Without stopping to look back, Arkady hardened her heart and turned north, heading inland, away from the city, away from the battle, away from her father and away from the screams of the burned and dying Crasii who'd been sacrificed this morning on the altar of immortal ambition.
CHAPTER 24
Warlock — like most canines — had no time for feline Crasii and, in the general course of events, cared little about their fate, one way or another. A day watching the felines caught in the fires on the ice had forced him to reassess his stance. Seeing them magically forced to climb to their feet to resume fighting, some of them bloodied and in agony, others with their fur burned away so badly there was nothing but raw flesh and muscle left behind, changed his opinion.
Once the fires were set, Elyssa had ordered the canine workers back to pack up their camp, and with Warlock at her heels to run errands for her, she had stepped out on to the ice to watch the battle. It was not long after they'd taken to the ice that Warlock discovered the immortals were resurrecting the felines.
The Glaeban felines were the first to resume the fight. They'd borne the full brunt of the oil fires, after all. To see them staggering to their feet, regardless of the injuries they'd sustained, was enough to make Warlock's flesh crawl. But it infuriated Elyssa. As soon as it became apparent Jaxyn was behind the magical resurrections, she began to swear savagely.
'My lady?' Warlock had inquired, wondering what had set her off.
'That cheating bastard is reviving the felines we killed with the oil fires.'
'Is that how they're coming back to life, my lady?'
'Why do you think feline Crasii believe they have nine lives, Cecil?' the immortal asked as she studied
the battlefield through a thin brass telescope. 'I don't know where they got the number nine, though, because how many times you can bring a fighter back varies from feline to feline, and has more than a little to do with the severity of the injury that killed them and if their vital organs are still intact.'
'And Lord Jaxyn is using the Tide to revive his warriors?' Warlock was astounded, wondering why he had never seen such a thing before. Of course, he knew of the feline belief in their own infallibility — that the Tide Lords had endowed them with nine lives because they were a cut above all other Crasii — but it was something he'd always put down to ordinary everyday, insufferable feline arrogance. He supposed that until now, it bad been just that. But with the Tide on the rise, the Tide Lords could work their magic on the felines in a way that hadn't been possible for over a thousand years.
Elyssa was annoyed. She slammed the telescope shut so hard it was a wonder the lenses didn't shatter. 'Fetch the horses, Cecil. We're going back to Cycrane. I don't know if Ranee and Krydence have the wit or the power to respond in kind, and if they don't we'll be overrun before lunch.'
'Surely my lord Tryan would not permit such a defeat,' Warlock said, figuring a show of support for all immortals might be in order.
Elyssa didn't seem to care what Warlock's opinion on the matter was. 'Tryan's going to be too busy pretending he's a general,' she complained. 'Tides, why is it always left to me to sort these things out? Go, Cecil. We need to get back before the situation is so desperate Engarhod and my mother decide to take a hand in things.'
'To serve you is the reason I breathe, my lady,' Warlock assured her, always amazed at the low opinion this immortal had of the rest of her family. Shivering a little in the icy breeze, he hurried from the
ice and back onto the shore, past the sooty channel that still smouldered and smoked in places, toward the clearing where their horses were tethered, a little panicked by the thought of Elyssa returning to Cycrane.
Elyssa's plan, so she had informed Warlock, was to head off in search of the Bedlam Stone once the oil channels were dug, filled and fired. Warlock was counting on her absence from the city to give Boots plenty of time to get away. He could tell Elyssa wasn't enthusiastic about seeing out the next High Tide as the mere sister of a Caelish king. She had a far grander plan in mind, and it had something to do with this lost Bedlam Stone for which she'd spent so much time searching. The artefact — whatever it was — apparently endowed its immortal owner with unlimited power. Elyssa was playing along with her mother and her brothers, he suspected, doing just enough to further their plans so they'd not be suspicious of her ultimate goal.
Warlock was quite sure she had bigger ambitions than any of her siblings suspected and the reason she cared little about the outcome of this war was because once she had the stone, she planned to use it to take the whole continent for herself. Frankly, Warlock didn't care what she wanted to do to her family or the other immortals, provided his puppies were safe and out of her reach.
