Rafiq thought he might already have something of an idea of what needed to be done to finish the seventh Circle. It wasn’t an idea that appealed to him, however, and he was quite certain that it would have even less appeal for him when it occurred to Prince Akish. Far better not to openly speculate on it just yet: better to wait until they’d exhausted every other option before bringing out his theory.
Kako remained nearby, following quietly and unobtrusively in the background; not quite with him but not by herself, either. She didn’t seem to be particularly concerned with trying to find a way out of the Circle: Rafiq saw her eyes flick most often away to where the red knight had appeared. Her spell-webbed hand, which had been in her pocket, was now flexing open and closed by her side as the spell grew.
Rafiq opened his mouth to ask: “What is that?” but by then Prince Akish was calling impatiently across the room at them.
“Wench! Put yourself to it! We have no time for your vagaries!”
Kako gave slight sniff of laughter, though her eyes remained solemn. It was the least sarcastic and the most serious Rafiq had ever seen her. Still, she seemed to turn her mind more thoroughly upon the problem of finding a way out, her spell apparently forgotten and unused in her hand.
She was diligently running her hands over the corner opposite the alcove when the prince said sharply: “Hark!” and the red knight winked into being. He went through the same routine as he had the first time; silence, the screeching of metal on tile as he turned, and then the metallic call of: “A forfeit has been paid!” before the ringing blade of the axe set the walls humming again.
Kako, who had already put her hands over her ears, said: “Hey!” in surprise. Rafiq and Prince Akish turned hastily to face her, and found that the walls had begun to move already. Not only had they begun to move sooner than the first time, they had begun to move faster: Kako was unexpectedly and unceremoniously being shoved further into the middle of the room. This time, moreover, the distance they moved was nearly four yards.
She said: “That throws our calculations out a bit, don’t you think? What now?”
They shared a moment of speechlessness that was as complete as it was hopeless. Then Rafiq said: “The Keep is trying to speed it along. Why hurry us?”
He hoped—oh how he hoped!—that Akish wasn’t following the chain of events to its logical end.
But Prince Akish, his eyes dark and hard, said: “The matter is perfectly clear. One of us will have to die for the others.”
One of us not being Akish, Rafiq was certain. The thought sprang to his mind of the constructed story in the sixth Circle and he looked around again, hoping to see the sickening duality of sight that indicated the Keep had made copies of them all again. His sight remained horribly clear: they weren’t dealing with constructs. It was the real Kako who could die, the real Akish who would Burden Rafiq either to put Kako’s head or his own on the block, and the real Rafiq who would have to do or die.
Rafiq was still in the sick throes of processing his thoughts when Prince Akish hit Kako at the base of her skull with the hilt of his dagger. She gasped a little and crumpled where she stood, a pile of rather dirty, creased pink silk.
Akish said coldly: “There. You’re Burdened. Place her on the block.”
The Burden didn’t fall. Rafiq, who had started grimly across the room with the determination of placing his own head on the block before the Burden could call him back to do what he couldn’t bear to do, first doubted, then fiercely rejoiced. The Keep was interfering again.
He couldn’t turn dragon, either; which was unfortunate. But when he strode back across the room to Akish and Kako, the prince was so sure he was returning to do as he was Commanded that he didn’t attempt to move. Secure in the safety of Rafiq’s Thrall—the certainty that Rafiq couldn’t harm him in any way—he didn’t move when Rafiq stalked closer still. He only had time to look surprised when Rafiq tore his sword from its scabbard and thrust him through the throat.
Akish fell as swiftly but not as quietly as Kako, the gurgle of blood in his throat and lungs. The blade slid free of his throat as he dropped, and Rafiq let it fall beside him on the tiles, silently watching the blood spread.
He would have preferred to kill Akish as a dragon; but whether by blade or tooth, the prince was dead and Kako would be safe. She would make it through the seventh Circle, and once beyond it there would be no Akish to menace either her or the princess.
