokulas. Maybe not even one. But neither could she stay here anymore. Not now that she’d seen past the wizards’ kindly veneer to the indifferent brutality beneath. Returning to Koduteel would serve no purpose. Perhaps at Mysane Kosk she might learn something. And if not, then where? She smothered the thought.
“Here we go,” Kvepi Debess called as he returned, his face pink and shiny with sweat. “Now let me show you.”
The stack of parchments provided careful detail on the layers of spells on floor and cages. Kvepi Debess explained how each were connected, overlapping and cascading together to increase their strength. “Like weaving a basket,” he said. “Not all are active at once, of course. We have holding spells, then several for pain—they do feel pain you know. Not entirely as we do, but they can be trained. Then here”—he flipped pages—“we’ve got several for suppressing their magic. This is the masterpiece, though,” he said with pride, turning another page. “Had a hand in this myself. Disable the suppression spells and activate these, and their magic is channeled here.” He motioned to a small pedestal inset into the floor, obscured by the larger tables surrounding it. It was a slender finger of black stone. All along its trunk and crown were symbols of inlaid silver. In the center of the crown was a palm-sized round clear stone.
“What is it?” Reisil asked, not wanting to know.
“A focus. The nokulas’ power is channeled here—keeping in mind that they constantly radiate magic. They are magic. Whoever puts his hand here”—he set his thick hand over the clear stone—“receives the energy. It can be overwhelming. Even before the banishment, many of us never enjoyed such power.”
“And then what?”
“It can be used immediately in a burst, though most often we store it in an artifact to be used later. The spells in the floor catch an excess—once you remove your hand, there is an overflow before the suppression spells can be reset. Ingenious, eh?”
“Very.” Reisil swallowed the bile that rose on her tongue, her face rigid. And he was going to use her magic to finish this malignant masterpiece.
“Now, the threshold and the unfinished blocks are for security. An added gate for anyone trying to enter, and should the nokulas escape, they will be struck by paralyzing pain. They won’t be able to move until someone comes and retrieves them. Let me show you what I want you to do.”
Reisil spent the next hours studying the parchments and helping to lay the final spells. Everything in her revolted at what she was doing, but she forced herself to continue, to try to understand the patterning of the spells, how they worked, where they showed weakness. But the symbols and figures made little sense. More than once Kvepi Debess corrected her.
“No, no, no,” he said, standing over her. “See there? You’ve not closed that loop on the evlees and there, you’ve reversed the pahne.”
Reisil sat back on her heels, staring at the floor. As soon as she copied the symbols from the parchment onto the floor, they faded from her sight and all she could see was the smooth, gray expanse. “How can you tell?”
“You look. Can’t you see?”
Reisil rubbed grimy fingers over her face and shook her head. And what was she doing if not looking? “I am looking. I see ugly gray
stone,” she snapped.
“Use your inner eye.”
Reisil stared up at him, her teeth gritted. “I have an inner eye?”
He blinked and scratched his head. “Ah, dear. That’s another of those gaps of yours, isn’t it? I get so used to you being ahead of such things. All right, stand up then. Now, close your eyes. It’s easy enough, though it takes some practice. You’ve got to concentrate on the magic. You can feel it, I know. You’ve been swimming in it for weeks, so it’s going to be a bit harder to separate what’s here from what’s all around. You might see a kaleidoscope of light before you can refine it into the specific symbols and figures. What do you see?”
Reisil saw the backs of her eyelids. She groped, sensing the magic around, a prickling in the air, a slow current near her feet, a breath across her neck. She shook her head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Well there is a knack to it. Can’t concentrate too much or it won’t come. Imagine going slightly cross-eyed.”
“Cross-eyed with my eyes closed,” Reisil said. “Right.”
Kvepi Debess chuckled, patting her shoulder. “You keep trying, and I’ll finish up. Think about what you feel when you channel energy into the quartz stone. You can visualize that, no? It’s easy enough to see a flare of power when you expell it, but if you can’t see the spells as you build them, you’ll end up with a mess. Melt the flesh off your bones. Seen it happen. Spells are more subtle and difficult because they use little magic until they are activated. Think about the wards on the doors. You see the symbols brighten when I activate them, no doubt.” Reisil nodded. “With spellsight you’d have seen them all the time. Lucky you didn’t poke around too much. Might have lost a hand.”
Reisil sat cross-legged on the jasper path, her eyes closed. She ruthlessly suppressed all other thoughts but that of seeing the spells. It was going to be a crucial skill, especially when she made her stand. Knowing exactly what the wizards were doing and how could give her an advantage.
The minutes ticked away, and her head began to ache. Here and there she thought she caught a flicker of something, a ghostly glow at the edge of her concentration. But otherwise all remained black, and she was reminded how tired she was, how much her back hurt, how stiff her hips and knees had become from crawling on the floor and now sitting on the cold stone.
Path of Honor Page 38
