The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  “What happened to that set of swords you used to carry?”

  “I’ve had lots of swords.”

  “They were spelled, I believe.”

  Tying a bag onto my saddle, I paused to look up. “You weren’t in exile all these years, were you, Malaq? You know too much to have spent your life trawling for fish.”

  “Of course I was in exile. Officially though, I was only exiled from Kael’s city.”

  “Ever been to Langor?” I said, going back to tying.

  “Not yet. I hear it’s quite cold.”

  “What about Kabri?”

  “Once or twice. They weren’t exactly official visits though.”

  I nodded. “I see riding next to Jarryd has taught you to loosen your lips.”

  “And I see you tried to change the subject.”

  “Actually,” I finished my last knot and looked up, “I ended it.”

  “Damn you, Troy, I know Raynan Arcana formally presented you with a collection of Shinree weapons the morning you left to join Aylagar’s forces.”

  “He did. It was quite a ceremony actually. The way he talked me up, praising the results of my training, I thought myself invincible. I was sure I’d be back inside of a year with Langor’s signed surrender in my hand.” Memory darkened my tone. “But that was a private ceremony, Malaq. My tutors, his councilors, a few visiting lords. Can’t imagine how you could have learned of it.” I gave him a hard stare. “Just how many times did you go to Kabri?”

  “Never mind that,” he brushed me off. “If you have special swords to protect you, why aren’t you carrying them?”

  “Because they aren’t special. I could press stones into the handle of any weapon and it would work just as well. Besides,” I thought back to the day I sat my swords down in favor of the Crown of Stones. “Those blades have seen enough blood already.”

  “Understood,” he conceded. “But we’re nearly halfway to Rella and you haven’t uttered a word about how you plan on actually getting your hands on the crown.”

  “I thought you said men like me don’t work off plans?”

  “I may have overstated that a bit.”

  I threw him a brief grin. “I need to make Draken’s magic user vulnerable. Give him a target. Something to attack until his magic runs out. When he’s defenseless, I can kill him.”

  “What’s the target?”

  “Me.”

  “Great. Now how about a plan that doesn’t involve you dying?” I said nothing and he moved closer. “Ian, you took out two armies with the Crown of Stones. How are you going to withstand that kind of power if he turns it on you? For that matter, what’s preventing him from unleashing it on you right now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So then nothing is preventing him from crushing Kael’s troops, either. I mean, why wait until they start advancing on Kabri’s city wall? Why not wipe them out before they ever reach Rella?”

  “Because two Kaelish contingents, a handful of injured Rellan soldiers and a few farmers armed with shovels, is a waste of the crown’s power. All the man has to do is magically enhance Langor’s weapons and shielding, increase their soldier’s strength and aim, and then let sheer numbers do the rest.”

  “And you’re sure of this because…?”

  “Because it’s what I would do.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, Malaq rubbed his newly carved goatee like it itched. “Even so, there’s no way Draken is going to let you reach Kabri alive.”

  “Draken won’t kill me. Not yet.”

  Malaq gave me a look. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I know, it sounds crazy.”

  “Crazy? Not all. Considering, a few nights ago, my brother asked me to—what was it he said? Kill the witch in his sleep?”

  “Don’t ask me to explain.”

  “Sorry, my friend. But I’m asking.”

  “I can’t,” I said. Because no matter how hard it was getting to hide the effects of the dreams, telling him meant admitting that I was losing control. It meant confessing that I was relying on words from a nightmare. That reality and fantasy were blending so much that when Draken insisted over and over in my sleep that he had taken a vow not to kill me, I believed him.

  And I could barely stand the way Malaq was looking at me now.

  “I just need you to trust me on this,” I said.

  “Trust you?” He smiled slightly. “All right. We all have secrets. But if I let this go, I need the same trust from you in return. I need you to leave Draken to me.”

