Izelina was gone.
As the commander cursed then began to bark orders, Ammala hazarded a smile. They were condemned and helpless and far from home, but perhaps one of them could escape.
Perhaps one would be enough.
*****
“Well no, this isn't what I expected when I signed on, but it's better than the alternative,” said the black-robed man across the table.
Warder Geraad Iskaen forked another piece of scrambled egg from his plate and offered it to the goblin in his lap. Still shy of this whole situation, Rian nevertheless bit the food off the tines, then curled his long hands even tighter into Geraad's robe.
“And what was the alternative?” said Geraad, trying to resist the urge to pry into his companion's thoughts.
The man—Tarren Enwick, as he had introduced himself when Geraad had moved in next door—sighed and planted his misshapen chin in an equally malformed palm, twiddling his own fork between fingers like sausages. They sat at the quiet end of a long stone table in the commissary, where everything still smelled of sulfur but less so and the heat was almost bearable. The balcony over the magma chamber was a good three rooms away, and sometimes a tepid breeze came through the vents in the ceiling to disperse the stink.
“Death,” said Enwick. “Painful, lingering death. The kind not even that healing goddess or the Light can stave off.”
“Death by—“ Geraad gestured toward his face, not sure how to address it otherwise.
“This stuff, yes,” said Enwick, reaching with his better hand to trace the boundaries of the dark masses. Bulbous and veined, they covered the right side of his face from brow to chin, sealing his right eye and deforming that side of his mouth into immobility. The nodules and discoloration continued down his neck to the collar of his robe and further. “When I answered the call, it wasn't this ugly. But it was painful. It isn't now.”
“Is it numb? He numbed it?”
“No, I feel everything, it just doesn't hurt. And I have to say that's pretty good payment even without the benefits.”
Geraad looked to his own hands, then the goblin in his lap. For the past several days, he had been living as a 'guest' of Inquisitor Archmagus Enkhaelen, who was also the necromancer Morshoc—and also the grand architect of the Citadel at Valent. This chamber, as well as the rest of the complex, had been shaped into the bowels of the Citadel at the time of its raising, and seemed to draw power from the lake of magma that had provided its building-material. A lake that was supposed to have been cooled.
Just one more lie in the great deception he had uncovered—but none of it with a clear purpose.
Like this: the commissary full of black-robed, deformed and growth-riddled individuals, male and female, from nearly all the lands he could name plus several ogrekin and some suspiciously furry folk. All eating their overly sulfuric eggs and porridge and drinking their tea, chitchatting as if it was normal to be here in the basement of the Silent Circle, in service to its most treacherous enemy.
It made Geraad's head hurt.
If I had a lick of good sense, I'd leave, he thought, but his healed hands anchored him here. Every time he looked at them, he remembered the Gold Army's torture and the Circle's inability to protect him. He needed answers—not just to why he was alive and mended, but why Rian was alive, and why Enkhaelen had taken them in without imposing any bonds.
What he wanted. What he expected them to do for him.
“You regretting your choice?” said Enwick.
Geraad looked up into the knowing gaze of the misshapen man's good eye. “I... No,” he said, not sure of the truth. “Just confused.”
“He takes in strays, you know. You look like you count. Mentalist, right? Which is strange, because he hates mentalists, but maybe you're special.”
“He controls the Inquisition, how can he hate them?”
“It's more like 'he hates them, so he controls them'. Don't you think?”
Geraad looked away. Out of the whole crowd, he was the only one not in black, the only one visibly normal—and the only mentalist, easy to tell by the complete lack of mind-shields. And though Enkhaelen controlled the Inquisition and its mentalists, he wasn't one himself.
He wasn't even readable. No shields, just emptiness.
“But he controls you too,” said Geraad. “Doesn't seem like he hates you.”
Enwick chuckled, thick and liquid in his malformed throat. “He doesn't control us, he shelters us. You think we can go around looking like this? A couple of us, yes, the ones who don't have it all over their faces, but the rest...” He shrugged lopsidedly. “There's only one thing he wants of us, and we're all willing to give it, else we wouldn't be here. The rest of the time, this is a hospice, not a cage.”
