And every one of those balconies held hundreds of wooden bookcases laden with books and scrolls beyond count. Marsile had lived for almost nine score years, and he could have spent every last one of those years reading in the Library and just scratched the surface of the great collection.
But only one book interested him now.
He kept walking, part of his will focused on keeping Carandis under control. The rest of his mind examined his surroundings. The great doors opened onto the fifth level of the Library, and he crossed to the railing. The Conclave’s Great Library had nine levels, the books sorted by floor according to topic.
Marsile stared at the marble floor far below and cast a spell.
At once felt the presence of the spells warding the hidden trapdoor at the base of the iron stairs.
Only a few Magisters knew about the Sealed Library, the Conclave’s collection of forbidden lore and dark secrets. Secured in the Sealed Library, the Conclave kept records of things it wished hidden. Such as how centuries ago the First Magister had arranged for the New Empire to turn again the Archpriest of the Temple in Chyrsos. Or how the Conclave had arranged for the assassination of at least three Callian kings that had refused to allow the College Novitia to search for talented children.
And within the Sealed Library were long-forgotten books, tomes detailing the methods of Hierarchs of the Old Empire had used to master blood sorcery and bind demons to their will. Marsile had spent a long time looking for such books.
How amusing that one of the books he sought had been hidden beneath the Ring for all this time.
Marsile strode around the edge of the balcony, running Carandis’s fingers along the railing’s smooth marble. For a moment he considered killing her and returning to his own body, but discarded the idea. He thought he could dispel the wards around the Sealed Library…but he was not certain. If he failed, better that Carandis’s body absorb the brunt of the mistake instead of his own.
He had spent too long searching for immortality to die now.
The railing ended, and Marsile took a step towards the iron staircase.
“Carandis!”
He turned, raising Carandis’s hands in the beginning of a spell.
An enormously fat man in the red robe and black stole of a Magister hobbled into sight, leaning upon a heavy cane. A graying beard concealed most of his double chin, and his ruddy skin and bald head gave him the appearance of a bearded apple. Marsile felt a surge of emotion from Carandis, and he searched her memories. The man was Magister Rodez, the chief Magister of the College Historia and Carandis’s mentor.
“It is good to see that you are alive,” said Rodez. His eyes flicked over Carandis’s face and hands, and Marsile realized that Davrus’s blood spotted her skin. “But…you are hurt!”
“It’s not my blood,” said Marsile, truthfully. He tried to put a terrified quaver into Carandis’s voice. “Magister, there are Jurgur blood sorcerers loose in the halls of the Ring. They summoned those demon-wraiths. They attacked me, and I barely escaped.”
Rodez frowned. “The wards? You opened the wards?”
“I had no choice,” said Marsile. “The blood sorcerers…the blood sorcerers cornered me in the courtyard of the inner Ring. I had to go through the windows of an apartment to escape. The only way out was to enter into the Library.”
“At least you are unhurt,” said Rodez. The old man took a deep breath and cast a spell, silver light pulsing around his fingers. A flare of silvery radiance filled the Library for an instant, and Marsile felt the power surging through the walls. “There. The wards have been reestablished. We should be safe enough, for now.”
“Thank you, Magister,” said Marsile. “I feel much better.”
“We had best wait here,” said Rodez, turning towards the railing. “The blood sorcerers might want to get their hands on the Conclave’s books of the High Art. It is our duty as members of the College Historia to defend the Library.”
“Should we not join the other Adepts?” said Marsile. “Surely the First Magister will need our aid against the demons and the blood sorcerers.”
“Arthain Kalarien is a humorless old tyrant,” said Rodez, “but the man can hold his own in a fight, I’ll give him that. He won’t need our help, my dear. No, we need only hold here until Arthain defeats the blood sorcerers.”
Marsile made Carandis nod. “You are right, Magister. I just hope the foe does not batter through the doors.”