It seemed to take a long time for the knight to appear again. Rafiq sank to his knees beside the chopping block at first, wanting to be ready for the blade when it appeared, but when moments stretched into minutes he settled back on his haunches. Eventually he sat on the block itself with a worried glance toward Kako, who could come around at any minute, and—if her past behaviour was any indicator—could only be depended upon to try and talk him out of it. That, he thought, suddenly chilled, or to try and take his place.
He spent his last few minutes wondering if he should tie Kako up; and then, having come to the decision that he should, in worrying that she wouldn’t be able to untie herself when the seventh Circle ended and she regained consciousness.
He was on the point of rising from the block to tie her up anyway, when the red knight materialised again in a horribly familiar clanking of armour. With a thin, cold sweat across his forehead and suddenly cold hands, Rafiq slipped sideways from the block until he was kneeling again. He heard the motion of the knight’s upward stroke in deliberate, steady clanging of metal against metal, and laid his head on the block, his gaze on Kako. He was conscious of a desire that she would wake up, if only to be able to see her curious sideways smile again, but the desire was short-lived. He didn’t want her last memory of him to be his head rolling across the marble floors.
The knight said in its grating metallic voice: “A forfeit is paid.”
Rafiq closed his eyes briefly, but it seemed more pleasant to die with his eyes on Kako than with them closed, so he opened them again.
Metal shifted and whirred above his head, a bloody shadow shifting swiftly across the marble floor, and Rafiq’s life thread was cut in a single, sharp stroke.
***
Three figures appeared in the seventh Circle. A seventh Circle. One more seventh Circle. The second seventh Circle, to be exact. As they had done in the first seventh Circle, Prince Akish, Rafiq, and Kako examined the circular chopping block. This time, however, Kako lingered behind the other two. It was evident that she could see the chopping block between the two men: it was likewise evident that she understood exactly what it was meant for, and between her fingers grew a small, potent, cobwebby piece of magic. It remained unused but undismissed while they explored to the edges of the room, and even when the red knight stalked from nothingness and into unpleasant reality she kept it still. It wasn’t until they became aware of the creeping movement of the walls that it grew in intensity.
Rafiq’s eyes flickered toward it once or twice, but he didn’t remark on it until the knight had appeared for the second time, and the walls began to move more swiftly.
Then he said at last: “What’s that?”
Kako looked up at him with a bland face. “What?”
“Kako.”
She smiled faintly. “You’re really not very good at this game. For a man—dragon—who speaks as little as you do, you seem to have trouble getting right to the point.”
“What is the spell you’ve been making?”
“I’ll show you that in a bit,” said Kako. She seemed to be breathing slightly faster now, a nervous in and out that drove the colour to her cheeks. “There’s something more important that you should know.”
Rafiq looked down at her curiously. “Another of your games?”
“Oh no. Deadly serious.” Kako ran her free hand along the wall and then laid her ear against it. She continued: “I stole something from Akish a little while ago.”
“I remember,” said Rafiq. “You smuggled it to Dai and Zen.”
�
��Yes. I had some ideas about it. It turns out that those ideas were correct.”
“What was it?”
Kako shrugged her shoulder. “I’m still not exactly sure what it is. But I knew what it was being used for.”
Rafiq, perhaps in an attempt to be as close to the point as possible, repeated her words back to her: “What was it being used for?”
“Your Thrall, mostly.”
Rafiq’s eyes fixed on her face, burning bright. “He was carrying the source of my Thrall on him? And you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me!”
“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Kako said. She was certainly smiling now, though that smile had an edge of sadness to it.
Perhaps Rafiq caught the amusement, because he smiled in spite of his patent eagerness. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, well done!” said Kako. “A day or two ago you would have asked me ‘Why?’ and I could have spun that out for a very long time. What I mean by it is two things: one, that even if you had the source, you wouldn’t be able to break it. It’s specifically spelled against you. The second is that I’ve already unbound you from it. You’ve not been under Thrall these last few days.”