“And what does he want?”
“Killers.”
He said it so calmly that for a moment Geraad could only blink. Then he swallowed and reached for his tea. It tasted of sulfur like everything else here, but at least it wet his mouth. “Killers,” he echoed finally.
“Mhm.”
“Aimed at...who?”
Enwick shrugged again, picking at the remains of his food. “Mages, mostly. He doesn't tell us much, and we don't ask—not that we're scared of him, just he likes his privacy, his secrets. And us, we don't care as long as we get to keep living. That's why we're here.”
“Entombed under the Citadel forever. That's living?”
“Oh, we get out sometimes. Stretch our legs, fresh air and the like.”
“And you kill for him.”
“Yep.”
“You, personally?”
“Six times so far.”
“So, to fight mages, you must be a mage yourself. An evoker, a warder?”
The look Enwick gave him was oddly pitying. “Do I look like a mage?” he said, gesturing to his plain robe. “Do I look like I can wiggle these fingers through whatever intricacies you people do?”
“No, but—“
“It's not your kind of magic. This stuff, this malignancy,” he said, tapping his face, “it was eating me, but now it's...coexisting. It used to hurt so bad, but now that's gone, and having no pain after years of it gnawing at my insides is just...” His good eye glittered and his jaw tightened slightly, visible even beneath the masses. “And I can use it. Like a muscle, I can flex it, relax it, strike with it. He's blessed me. Whatever he wants, I'll give it.”
Geraad sat back, unsettled. He had light mind-shields up to block others' thoughts but leave him sensitive to danger, and the sharpening of Enwick's mood went right through them. In his lap, Rian made a sound of query, and he ran a palm over the goblin's bald head to soothe him.
“You know he's using you,” he said despite his better judgment. “You're just a sword in Enkhaelen's hand.”
“Heh, well, I'm a sword with a girlfriend and no pain. Where's the downside?”
“You have a girlfriend?”
“She's on a mission now. You'll know when she gets back. The walls aren't that thick.”
A vision of malformed flesh meshing in near darkness... Geraad yanked up a thicker mind-shield before his stomach could turn. Enwick's leer told him more than he wanted to know even without projected memories.
“That's...lovely for you,” he said. “But what mages? Why?”
“Don't know, don't care. Two of mine were yellow-robes, there was one woman in green, and then three plain-clothed. I thought you people weren't allowed to do that. Oh, and I heard a couple of us got to fight some wraiths the other day. Wish I'd been in on that. You hear stories about them and you think 'Light, so scary', right? Probably even as a mage, since Enkhaelen says they're the ones who taught people magic in the first place. But like this, we can wreck them as easily as anyone else, and just the power in that...” He exhaled happily. “I mean, I was a farmer before this, cowering in fear of just the rumor of them. They used to steal people right out of their houses, you know. Fly over and just take them.”
“But surely it's suicide to
fight them,” said Geraad, horrified. He had never even seen a wraith. To attack one...
“Well, neighbor, how about you toss some magic at me and I show you how it's done?”
“No, that's quite all right.”
Enwick grinned, his teeth white in the mottled mess of his mouth. “Smart man. Enkhaelen calls it his new magic, his equalizer. Better and more stable than that wraith shit everyone else uses, just needs to be prettied up a bit.”
“And...you can tell me this?”
“What do I care? You're here, you have eyes. You're inside the secret, Iskaen, and you're a mindraper. Not like we can keep it from you.”
Geraad grimaced. While that was technically true, he could think of no reason for Enkhaelen to let him run unhindered through his secret lair, questioning his gregarious minions. He could call Sanctuary at any time and go straight to Warder Archmagus Farcry with his knowledge. It would be a one-way trip, but at least he would be free.
Not safe, but free.
