[fan] fourth talisman 01 - nocturne

by Kat Ross

  Shackles bound the witch hand and foot to the opposite wall. He kept his face turned away from the sun. If he conducted himself well with the Pythia, Thena resolved to reward him with shutters for the window.

  “Hello, Demetrios,” she said with a smile.

  He was an extraordinary specimen, with hair like beaten silver and eyes of a deep, clear green. Tall and well-proportioned, with smooth skin and animal grace, even chained. A thick collar circled his throat. It had been filigreed with dancing flames, the match of the bracelet around Thena’s wrist.

  He swallowed painfully, eyes tracking her every movement. The witch was handsome and beguiling, but Thena had sworn her vows at the age of eleven. She was an acolyte of the Temple of Apollo and would never know the touch of a man. This didn’t trouble her at all. She was married to her god, who was far more beautiful than any mortal—or even witch.

  “Mistress,” he said hoarsely.

  She laid a palm on his cheek. “Did they bring you water, Demetrios?”

  He shook his head. Thena’s mouth drew down in anger. She had explicitly told Maia to make sure her collared ones were cared for. It was one thing to inflict the necessary pain to make them pliable. That couldn’t be avoided. But denying water once a witch had broken was pointless sadism.

  “I’ll fetch you some. But first I’m going to bring you to the Oracle. She has questions and you must answer truthfully or there will be consequences. Do you understand?”

  He nodded fervently.

  “Very good.”

  She let her hand fall and unlocked the chains that bound him to the stone wall. He stood, back straight, rubbing his wrists. Demetrios stood three hands taller than Thena, with ropes of muscle on his chest and arms. He could snap her neck in seconds. But he did not try to do this, or anything but wait for her next command.

  She gave him a tunic of plain roughspun.

  “You must put this on. The Pythia demands modesty.”

  He pulled it over his head. She’d chosen one that was a bit too small, but it covered his manhood at least. It would do for now.

  “Come.” Thena turned her back and walked to the door, knowing he would follow.

  The plaza outside was empty except for the Polemarch’s soldiers. Demetrios winced at the light as he trotted along behind her. The soldiers eyed them warily as they passed, but they were Shields of Apollo and used to the sight of the witches. They knew to keep their mouths shut or suffer the Polemarch’s wrath. No one must know, else the other witches would surely come in force to attempt a rescue.

  Thena passed the high-walled yard where the witches were permitted to take exercise and led Demetrios into the temple. She did not bring him to the adyton—that would be sacrilege. Instead, she led him straight to the personal chambers of the Pythia. The Oracle stood at the window looking out over the city below, her form a dark silhouette.

  “You may leave us now, daughter,” she said. “Wait outside in the hall in case I have need of you.”

  Thena understood. She didn’t know what the Pythia asked them or why she wanted the witches, only that it was a command from the god himself, who had provided the means of capturing them. Thena never questioned that they were evil. Fire was the instrument of Apollo and the daēvas feared it, had even forbidden its very existence in the darklands. They could only be witches.

  The Shields of Apollo, the Polemarch’s most elite unit, had taken nine so far, although two were dead by their own hands. One threw herself into the holy fire; the other choked on his chains. The Pythia had been very angry about that, but she didn’t blame Thena. They simply needed to be more careful, not rush the process. If a daēva broke too quickly, if their mind snapped rather than surrendering, they were of no use.

  Thena had now personally broken five of the witches—more than the other initiates combined. She excelled at it because she understood the need for both cruelty and compassion. She instinctively knew when she was approaching the edge and backed off. Better to be cautious than make a fatal mistake. The witches were hard to catch and they didn’t go down easily.

  Sometimes Thena prayed to the god to give her strength to continue. It was exhausting to train them because she felt every emotion, every jolt of agony, as if it were her own. She’d learned to block it out, but the anguish took a toll.

  She was only twenty and she’d found three white hairs that morning.