If that meant kowtowing to her now, he was willing to do it.
He reached the shore, pulling a face at the acrid stench of burned oil now smothering the fresh clean scent of the snow and the forest around him. He walked through the woods to the clearing where the horses were tethered. When he reached the clearing, he muttered soothing nothings to the horses, sensing their disquiet. Elyssa's palfrey was still waiting by the tree where Warlock had tied him earlier, away from the
flames, but his own had slipped his reins and wandered off in the direction of the workers' camp.
Cursing, he headed after it, and then stopped as another smell reached his sensitive nose — a smell more foul and more disturbingly familiar than the stench of burned oil.
Warlock spun around, hearing the interlopers before he saw them. Instinctively he dived for cover, the reek of unfamiliar suzerain so strong that he knew there had to be more than one coming. He had no idea who they were. All the immortals in Caelum and Glaeba that Warlock knew about were north of here, involved with the battle. Elyssa was here with him, Krydence and Ranee were directing the battle out on the ice, and Tryan was overseeing the fight from the city. Meanwhile Syrolee and Engarhod waited at the palace, keeping an eye on the drugged and almost blithely unaware Queen of Caelum, to make certain she didn't get any crazy ideas while they were otherwise engaged in a savage war with their closest neighbour. Like surrendering.
Warlock feared Jaxyn had more immortal help than they knew of. Was this the vanguard of a sneak attack? Had Jaxyn managed to gather other immortals to his cause in secret? Immortals who had crossed the ice under cover of darkness and advanced from the south to take them by surprise?
How long before Elyssa discovers she's not alone?
Perhaps she was so distracted by the battle and the feel of Jaxyn riding the Tide to revive his felines, she wouldn't notice even more immortals coming up behind her.
Warlock was torn with indecision, with no idea how a real Crasii would react in such a situation. A wrong move now and his cover was blown. He would never escape this place, never see Boots and his puppies again ...
The decision was taken from him while he was still
crouched behind the bushes, agonising over what to do. Three figures appeared on the other side of the burnt-out oil seep. They wore nondescript clothing that told him nothing about who they might be. All Warlock could smell was the overwhelming reek of suzerain.
'Tides,' the immortal in the lead remarked, as he settled onto the ground. Warlock's vision was obscured somewhat by the bushes but it seemed to him as if the man had been hovering over the ground rather than walking on it. 'What's that smell?'
'They've fired the oil seep,' the second immortal remarked, the sound of his voice making Warlock's heart lurch. He knew that voice; he'd spent months incarcerated across the hall from its owner.
'Looks like they channelled the oil onto the ice to panic the felines,' the third immortal said, pointing to the channel. At this point Warlock began to wonder if he'd fallen into a nightmare, because the third immortal was Declan Hawkes. Not only was he supposed to be dead, but the last time Warlock had seen him he wasn't immortal. Far from it — he was a pivotal member of the organisation actively working to rid Amyrantha of them.
'I wonder who thought of that?' Cayal asked, looking toward the ice. Warlock was certain the immortals had no idea they were being observed. They could sense each other on the Tide, but as a race, the Crasii meant nothing to them. They were slaves and beneath the notice of the suzerain. But Elyssa was still out there on the ice, almost within shouting distance. Even if she was distracted by the battle and didn't feel these other immortals on the Tide, if Warlock didn't return soon, she'd probably come looking for him.
'It's a tactic far too subtle for Tryan to have thought of it,' the older immortal remarked.
Cayal looked up suddenly, and turned in the direction of the lake. 'Someone's coming.'
'Another immortal?' Declan Hawkes asked.
'Of course it's another one of us, you fool,' the third immortal — the one Warlock couldn't identify — remarked impatiently. 'Are we taking bets on which one of Syrolee and Engarhod's obnoxious offspring it is?'
'With my luck, it'll be ...' the Immortal Prince began, hesitating at the sound of someone approaching from the lake. Warlock's mistress stepped into the clearing a moment later. 'Elyssa!' he said, his cheerful exclamation at complete odds with his morose tone of a few moments ago.