Rodez scoffed. “I should like to see them try. The great Adepts of old fashioned those wards when the Ring was first built. The Old Empire was burning, and the first Adepts of the College Historia knew that the Ring would defend lost knowledge…”
The old man continued his speech, and as Marsile hoped, he turned to face the doors.
Marsile reached down, plucked Carandis’s bloody sicarr from its sheath, and rammed the blade into the Magister’s neck. Rodez stiffed with a strangled cry of pain, his hands flying to his throat. Marsile tore the dagger free and stabbed again, severing the veins.
Hot blood flowed across Carandis’s fingers.
“I did tell you,” said Marsile, “that it wasn’t my blood.”
Rodez slumped to the floor, dying, and Marsile swiped Carandis’s hands through the blood.
He would put it to good use.
Carandis’s howls of rage and grief echoed inside his thoughts, and he ignored them. Still, he had to hurry. The rage would give Carandis fresh strength, making it all the easier for her to break free. And Rodez had been correct about the First Magister. Marsile had put weeks of work into preparing his wraiths, but he had no illusions about their strength. Within a day the Conclave would overpower them…and then they would come for Marsile.
But by then he would be long gone from Araspan.
He strode down the metal staircase, Carandis’s boots ringing against the iron grillwork. As he did, he rubbed her blood against her hands, summoning his own power through her flesh. The Conclave had never understood. The High Art was just one avenue to power. There was power in blood, and the Conclave had been fools to disregard it. The Hierarchs of the Old Empire had fused blood sorcery with the High Art, and their magic had been sufficient to dominate the entire world, until their folly had destroyed them.
Marsile intended to put that power to better use.
He reached the bottom of the staircase and stopped, marveling at the ingenuity of the ancient Adepts. The trapdoor to the Sealed Library rested at the foot of the stairs, hidden in an array of subtle illusions and wards. Hundreds of Adepts and Initiates walked over it every day. Yet only the cleverest and the most powerful would ever begin to suspect the existence of the Sealed Library's entrance.
Marsile was among them.
He cast a spell of the High Art, using blood sorcery to augment his powers. Silver astralfire danced around Carandis’s fingers, merged with the crimson flame of blood sorcery. Marsile pointed her hand, and a column of red astralfire leapt from the possessed woman's finger and slammed into the floor with a tremendous crack.
There was a flash of bloody light, and a trapdoor appeared in the floor as Marsile’s astralfire shredded away the wards. It was a massive slab of ancient oak, banded with black iron, sigils of silver fire dancing on its surface. Marsile focused his will, pouring more crimson astralfire into the trapdoor. It shivered and exploded in a spray of jagged black shards.
Beyond Marsile saw a stone staircase descending into the darkness.
He lifted Carandis’s hand and worked a simple spell, conjuring a floating ball of blue light. The stairs spiraled down into the depths of the rock, into the gloomy vaults below the Ring itself. Marsile remembered his Testing, and recalled facing the demons in the darkness during the trials. A pity he did not know then what he knew now, how the power of the demons could be made to serve him.
At last the stairs ended in a wide, tall vault, the ceiling supported by thick pillars. Stone plinths stood scattered about the chamber, holding glass display cases.
In those cases rested an array of ancient books and scrolls, written in the tongue of the Old Empire or the language of the extinct Elder People. Bookshelves stood in the alcoves between the pillars, their shelves sagging beneath the secret histories of the Conclave.
Marsile lifted Carandis’s hand and increased the power to the blue light, throwing harsh shadows across the Sealed Library. He crossed the room, moving from plinth to plinth, scrutinizing the interior of the display cases. A hint of misgiving gnawed at him. He had devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to this attack. But if he had been mistaken, if the book he sought was not…
He stopped, his smile spreading over Carandis’s face.
There.
He worked a spell over a display case, shattering both the glass and the warding spells over it, and reached inside. A thin book rested there, bound in ancient black leather, its cover marked with words in High Imperial. Marsile picked up the book and flipped through it, his excitement growing. The book had been written by one of the Hierarchs, the great mage-lords of the Old Empire, perhaps even by Baligant himself.