  Don’t be vain, she chided herself as she stood in the hall listening to the murmur of voices through the door. There are worse things than growing old.

  That she knew firsthand.

  19

  Footprints

  Darius walked for two days. Then he decided his leg had healed enough to run, so he did.

  The great forest raced past in a blur. He left the lands of House Dessarian and entered those belonging to House Fiala. Their sentries, clad in cloaks of green and brown, greeted him with cautious cordiality. They’d heard of him, of course, but Darius could tell they weren’t sure what to make of him. He was one of them, and yet he wasn’t. They offered him food, which he politely declined, eager to be on his way.

  “Where are you going, cousin?” asked one with a nighthawk feather earring.

  “Samarqand.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I’m following someone.”

  “Does it have to do with the Valkirins?”

  So they’d heard.

  “In a way.”

  “Filthy dogs,” another muttered. “Fiala stands with House Dessarian, whatever Tethys chooses to do.”

  “Thank you. How much further to the Umbra?”

  “About thirty leagues. Good luck to you, cousin.”

  Darius shouldered his rucksack and clasped each of their arms in turn. Then he started running again. At last, the forest thinned out to a featureless plain. He passed the Twelve Towers, a series of sheer cliffs that overlooked the placid waters of the Gulf of Azmir. When the quality of the light grew brighter, going from full night to dusk, Darius knew he was in the Umbra. His sharp eyes scanned the horizon, hoping he might detect a speck sailing through the sky, but he saw nothing. This didn’t surprise him. No matter how fast he had travelled—and it was very fast—he couldn’t outrun a wind ship.

  But the fear that had gripped him since he discovered Nazafareen gone hadn’t eased. What was she thinking? She’d come within inches of death the last time she used her power, which she’d drawn from the sun. He’d never forget the shadowy darkness creeping through her veins, the scorching fever and black blood running from her nose. If he’d been a single hour later carrying her through the gate to Nocturne, the fire would have consumed her.

  He could only hope she’d keep her word to Delilah not to use the power at all. But he also knew this was easier said than done because power of any kind was seductive by nature.

  Darius stopped at a wide river and slaked his thirst. Then he checked his map. The faint glow in the sky would be coming from the west and he had only to follow it to Solis. He set out again, heading for a rise that would afford a view for some leagues around. The Umbra was the most desolate place he had ever seen, even more so than the Great Salt Plain of his birthplace. Other than rock and sand, there was nothing living.

  But he could tell from other signs, both large and small, that there had been a different climate at some point in the distant past. Once he’d seen the skeleton of an enormous creature that looked like a whale, its ribcage gleaming white in the half-light. Darius wondered if the Umbra was the seabed of a primordial ocean, now boiled away to dust.

  There was still water in the ground though, he could sense it coursing through aquifers deep beneath the surface. Twice, rainstorms had lashed through, drumming against the parched earth and carving channels that drained the moment the clouds parted. A stark place, not unlovely in its own way, but not a place where he wished to linger either.

  Darius gained the hilltop. He squinted into the middle distance.
Something was out there. It had been invisible from lower down, but now he saw it clearly, perhaps five leagues away, a dark splotch against the ground. Darius scrambled down the incline and broke into a run again. It took him thirty minutes to reach it.

  A downed wind ship.

  His heart froze as he poked through the rubble, but there were no bodies or blood. He saw faint traces of footprints heading west, two sets, one smaller than the other, and knew the last belonged to Nazafareen. But the hardpan was poor for tracks and the last rain had washed them away after a short distance.

  He thought for a moment. According to the maps, Samarqand was roughly three hundred leagues south, Delphi about a hundred to the north. It would be much closer. He blew out a long calming breath. Then he dimmed his eyes and embraced the Nexus, the place where all things were one.

  The map showed a river between Samarqand and Delphi. He reached out for it, let the Nexus guide him. In his mind’s eye, he followed its twists and turns north through the wilderness, saw where it led.