Elyssa's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she studied the three Tide Lords. 'Cayal?'
'In the flesh.'
She looked around, as if she was expecting to see someone else 'Where's Kinta?'
'Kinta?' Cayal asked, looking a little puzzled. 'Oh! Kinta!' He smiled ingenuously. 'Ah ... about that. She and I aren't really ... well ... together much, these days.'
Even Warlock, watching from behind the bushes, could feel Elyssa's pleasure at the news, but it was soon pushed aside by more immediate concerns. The Immortal Maiden's glare focused on the older of the new arrivals. 'What's he doing here?'
'Who? Kentravyon?' The Immortal Prince turned to look at him. Shivering, Warlock studied the Tide Lord with interest too. Legend held that Kentravyon was frozen for eternity by his immortal brethren, trapped down in Jelidia somewhere.
So much for that myth.
'That's a very good question. What are you doing here exactly, old son?'
Before Kentravyon could answer, Elyssa pointed to Declan Hawkes. 'And since when has he been one of us?'
'Since the fire that destroyed Herino Prison,' Declan Hawkes told her, his voice betraying nothing.
Warlock remembered the fire of which he spoke. It was the fire during which Stellan Desean had escaped Glaeba and the fate of being hanged as a traitor. Hawkes was supposed to have died in the fire, too, while Tryan, Elyssa and Diala had watched the prison burn from the balcony of Herino Palace as if it was some sort of sick spectator sport. Although he couldn't begin to imagine how the fire had made Declan Hawkes immortal, Warlock gained a perverse sort of pleasure from the irony of it.
There they were, all those jaded immortals thinking they were watching men die, when quite the opposite was happening ...
But an immortal Hawkes also raised another worrying thought — if the spymaster was now immortal, exactly whose side was he on these days?
'What are you doing here in Caelum, Cayal?' Elyssa asked, clearly mistrustful of the sudden, unexpected and uninvited arrival of three Tide Lords into her realm. What she thought of Hawkes's story, she kept to herself. That didn't surprise Warlock. Elyssa usually played her cards very close to her chest, a necessary skill when dealing with her mother and the rest of her family.
'I came to see you,' Cayal said, smiling at her with all his considerable charm. Warlock knew that smile. He'd seen Cayal use it on the Duchess of Lebec. And it worried him a great deal. The whole time Cayal had been telling the tale of his long life to Arkady Desean while incarcerated in Lebec Prison, he'd spoken of nothing but his dislike and contempt for the Immortal Maiden. Yet here he was, acting as if his day was brightened simply because she'd stepped into his presence. 'Want some help winning your war?'
Elyssa glanced over her shoulder toward the lake briefly and then shrugged. 'I think we can manage.'
'Are you sure?' Kentravyon asked. 'Jaxyn's got you pretty comprehensively outnumbered.'
Elyssa shrugged, as if the numerical superiority of her enemies was nothing to be concerned about. 'Tide's up enough to revive the felines. We'll get by.'
'Get by a lot quicker if that lake was a lake again,' Kentravyon suggested with a wink that made Elyssa frown.
'You're offering to melt the ice?' she asked, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'Why would you do that to help us? You hate Tryan, Cayal. And the Tide knows these other two owe us no favours.'
'I happen to hate Jaxyn more at the moment,' Cayal told her, taking a step closer to her. 'As for the others ... well, Hawkes here has a score to settle with Jaxyn over a woman, and you have something Kentravyon wants.'
'And what about you, Cayal? Why do you care?'
'Well, I don't,' he replied, more honestly than Warlock thought Elyssa was expecting. 'At least, I don't care about your wretched little war with Jaxyn. But I need your help, Elyssa.' He took another step closer; close enough to take her hand in his and raise it to his lips. 'And I have something you want.'
Warlock watched in amazement as Elyssa's anger melted under the intensity of Cayal's gaze. Surely, Warlock thought, with the experience of thousands of years behind her, and her knowledge of how Cayal works, she isn't going to fall for such transparent flirting?
But apparently she was going to fall for it.