A map occupied one page of the book, showing the lands west of the Silvercrown Mountains in the days of the Old Empire. The vast bulk of the Old Empire’s population and subjects had lived east of the mountains, and the western lands had been little more than sparsely populated outposts. In fact, the Ring had begun as the Old Empire’s westernmost outpost, a dumping ground for those too weak and incompetent to compete in the Empire’s brutal internal politics. Only after the collapse of the Old Empire, after the Seeress led the barbarian tribes over the mountains, had the western lands gained a population of any significance.
Marsile ran his eyes over the map, following the line of the Alderine River from the kingdom of Callia to the Silvercrown Mountains. The powerful kingdom of Arvandil had once stood there, until it had been destroyed by plague and the resultant hordes of ghouls. But Arvandil had been founded by survivors from the Old Empire, and they had brought many relics from the Empire’s ruin.
“Karrent,” breathed Marsile, looking at the map. Arvandil had fallen, but the village of Karrent still lay along the banks of the Alderine. Along with a few monasteries founded to guard books of lore taken from the Old Empire.
And in the monasteries of what had once been Arvandil, Marsile would at last find the books he needed.
A surge of wild exultation rushed through him, and he laughed aloud. Let the Adepts destroy his wraiths! They were only tools, and the Adepts were blind fools. Marsile had found the path to the secrets he needed. Immortality was his for the taking.
He would live long after the Conclave had been forgotten and the Ring had crumbled into dust.
Marsile took the book and hastened up the stairs. The Great Library itself remained deserted. It was just as well he had launched his attack in the evening. Most of the Adepts and the Initiates would have been at dinner, away from their studies. Now Marsile need only undo the wards around the Library’s doors and depart the Ring. A smuggler’s ship awaited him just outside Araspan’s harbor. A few astraljumps to take him there, and Marsile could leave Araspan behind.
The Conclave would seek revenge, of course, but they would never find him.
That left only the question of what to do with Carandis Marken.
Marsile climbed the iron staircase and returned to the Library’s fifth level, the book tucked under Carandis’s arm. He needed her for only one more task. After he used her knowledge to open the doors of the Library, he would force her to cut her own throat.
Then he would return to his own body and leave Araspan.
He felt Carandis’s growing horror as he strode towards the warded doors, her frantic struggles as she tried to escape. He did feel a pang of regret at killing her. Much as he disliked using a female body, she was young and strong, and it at been pleasant to climb the stairs without pain in his knees and back.
Still, he had no further use for her or her body. And Marsile did not keep tools that had outlived their usefulness.
He ripped the knowledge of the warding spell from her mind, unraveled the protections upon the Library doors, and stepped back into the corridor.
Chapter 7 - Thoughtmeld
Four wraiths drifted down the corridor, their immaterial hands reaching for Thalia.
Solthain’s emotions, his intent to act, flooded through the thoughtmeld, and she sent an acknowledgement back.
Thalia lifted her hand, silver flames bursting from her fingers, and struck. A cone of silver astralfire sprayed down the corridor, slamming into the approaching wraiths. The demons hesitated, rippling as Thalia’s magic disrupted the binding spells upon them. But Thalia was not strong enough to break the spells, not on four wraiths at once, and the creatures resumed their forward motion.
But Thalia had given Solthain more than enough time to act.
Her brother sprang forward, his sicarr and cortana a blur of white flame. He slashed both weapons through the nearest wraith, and the creature dissolved into swirling smoke. Another reached for him, only to have its touch rebound from his ward of white light. Solthain whirled, stabbed, and the second wraith dissolved.
Thalia hurled a blast of white astralfire. It drilled into the third wraith like a knife plunging into bread. The demon dissolved with an angry hiss, and the last wraith flew through the swirling smoke.
It met Solthain’s weapons.
“Good fighting, sister,” said Solthain, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Though you should have let me dispel that wraith. You should save your strength for silver astralfire.”
Thalia snorted. “If I had, it would have reached you.”