And yet for all that he had seen, he understood nothing about Enkhaelen or his plans. Targeting Gold mages and wraiths? Controlling the Inquisition but using no Inquisitors in his work? Hiding an army in the depths of the Citadel yet bickering with the Valent Council as one of them? Making 'new magic'?
How could he leave without understanding why?
“I don't mean to pry,” he said uncomfortably. “Or for either of us to get on his bad side...”
Enwick snorted. “He's all bad side, Iskaen. If he hasn't killed you, it's not because he's biding his time. He just doesn't feel like it.”
“That's...not at all reassuring.”
“Heh. Sorry, but—“
“Iskaen.”
The call cut through the murmur of the crowd like a knife. Spine racked stiff, Geraad turned his head to see Enkhaelen beckoning from the entry, an impatient look on his face.
“Oh, good luck,” said Enwick as Geraad slowly stood, Rian clambering up his robe to cling to his back. “Maybe you've got a mindraper mission.”
“Maybe,” Geraad murmured, then swallowed his fear and approached.
“I have a use for you,” said Enkhaelen as he got close. He looked the same as always—white face, black hair, black-and-indigo robes, all a bit rumpled as if he knew neither comb nor flat-iron—but the set of his jaw was tight. Stressed. His pale gaze glided over Geraad almost unseeingly, then paused on Rian. “Without the goblin.”
“Go on, back to Enwick,” Geraad murmured, trying to shrug off Rian's pinching hands. “Finish my breakfast, it'll be all right.”
For a moment Rian clung tighter, hissing some kind of goblin curse in his ear, but then the pointy digits relaxed and the goblin sprang from his shoulder to the closest table, hopping over plates and mugs on his way back to their neighbor. Mutters followed him but no one spoke up; with their master in the room, they knew better.
“Come,” said Enkhaelen, and set off at a swift clip down the hall.
Geraad struggled to pace him, taller and longer-legged but not nearly as vehement. The black basalt corridors all looked the same, but as he followed the necromancer through the many twists, he felt the temperature slowly drop and knew they were headed toward the laboratory. The thought made his stomach curdle, and he was glad he had not eaten much.
“What...is it that you wish of me?” he said, staring at the back of the necromancer's head.
For nearly two corridors, Enkhaelen gave no answer. Then, as the obsidian laboratory doors came in sight, irising open at Enkhaelen's approach, he said, “Just listen. Anything else and you'll probably die.”
Heart in his throat, Geraad trailed the necromancer through the door into the frigid laboratory, past the slabs of corpses, to a portal-frame already glimmering with energy. Enkhaelen reached out as he strode forward, and the instant his fingertips touched it, it sprang open: a doorway into a matte white chamber.
“Keep close,” said Enkhaelen, already crossing.
Against all sanity, Geraad followed.
*****
Izelina Cray did not know where she was, only that there had to be an exit somewhere. So she kept running.
Everything was white—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—with a constant glow like sunshine through clouds. It was disorienting and infuriating, and as she clipped corners and rebounded from walls that her depth-perception had insisted were further away, she sensed her pursuer still behind her, slow but relentless.
How she could feel him, she did not know, but she clung to it. It was her only advantage.
Just days ago she had been free, and she was determined to be so again. The Imperials had lied to her, tricked her; she had given up information on that runaway slave Cob and been promised a reward, and this was most certainly not it. She felt like she could claw this whole place apart if only she could find a crack to fit her nails in, but there were no such cracks. The walls were too horribly perfect.
Her path twisted, spiraled, split apart and reconverged. It was like some massive demented maze, and she had no clue how far she'd gone or why she'd yet to see another chamber. Her sides ached; her leg muscles burned. Barefoot, she felt the tacky firmness of the floor with every step, not yielding but not quite solid.
Nothing made sense, but there had to be an exit. Everything had an exit.
You would abandon your family? whispered her conscience. Nana, Mother, Aedin?
They'd had their chance to run. It wasn't her fault.
In all the white-on-white, she barely saw the corner ahead, and just managed to skid to a stop before she could impact the far wall. Momentum arrested, she glimpsed her pursuer in the corner of her eye, his long strides eating up her back-trail, blank helm following her every move.