'What do you mean?' Elyssa asked a little breathlessly. Behind Cayal, Declan Hawkes was looking on with an impatient expression, while Kentravyon was rolling his eyes.
Elyssa was too focused on Cayal to notice. Warlock was almost overcome by the irrational desire to leap out of the bushes and warn his mistress that no good could come of any deal she was about to do with the Immortal Prince and his highly suspect companions.
He controlled the urge, however, realising he had another, much more pressing problem. Both Cayal and Declan Hawkes knew Warlock was a Scard. The moment they laid eyes on him, he would be exposed.
'If you help me, Elyssa,' Cayal said, in a voice so velvet and seductive that even Warlock found himself enticed by it, 'I can offer you a new life.'
'I don't need a new life, Cayal,' she said. 'The one I have now will go on forever.'
'What if the life you have now were to continue in a different body?' he asked softly; so softly, Warlock had to strain to hear him. 'One that is young and beautiful and doesn't have your ... current problems?'
Elyssa stared up at Cayal in astonishment for a moment while she absorbed what he had just told her. Warlock could tell she was sorely tempted by his unexpected offer. He had seen the dead men in her bed often enough to appreciate bow tempted. Tides, but can they do that? Take the mind from one immortal body and place it into another?
The Immortal Maiden was apparently thinking the same thing. She looked past Cayal and asked Kentravyon, 'Is he serious?'
Kentravyon nodded. 'Lukys has just about perfected the technique. Of course, it takes a lot of power, and we'll have to do it when the Tide peaks. Oh, and Cayal is hoping it will kill him. Hence the reason he needs you. But yes, so far it looks very promising.'
Elyssa's eyes were alight at the prospect. 'I could choose a new body? Take any body I want?'
'Of course,' Cayal said, which prompted Declan Hawkes to open his mouth to say something. However, he never got the chance because Kentravyon elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up. Hawkes fell silent, shaking his head.
Elyssa seemed entranced by the notion, and didn't notice the exchange between the other immortals. But
then she frowned and took a step back from Cayal, shaking free of his hand. 'Tides, you want the Bedlam Stone.'
'That would help, my dear,' Kentravyon agreed cheerfully. 'Do you have it?'
She shook her head. 'No. But I know where to find
it.'
'Then we have a deal!' the older man said, stepping forward as he rubbed his hands togethe
r gleefully. 'Lead on, Elyssa. Where have you stashed it?'
Elyssa took another step back from them. 'Not so fast, Kentravyon. I haven't agreed to anything. And if you think I'm going to hand over the source of ultimate power in the universe to you three on the strength of a vague promise from a liar, a madman and a ...' She glanced at Hawkes and shrugged. '... a trained killer, then you have another think coming.'
'It's not the source of ultimate power in the universe,' Kentravyon scoffed. 'It's a lump of polished crystal about the size of my head actually, and all it does is channel power. Tides, girl, if it was the source of ultimate power in the universe, no mere mortal would survive touching it, let alone stealing it from us.'
'But you still need it, don't you?'
'Name your price, Elyssa,' Cayal said, a little too impatiently.
'I don't know,' she said in a tone that indicated she'd begun to realise she held the upper hand in this negotiation. 'I'll have to think about it. And you'll have to convince me that what you say about changing bodies is possible, too, before I lift a finger to aid you. In the meantime, I suppose you could do something about Jaxyn. As a gesture of good faith.'
'You said you didn't need our help,' Hawkes reminded her.
'I've changed my mind.'
'You want us to melt the ice?' Cayal asked.
She shook her head. 'We've already thought of that. It would take too long.'
'You could break the ice, couldn't you?' Hawkes suggested. Then he added with a frown, 'Of course, when it shatters that would send every creature — human or Crasii — standing out there, into the water where they'll die within minutes if they can't get to shore before hypothermia sets in.'
Cayal glanced at Kentravyon who shrugged, apparently unconcerned about the potential body count. 'Jaxyn will know what we're up to as soon as we start drawing on the Tide.'
'Not if we do it fast enough,' Cayal said. 'The four of us together.'
The Chaos Crystal Page 18