“Not under Thrall! But I’ve felt– there was–” began Rafiq. He stopped, thoughts working visibly across his face, and at last he laughed, low and long. “I’ve been so long under Thrall that I’ve made a habit of it.”
“You remember I said once that you were inured to the Thrall?”
“It was broken then?”
“The night before,” nodded Kako. “It was simple enough to break because it wasn’t what the original maker intended. Akish’s father was very clever about it, but once I had a loose end it was as easy to unravel as a piece of knit. I only wonder that he used it for something like this when it has such potential.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“I thought you might,” nodded Kako. She flicked a quick look at Akish, who was searching at the base of the chopping block, then passed Rafiq a small glinting thing with a sharp edge.
“It’s part of a sword,” he said quietly, turning it over. Again there was the play of swift and revelatory thought over his face. “I know something of a sword, a broken sword.”
Kako’s eyes snapped to his face, and she laughed once, oddly. “Of course you do! When this Circle is done, you’ll have to tell Dai. She’s got some ideas about it as well: she thinks it might be capable of keeping the Fae from invading.”
“I thought you were the one trying to keep the Fae from Shinpo.”
“Well, I am,” said Kako, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “But so is Dai, and she’s already experimented with the shard. I suppose there are more pieces to it?”
Rafiq nodded. “At least five. When pieced together it’s supposed to become a powerful talisman.”
“Do you know what sort of talisman?”
“Something about binding and protection. I suppose that’s why Akish’s father was able to use it on me.”
“I suppose,” agreed Kako. She sent a brief, covert look over her shoulder to the alcove that would soon hold the red knight. Then she said to Rafiq: “I suppose we shouldn’t talk about it when Akish could overhear. What were we talking about before the sword?”
“You said you’d show me the spell you’ve been working since we discovered the alcove.”
“So I did,” said Kako. “All right. It’s really a very simple one.”
“What does it do?”
Kako held out the spell, stretched now between the fingers of both hands. “It’s easier if I show you,” she said, in a voice so light, so reasonable.
And Rafiq, who still hadn’t mastered all the games, leaned closer. The webbing of spell caught him fairly in the face, spreading rapidly over his features until it knit at the back of his head. Rafiq swayed, began to speak, and fell. He was unconscious before he hit the tiles.
Prince Akish, who was watching from the other side of the room, said: “A clever little piece of work. I was going to hit you over the head in any case, wench.”
Kako gave a particularly elegant shrug. “I doubt it would have done you any good. I’ve got the distinct feeling that it has to be a personal sacrifice. If you’d slaughtered me I think you’d only have found the walls moving a little more quickly. Then one of you would have had to sacrifice yourselves anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have slaughtered you,” said Akish loftily. “Rafiq would have done it. And I rather fancy that it would have been a sacrifice.”
“You can’t sacrifice what doesn’t belong to you,” said Kako. “I’m the only one who can sacrifice me.”
“It’s nearly the top of the hour,” Prince Akish said. His eyes were bright and excited.
Kako looked at him meditatively. “I don’t really want to talk to you any more,” she said. “Perhaps you could be kind enough to shut up now.”
Prince Akish’s jaw dropped open. “How dare you, you misbegotten wench!”
“I’m not, actually,” said Kako. She settled herself beside the chopping block quite calmly, but from the way she quickly dashed the palms of her hands against her silk trousers, it was clear she had begun to sweat. “Misbegotten, I mean. Oh, and I’d be very careful when you get through the seventh Circle, if I were you.”
The red knight was appearing, sharp, metallic and menacing.
Jeeringly, the prince said: “Indeed? And why is that?”
Kako looked up at the knight once, and then away again. She removed her neck scarf with an almost ceremonial solemnity, then stooped to lay her head on the block, warm flesh meeting cold marble.