  Avoiding his stare, I reached for Kya’s bridle. I pulled it over her head, stalling, searching for a level head, a morsel of restraint; a way to give him what he wanted. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d argued with Jarryd in favor of Malaq’s plan. But since then, the dreams had altered my viewpoint. So drastically, I couldn’t imagine giving up the chance to kill the murderous bastard with my bare hands.

  “No, I want Draken dead,” I said. “Not in two months, or six, or a year. I want him dead now, Malaq. Dead in a way that you can’t possibly understand. The things he’s done…the things I’ve watched him do.” My teeth clenched as I recalled the methodical way Draken cut the dress from her body. The slow, meticulous way he carved her skin. “You wouldn’t ask me this if you knew—”

  The light shifted. Shadows fell.

  She crawled toward me on the ground, hand outstretched, tears streaming through the cuts on her face.

  I reached for her and shackles locked about my wrists.

  A whip sliced through the skin on my back.

  I stumbled into Kya. My throat was parched from days without water. I could feel the blood soaking through my shirt, the wrenching pain in my arms from being left to hang for hours on end.

  Closing my eyes, channeling the rage into my fists, I willed the illusion away.

  When I opened my eyes again, Malaq was standing on the other side of Kya, gaping at me. I didn’t know what to say.

  Until I realized he wasn’t looking at me.

  Head tilted back, Malaq was staring with a furrowed brow at the thick covering of foliage above my head. “Malaq…?” I said.

  “I don’t want to alarm you, but…” his focus narrowed. He drew his sword.

  Giving Kya a slap on the rump, I pulled my weapons and turned. I was prepared to swing, but there was nothing to swing at. “Malaq,” I said again, angry this time.

  “Higher.” He put his blade under one of mine and aimed it upward at a cluster of dark, billowing clouds. “Before you say anything, just watch.”

  For a full minute, nothing happened. Then, impossibly fast, the clouds dropped until they were touching the treetops.

  They lifted, dropped, and lifted again.

  The third time, they settled and started expanding.

  Swelling and puffing, like smoke bullied by an angry wind, the dense, dark vapor stretched—as if being pulled. Fanning out, increasing in size and density, the odd, indistinct material was spreading rapidly across the web of branches overhead of our position. Obscuring the vegetation as it traveled, shrouding the canopies and mushrooming out over the empty air, it dipped swiftly, diving like a swarm of insects to blot out the lower limbs and obscure the underbrush.

  Gliding farther downward, then out across the ground, the cloud-like darkness flowed smoothly over the grass, like a flood of black water. It rushed in from all sides.

  In a heartbeat the hill behind us was lost in shadow. The trailhead disappeared next, the bank leading down to the brook, then the horses.

  In seconds, all that was left of the glen was a swiftly diminishing circle of light, with us in the middle.

  TWENTY THREE

  “Do something,” Malaq said. He pivoted around. “It’s trying to hem us in.”

  “It already has. And I can’t cast with you here, Malaq. You know that.”

  “Where the hell would you like me to go? Through that?” He pointed at the dark fog pouring over his bags on the ground. “Not fucking likely.”
>
  As it pushed closer, I growled at him. “You’re running out of time.”

  “I’m not leaving you here. If I go, you go.”

  “Damn it, Malaq, I need you practical right now, not noble.”

  “I’m afraid you’re not getting either.” He gestured again at the cloud bearing down on us. Faster and faster, it began pulling itself together and apart, bunching like dough in a baker’s hands. “Whatever is happening…it’s happening now.”

  As the mist continued squeezing and expanding, pieces tore away. They drifted over the ground, misshapen and vague. Then they divided further. Twisting and lengthening, compressing and forming, the batches of gloom molded together.

  We were suddenly surrounded by groups of tall, featureless, man-like figures.

  Lacking a scrap of detail or clothing of any kind, the beings were without faces. They had no skin or hair, or any discernible texture whatsoever. Their bodies were solid darkness, indistinct, willowy, and ghost-like.

  I watched them close in. Eight. Twelve. Sixteen. Twenty.

  “I know what this is,” I said, losing track; their numbers were growing too fast to count. “They’re shadows.”