  An ancient citadel on a hill…

  He would go there, he decided. If Nazafareen was forced to walk, it made sense she would take the shorter route.

  Delphi, then. He’d heard they had a fire cult, just like the empire.

  Perfect.

  At least there didn’t seem to be any natural predators in the Umbra. And if he hurried, he might catch them. Darius estimated they were only a day or so ahead. He thought briefly of his father. Victor was driven by his own demons. Two centuries he’d spent in the hellhole called Gorgon-e Gaz. It didn’t seem to matter that his captors were all dead. He still craved vengeance, but Darius had no use for Victor’s cause.

  Although the cuffs they’d worn had maimed his body, he would give anything to bond Nazafareen again. Then he wouldn’t need to guess. He would know exactly where she was.

  Darius’s mouth set in a line, his blue eyes like shards of glacial ice.

  The Holy Father help anyone who had harmed her.

  20

  A Blade in the Dark

  “We’re terribly sorry, captain,” Javid said with a weak smile. “It was an honest mistake, I swear.”

  The soldier glared at them. “Persian heathen! This is the sacred temple of Apollo.” He cast a grim look at the huge structure dominating the hilltop. “If the Oracle weren’t in the middle of an audience, she’d punish you directly.”

  Nazafareen felt her magic stir and tamped it down. There was fire in that building. Fire and something else—something nameless that made her uneasy. But the soldier didn’t seem to realize they’d come through a gate. She gave him a meek, frightened look.

  “I…I had a dizzy spell,” she murmured. “I fell in. My brother was only trying to help me.”

  Javid nodded fervently. “We came to see the famed Temple of Apollo. She’s with child, you see. The heat…I was afraid she would drown or I would never have entered the holy waters.”

  The man scowled. He glanced again at the temple. Nazafareen could see him silently debating his options. If he disturbed the Pythia, who he obviously feared, she might get angry at him too. And no real harm had been done.

  “I never want to see your faces on the Acropolis again,” he said sternly.

  “Never, captain,” Javid agreed. “We’re pilgrims and intend to leave tomorrow anyway.”

  The captain waved at the other guards, who returned to their shade tree. Without another word, he escorted them to a long, wide staircase leading down to the city. The sun hung just above the western horizon, painting the sky orange and pink. Nazafareen felt a strange thrill looking at it.

  Solis.

  “You’d best hurry,” the captain said gruffly.

  He watched them the whole way down, his meaty arms crossed.

  “Welcome to Delphi,” Javid muttered as they descended the hill just short of an all-out run.

  “What would have happened if he’d brought us to the Pythia?” Nazafareen asked.

  Javid shot her a black look. “Nothing good. Especially if she figured out where we came from.” He blew out a long breath. “I can’t believe there’s a gate in front of the Temple of Apollo. They must not know about it else we’d be in cells right now. Magic is strictly forbidden—punishable by death. Holy Father, if they’d found my spell dust….”

  Nazafareen fell silent. She hadn’t known that—but then, she hadn’t expected to end up in Delphi. She could sense the spell dust in his pouch, like a troublesome itch. Her magic didn’t like it. She forced the thought away and tried to focus.

  So they were in Delphi. Well, it wasn’t the end of the world. At least they’d escaped from the Dominion. She simply had to revise her plans.

  “Do the Marakai daēvas trade here?” she asked.

  “Yes, but it’s strictly controlled. The cargo is unloaded at the port on the Cimmerian Sea, then brought downriver by barges.”

  “How far is the port?”

  “About ten leagues.”

  “That’s not too far,” she said, brightening. “I could walk it.”

  “You could, but it’s not the distance that’s the problem. The Polemarch’s soldiers keep the port under lock and key. The Marakai aren’t even permitted to come ashore, only their cargo.”

  “Then what will I do?”

  “We have to get to Samarqand. The Marakai trade openly there. You can find them in the streets.” He lowered his voice. “We shouldn’t speak of daēvas until we’re alone. The Oracle’s spies are everywhere.”