“I broke your Thrall on him,” she said. “It won’t be long before he realises it.”
“A forfeit is paid,” said the knight. The axe rose, dripping with bloody shadows.
Kako said: “If I were you, I would want to be very far away from him when he discovers that fact.”
Akish’s face froze in a mask of fear, fury, and eye-bulging incredulity. “You misbegotten daughter of a pig! What have you done?”
Kako laughed, and the blade laughed with her. Then there was only ringing silence.
The Seventh Circle is ended.
The Circles Broken
There was a fraction of a moment when Rafiq was certain he was dead. He felt the cold slice of steel across the side of his neck and through his throat, and there was an instant of absolute extinguishment. Then he found himself alive and whole, kneeling on cold, hard tile with one hand supporting him. He was shaking, left with the horrible certainty that he had indeed died and was yet still alive.
At length Rafiq rose carefully and stood upright on the blood-red tiles. Where was Kako? She should have made it through the seventh Circle as well, unless– had the Keep been playing its tricks again?
The air—no, space and time—seemed to split, and then Kako was there, too. She was kneeling as he had been, her face almost powder-white, and as he stepped forward swiftly she raised her head, shivering. Her scarf had been removed, baring her neck: it was clenched in her left hand, the fingers white about it.
Rafiq dropped to one knee beside her and pulled her close, acting on another of those human instincts that were taking him by surprise so much lately. When Kako ceased to shake he took her scarf and draped it around her neck again, pinning it to her head-dress with more goodwill than skill.
By way of taking her mind off the death she’d encountered and overcome, he said: “Where’s Akish?”
“I don’t think he’ll be coming through,” she said.
Rafiq’s heart sank. If Akish was dead, Rafiq’s Burden would pass back to the Crown and he would soon be forced to fly back to Illisr under duress.
“You think he’s dead?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Kako.
A moment later, Rafiq was sure of it too.
At first the yells were angry ones: and it was certainly Prince Akish’s voice. Then they became shouts of fear. Within moments
the prince was screaming as the Keep rumbled beneath their feet. Kako had her hands pressed to her ears, the tears gliding down her unnaturally white cheeks, but Rafiq listened until the screams died away. It didn’t take long. There was no pleasure in it, but he wanted to be sure that Akish really was dead, that he wouldn’t suddenly appear next to Kako.
When the screams stopped, Kako took her hands away from her ears and wiped away her tears.
“I told him he shouldn’t enter the seventh Circle,” she said quietly, without quite meeting Rafiq’s eyes. “I told him.”
“The Burden,” Rafiq said, his voice slightly hoarse. He couldn’t help remembering those moving walls, and he wasn’t sure that Prince Akish’s screams had really faded from the stones of the Keep. “It should be bearing down on me, pulling me back to Illisr.”
Much to his relief, his remark had the effect of taking the sick look away from Kako’s eyes.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” she said. “I already had this conversation with you. Well, with a version of you, I suppose. The Burden won’t bother you again. Actually, you haven’t been really Burdened since the third Circle, when I picked Prince Akish’s pockets. He had a shard of sword in a hidden pocket; I felt it the moment he entered the Keep, but it wasn’t until I investigated a bit that I realised he was using it to control you.”
“Since the third Circle? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it would be best to let you get used to it slowly,” she said. “You’ve been Burdened for a long time. I didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed.”
There was a little part of Rafiq’s mind that suggested this answered the question of why he had been able to do certain things that he shouldn’t have been able to do. There were several times when he had obeyed Prince Akish sheerly out of habit, when the—shard, was it?—had been out of the prince’s possession.
Kako was still looking a little bit crushed and pale when he finally opened his mouth to speak, so instead of saying any of the frustrated, furious things that he wanted to say to her, Rafiq merely said: “You said it was a shard of sword the Burden was held in. Show me.”
Fire In The Blood (Shards Of A Broken Sword Book 2) Page 11