“My wards would have turned its attack,” said Solthain.
“Which would have drained your strength further,” said Thalia, “when you need to conserve your power for keeping white astralfire around your weapons. Which was a nice touch, by the way.”
Solthain grinned. “I thought so. Too many Adepts disdain the necessity of physical training. Keeping white astralfire around my blades,” he gestured with his sicarr, “is far less taxing than conjuring blasts of astralfire over and over again.”
He had proved his point, too. Between the two of them, Thalia and Solthain had dispatched forty-six wraiths, and found and destroyed thirteen of the enspelled corpses. The frequency of the attacks had decreased. She hoped the other groups of Adepts had done as well.
“Here,” she said, stopping before an apartment door. “The flow of power terminates here, I think.” She took a deep breath and braced herself.
Finding the corpses had never been pleasant.
Solthain nodded and opened the door. Four dead men lay upon the floor within the apartment, clad in the orange tunics of slaves. Sigils of crimson and white fire burned upon their limbs and brows, reflecting in their glassy eyes. The crimson light brightened as Thalia and Solthain approached, the demons manifesting with the corpses.
But Thalia and Solthain were ready. Thalia loosed a blast of silver astralfire, and then another, striking at the corpses. The sigils of fire disappeared beneath her magic. Solthain did the same, and soon the spells were broken, driving the demons back to the astral world.
The corpses slumped against the carpet, nothing but dead flesh once more.
Thalia let out a long sigh. Her head ached from the amount of magic she had worked today, but the fighting was not yet over. In the back of her mind she felt Carandis’s presence through the thoughtmeld. The other Adept was full of wariness and fear, but her cool nerve kept the fear under control.
“The Adept that did this,” said Solthain, looking at the corpses. “I wonder how he smuggled all these dead men into the Ring?”
“He didn’t,” said Thalia, nudging one of the bodies with the toe of her boot. The orange tunic fell open, and she saw a sigil written in charred flesh upon the dead man’s chest. “A blood spell. Maerwulf used something similar. Most likely the Adept told the slaves to scatter themselves around the Ring. And then when h
e was ready, he triggered the spell, killed them all, and created the wraiths.”
“As bad as Talvin,” said Solthain. He sighed. “Little wonder Father is as harsh as he is. A corrupt Adept can cause a tremendous amount of harm.”
“You have a more experience with that than I do, I am afraid,” said Thalia, turning towards the door. “That was the last apartment on this floor. Now we…”
She stopped, frowning, and gripped the doorframe.
“What is it?” said Solthain, lifting his weapons. “Wraiths?”
“No,” said Thalia. “I don’t…I don’t know.”
A strange sensation flooded through her thoughtmeld, a mixture of peculiar emotions, pain and terror and rage and gloating exultation wrapped around an iron-hard, unyielding arrogance. Thalia shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, her head throbbing.
“Thalia?” said Solthain.
“It’s like…it’s like someone else just entered our thoughtmeld,” said Thalia. “Can’t you feel it?”
Solthain shrugged. “I can sense that you’re upset, and that Carandis is angry. But you’ve both felt upset and angry since you cast the thoughtmeld. I do not have the sensitivity for the magic of the mind that you do.”
“Something’s wrong,” said Thalia. “Something is very wrong.”
She could not make sense of it. The thoughtmeld felt as if someone had intruded upon it. Had Thalia botched the spell? It was a possibility, but she had cast hundreds of thoughtmelds in her time as an Adept, and she had never sensed one like this.
Unless…
Unless someone really had intruded upon the thoughtmeld.
“The Adept,” said Thalia. “Solthain, I think I’m sensing the renegade Adept. He’s doing…something to Carandis, I don’t know what. But she’s in danger.”
“Can you tell where she is?” said Solthain.
Thalia gave a sharp shake of her head. “Not precisely. Somewhere to the…northeast, I think.” She waved her hand in the general direction. “We have to help her.”
“First we have to find her,” said Solthain.
The Third Soul Omnibus Two Page 5