  The neighborhood below the temple bustled with shops and crowds of people hurrying to and fro, the air thick with wood smoke and unfamiliar spices. Nazafareen found the tumult doubly jarring after the desolation of the Umbra and the uncanny silence of the shadowlands, but she was glad to be somewhere with life in it at least. As they wandered down a broad boulevard, she studied the inhabitants with interest. The women wore free-flowing bolts of wool pinned at the shoulders with simple brooches, while the men sported belted tunics that came down to their ankles. Cats and dogs darted like fish among the legs of the ambling throngs.

  Thanks to the dire state of their clothing and half-starved appearance, most people gave them a wide berth. When Nazafareen paused to admire a palatial home with an archway giving a tantalizing glimpse of a fragrant courtyard shaded by orange trees, a guard stepped out of the shadows and urged them to move on with a flick of his cudgel.

  “Don’t you know anyone at all here?” Nazafareen asked, wistfully eyeing chunks of fish sizzling on a grill beneath a striped awning. The vendor stared at her hard until she looked away.

  “No. Our cities aren’t exactly friendly, I told you that.”

  “How far to Samarqand?”

  “Far.”

  “Can we walk?”

  “It would take weeks, and there are bandits in the hills who rob anyone without an armed escort. Better to travel downriver by barge, but that costs money.” He gave her a tight smile. “And we don’t have any.”

  “What about a wind ship?” Nazafareen persisted. She could see a few dotting the sky, though the design looked different from the Kyrenia, longer and narrower.

  Javid gave a hollow laugh. “Passage on one of those would be six times the cost of a barge.”

  They crossed another main thoroughfare and wandered into a warren of side streets. Sweat trickled down the back of Nazafareen’s tunic. Although the sun never moved from its position about six hands above the horizon, the temperature felt like high noon. She was dying to remove her cloak, but a ragged girl with a sword would invite unwanted attention. How she missed the cool forests of Nocturne! Javid was obviously used to it, but Nazafareen’s head pounded.

  “I’m starving,” he said for the hundredth time. “Literally starving. I think I’ll die if I don’t eat something soon.”

  “Me too.” Right on cue, her stomach emitted a strange creaking sound, like the ropes on a wind ship. Nazafareen struggled to remember the last time she’d had a decent meal. “I wouldn’t norm
ally condone stealing—”

  “Bad idea. They don’t treat thieves kindly here.”

  They walked on, the smells of fresh bread and roasting meat from open air markets making them both salivate. Nazafareen was starting to feel invisible, a ghost drifting unseen among the living. If the captain at the temple hadn’t kicked them out, she might wonder if they hadn’t died in the Dominion.

  This is hell, she thought glumly. Or purgatory at least.

  Even the other beggars ignored them, assuming they had no coins to spare. One man with a missing leg actually looked them up and down and gave a haughty sniff. But the sight gave Nazafareen an idea.

  “Wait over there,” she said to Javid, pointing to an area of covered stalls. “Pretend to browse.”

  “What are you up to?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing criminal.” She unbuckled her sword and handed it to him.

  “If you get in trouble, I don’t know you,” he said, turning on his heel and stalking off towards the colorful awnings of a nearby market.

  Nazafareen made a sour face at his back, though she conceded that Javid had fair reason to be angry. If he’d been alone, the wind ship might never have crashed. He would be back home in Samarqand with enough money to buy a wind ship of his own. And she’d led him straight to another ill-chosen gate. Well, she couldn’t help the trouble she’d caused, but if her plan worked, she could make it up to him by buying them both breakfast or supper or whatever meal it was time for.

  Nazafareen removed her cloak and laid it on the ground. Then she sat down cross-legged and rolled up her sleeves so her stump was clearly visible. It wasn’t hard to look pathetic. She hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in days. Dirt caked her fingernails and her pants sported a ragged, bloodstained tear.

  She cleared her throat a few times, producing a thin croak.