  “Shadows of what?”

  “Us.”

  “Sorry, Troy. Last time I checked, I only had one.”

  “At any given moment, yes. But how many do you think you make in a day?”

  I felt Malaq’s glance. “So they’re all coming? Every shadow I’ve ever made is coming to kill me?”

  “Not all of them. It depends on how long Draken’s magic user has been gathering them up. If he’s tracked us since we left Kael then…” I slid him a look.

  “Gods, but I hate magic.” Malaq drew himself up. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I read about this spell once, but it’s old. Really old.”

  “I’m guessing old means bad. Can we kill them?”

  “Let’s find out.” I rushed forward. Cutting through the center of the two nearest black silhouettes, my blades went in easily. Extracting the weapons left gaping holes and sent splashes of red, misty tendrils spurting into the air.

  “Blood,” Malaq said happily.

  The sprays of red faded to black and the holes closed.

  He groaned. “Now what?”

  I raised my swords to try again—and took a startled step back. The blood on the ends of my blades was moving. Darkening and swirling, the stains wrapped around, joined together, and slithered up the length of steel. “What the hell?”

  I shook both weapons. The black threads fell off one sword, but clung to the other. Swiftly dancing up and over the hilt, mist the color of night swept cold across my hand. It crept onto my fingers and they began to tingle and ache. My skin, where it touched the sword, burned.

  I tried again to jiggle the tendrils loose, but a heavy, lifeless sensation had settled into my hand. It deepened. I went numb from the tips of my fingers to my wrist, and the sword slipped out of my grasp.

  The darkness sloughed off me then. Clinging to the weapon as it fell to the ground, it curled away from the cold steel like a wisp of smoke and drifted off; leaving me to stare down in horror at my frozen, black skin.

  I felt no pain. I couldn’t feel anything. It was like my hand wasn’t even there.

  Behind me, Malaq let out a triumphant roar. I turned just as Natalia separated a willowy head from its body. The figure became two pieces. The pieces broke apart into flimsy wisps and disintegrated.

  He decapitated two more. They disappeared and didn’t reform.

  Malaq had found their weak spot.

  I raised my remaining sword. With so many targets, and Malaq’s strategy, I felled six in rapid succession. Our opponents were slow and weaponless. All I had to do was slice off their heads quick enough to keep the blood from sticking to my sword.

  There was a catch, of course. No matter how quickly we worked, they kept coming. The shadows were multiplying faster than we could kill them. Some crept between us. Others pressed in, tightening their circle. The rest blended together, uniting into a large, shapeless mass that was surging toward us like the great swell of an ocean.

  The waves flowed closer and my moves turned careless.

  I had no room to maneuver, no time to aim.

  Malaq let out a yell as the undulating black enveloped his boots. Tendrils crawled up his chest, wrapping around his arms. They spider webbed across his body; pulling him to his knees even as they turned black.

  I called out to him as I cut into the swell. I swung madly to reach him, but more and more strands of misty, dark blood was spilling up my sword, and the puddle of blackness was creeping rapidly up Malaq’s neck.

  Slinking across his face, the shadow inched higher. It closed over the top of Malaq’s head, and he was gone. Only one hand remained visible. Rigid and black, incapable of movement, it stuck straight out, like he was reaching for me.

  I dropped my sword. Calling to the stones at my wrist, I summoned the obsidian and lunged into the blackness. My fingers closed over his. As the icy strands began to flow over me, the remaining shadows moved in quickly, rolling in from all sides, dripping down from above to join the mass, and I started casting.

  With no thought but to save Malaq, I used the diamond on my wrist to momentarily link his essence to mine. The hematite became a shield to protect him from being drained by the spell, (an utterly desperate move that had no valid reason to work), the citrine to stop our hearts, and the garnet to infuse us with a big jolt of stamina to start them again. I had no plan for the obsidian. I simply felt better with its energy pulsing through me; more confident.

  Considering I was about to ask magic to bring us as close to death as we could go, I needed the boost.