Heart thundering, she flung herself around the corner and down the hallway beyond, wishing she had never seen Cob—wishing that he had died before he could meet them.
*****
Geraad's head ached after only a moment in the new place. The entry chamber was featureless but for the portal-frame and its protective array, every other surface blank. Enkhaelen strode forward seemingly at random, and as an opening formed in the wall ahead of him, Geraad saw a tunnel-like white corridor beyond, bending away into a contrast-less distance.
But it was not Geraad's eyes that bothered him. It was his mind. Even with shields up, he felt surrounded in a way that would normally indicate a teeming crowd—only there was no one here. No visitors in the portal room, none in the corridor, no reason for him to be hearing any thoughts.
All about the Light, the beautiful Light.
He drew up another mind-shield and tried to ignore the cold sweat that prickled his skin. If this was what Enkhaelen meant by listening, then he could do that. And if he did nothing else, Enkhaelen had said he would be fine.
Well. Not in those words.
“Where is this?” he managed as the voices dampened slightly.
“The Imperial Palace.”
“The—“ His breath caught in his throat. As a lukewarm follower of the Imperial Light, he had never been here—never even imagined being here. It was not what he had expected.
Though it explained the content of the thoughts.
“I would not have brought you, but I need information,” said Enkhaelen, still striding at a confident clip. “Not probing anyone; you're in enough danger just by being here. Only surface thoughts, projections, whatever it is you call those things.”
“And you can't bring an Inquisitor?”
“Iskaen, I am not a mentalist.”
“Yes, but you're the—“
“Figurehead. Dispenser of orders. I can neither sense nor vet their work, and must accept their loyalty on faith, which I don't. You are less opaque. But we should discuss this later.”
Less opaque? thought Geraad nervously. Did Enkhaelen suspect his intention to take his knowledge to the Valent Council? Of course he did; there was no other reason for Geraad to stay. So why did Enkhaelen tolerate it?
Because it's what he
wants.
But that was ridiculous. Going to such great effort to build the hidden lair, the mad conspiracy, only to give its secret away...
He fell back slightly as he mulled it over, the necromancer striding ahead like an ink-blotch in a world of blank paper. None of the possibilities made any sense, and if his freedom hinged on him discovering the truth, then he was in trouble. He had the magic to pry it from anyone else, but Enkhaelen's mind was inaccessible.
Except...
A thread of anger floated at the edge of his shields, and it did not belong to him.
Warily, Geraad let the empathic portion of his reception-shields fall. What washed in was not thought but a mélange of emotions—reverence, devotion, agonized joy—strung through by a much closer strand of simmering rage. It was strange, though; it did not radiate from Enkhaelen, but seemed to attenuate into the distance as if it was being projected at him from afar. Almost like a psychic assault, but feeding the necromancer rather than attacking him.
Then something else caught Geraad's senses: an arrow of anger-tipped terror moving perpendicular to them at some speed. He blinked back to reality just as the hallway warped in front of them, cutting their previously straight path into a blind corner.
“Pike your constant tinkering, Aradys,” cursed Enkhaelen as he swung around it.
Surprise lit both psychic signatures.
It took only a few steps for Geraad to reach the corner, but in that time he felt a cascade of emotions from Enkhaelen: recognition, question, paranoia, then a sick sink of resignation. From the other came alternating waves of hope and fear, and as Geraad stepped into the newly-joined hall, he heard her say, “Help me, can you help me?”
She was halfway down the hall, poised like a deer, her simple robe blending with the architecture so that her deep-tanned hands and face, her long black hair, seemed to float within the white nothingness. And she was young—the prime age for the mentalist spark he felt in her.
Enkhaelen stood with hands at his sides, facing her, and though Geraad could not see his expression, he felt it. Bitter acceptance. The girl looked back as if expecting pursuit, then took another step toward them, her gaze going past Enkhaelen to Geraad himself. “Please...”
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 11