  I threw the magic out. There was no enjoyment in it. Not as I was, on my knees, bitter cold, with blackness thick as tar climbing up my legs. My hand, clasped with Malaq’s, was frozen and stiff. My bones ached with the piercing cold. I could feel my heart slowing.

  My gut said that if the shadows believed we were already dead they would stop trying to make us that way. And it looked like I was right. As Malaq and I grew lifeless and unimportant, the bulging, shadowy mound reacted. It poured down off our bodies like a black tide, gathering up its errant pieces.

  When it had them all, it divided again, into four, thick, bloated, man-like shapes.

  Slowly, the shapes glided away in retreat. Light returned to the clearing. It didn’t help much though. I was getting what I wished for at the brook: the cold to close over me, the nothingness. Light was pointless now that I was dying.

  Except—

  There was the blurred form of a horse and rider on approach. As it grew nearer, I tried to focus on it, but in the forefront were the four remaining shadows. They were headed back toward the forest, dissolving, and I was afraid to let them go. I kept thinking: if they escape with the life they stole, would we ever get it back?

  Jarryd slid off his horse and ran toward us. My voice trembled as I forced out a word, “Head.” I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me, but Jarryd didn’t miss a step. He threw down his bow, took up Malaq’s abandoned sword, and started swinging.

  TWENTY FOUR

  “Here.” Jarryd pushed a cup of something warm in my hand. The steam rose up, found its way into my nose and the smell made my mouth water.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Looks great.”

  Sitting on the ground across from me, blowing the heat off his meal, Jarryd looked over the rim of his cup and inclined his head in the direction of the man stretched out on the ground between us. “Any change?”

  I looked at Malaq’s sickly pale skin. I watched his chest move under the blanket in little, shallow breaths, and I knew he was alive. But he hadn’t moved. Since I woke up two days ago, crawled over and sat down beside him, neither had I.

  “No,” I said. “He’s still the same.”

  “I skinned an extra rabbit. Found a couple eggs, a patch of strawberries. I figured he’d need to
get his strength back when he comes to.”

  “Good idea,” I said. But I needed to say more. Jarryd had taken out the last of the shadows, hauled Malaq and I up across our horses, and found a place to make camp. He’d kept us warm, fed, and safe, for days, while I sat on my ass in a fog of guilt, praying for Malaq to regain consciousness. I’d left everything to Jarryd. And it had taken a toll. Visible, dark circles ringed his blue eyes. His braid was half undone and pieces were sticking out all over. Dirt darkened his hands and streaked his torn tunic, as well as the crumpled skin of his swollen, scarred face. “You look like hell,” I added.

  “Me?” He flashed his usual, uneven grin. “Seriously, Ian,” he said, the expression fading. “Get some sleep. I got this.”

  “I can’t.” I knew too well what sleep would bring. “It’s my fault he’s like this.”

  “The fuck if it is. You’re the reason he’s alive.”

  “What I did, Jarryd, casting against the shadows with Malaq so close…it was irresponsible. Dangerous.” I wrapped my hands as tight as I could around the mug, soaking up the warmth. “What if he never wakes up? What if something went wrong? I had no idea what I was doing, trying to protect him from being drained by a spell. Gods, what was I thinking? My magic kills people, it doesn’t save them.”

  Jarryd didn’t reply to that. “What about you? Are you feeling any better?”

  “Some,” I said, sparing him the truth. He didn’t need to know that as life came back to everything the shadows touched it hurt like hell. My muscles and joints throbbed. My insides were trembling from a cold that I couldn’t shake. Not to mention I was so far beyond tired I wasn’t sure there was a word for it.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jarryd said. “Before I left, Neela told me about that.” He gestured at the black shard around my neck. “After what happened with the Crown of Stones, why do you think King Raynan gave you a piece of it?”

  “Honestly? I have no idea. I was a mess that day. Angry. Not thinking clearly. He handed it to me and I took it.”

  “They say you asked to be locked up.”

  “I did. I begged for Kayn’l.”