In the space between heartbeats, he whipped his right arm around and slammed the hell-blade stiletto into her chest.
"You’re not going to understand, but one of you has to die, maybe both. I don’t know yet."
The pain surprised her, lancing through her body in a sudden wave, followed by an ebbing sense of coldness. The chill emanated from the stick of metal and rendered her immobile. Her left arm quickly grew numb. Her chest spasmed and her lungs contracted painfully, expelling her breath in a plume of bloody sputum.
Imogen screamed, a chilling sound that Portia thought could have woken the dead. But it really was not helping her. Her eyelids fluttered, then slowed into a series of long, slow blinks before sagging half-closed. Her knees gave way in a slow, melting sensation, and she droped to the floor. Paralyzed, she lay quiet and peaceful; within her, the panic subsided as her heart flagged in its beating. She floated in an icy prison of her own body.
She struggled to roll over onto her side, but her body would not respond. With her right hand, she managed to jerkily pluck at the wound, but the stiletto had sunk below her skin, caught between ribs and muscle. Blood darkened the silk of her tunic.
Imogen struggled in Nigel’s grasp. He snatched the axe up from the floor and brought its point under her chin. She pushed it aside and fell to her knees, trying to dig the metal out of her beloved’s chest.
"Well, that ought to keep you busy enough for the time being. The both of you." He set the axe across his shoulders and strolled, whistling, out of the room.
"Portia, I’m here, I’m here, darling."
Portia made another attempt to draw her wings beneath her to lever herself up, but it was no use. Imogen’s beautiful face faded in and out of her vision, and she could not remember if her lover was alive or had that all been a dream? She reached for Imogen’s hand, catching hold of familiar fingers, slender and strong and gentle. Maybe this lovely stranger could help her call Lady Hester. She would know what to do.
Portia licked her lips and tried to speak, but instead of words, only a growl came forth.
The last connection between mind and body unraveled and snapped.
She had no medallions, no incantations, no clever tricks with which to save herself. Her last prayer echoed through her skull, Imogen…
Clouds crept across her vision and the world went dark.
—9—
"PORTIA! PORTIA, WAKE UP!"
She wanted to answer. The voice came from a long way off, echoing slightly through Portia’s ears. She did not think she could reach it. There was chanting, a low, urgent murmuring that brought Portia inch by inch into consciousness.
Something loosened around her body, slowly, like a fist unclenching.
Nimble fingers investigated her wound and the pain flared, rekindled behind a thick curtain of chill.
"Imogen…" she mumbled, making her lips form the words. She forced open an eyelid. "Oh, Radinka. You always wanted to be a healer."
"You’re amazingly perceptive when you’re unconscious." Radinka’s concerned face came into hazy view. "Hold still, this is going to hurt. A lot."
"I can’t move, so do what you must," Portia rasped.
"Well, that’s something that’s gone well about this, isn’t it?"
Portia moaned, trying to think through the last few moments, or hours. How long had she been lying there?
"Did Imogen bring you?"
"She did. And you’ll have to thank her later."
"Where is she?"
"Went after Nigel."
"What?" Portia’s body wanted nothing more than to spring into action, but a tremor ran through her and her eyes rolled up, leaving her gazing at the intricate mosaic on the ceiling. She came back to herself with a painful twitch.
"Stay with me, Portia." Radinka had an awful dagger in her hand, its badly chipped black tip poised over the wound. "I found this on the steps outside. It was all there was at hand."
The pain in any other place and time would have been monstrous, but Portia reveled in the sensation, gasping a deep and blood-drenched breath at the agony that tore through her flesh as Radinka opened the wound track wider.
She held onto the pain. It meant she was still alive.
Radinka’s prodding hands touched the stiletto, and it moved, sliding deeper. Portia grit her teeth against the sick chill of it pricking into untouched tissue. Radinka growled under her breath. "There is only one way I am getting this out of you."
"I was afraid you’d say that."
Radinka rolled Portia over onto her right side. She slid her fingers into the wound alongside the stylus to guide it and pushed it through, forcing it out above Portia’s left wing. It pinged against the stone floor, sounding as innocent as a dropped fork.
A corona of violet light exploded into Portia’s vision and her lungs seized up again. Her muscles locked and her limbs shook. Her tongue threatened to lodge in her throat, and she desperately tried to sit up.
"Hold still. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst part."
"No, I can’t breathe!"
Radinka pushed her down, leaning all of her weight onto Portia’s shoulders. "You don’t need to breathe, and if you want to be able to walk, much less fight Nigel, you’ll let me finish."
Portia nodded, confused. She swallowed back the desperate urge to sit up and cough until her lungs felt clear.
Radinka smoothed Portia’s hair back from her forehead. "I’ll do my best. But you understand the risks, don’t you?"
She laughed—a garbled, wet sound that might have been mistaken for choking. "You might kill me, or I can lie here and bleed to death."
"Right, about that…oh, nevermind. Portia, do you know what happens if someone dies while they’re here?"
"No. Don’t want to find out."
Radinka opened her mouth to speak, but shut it with a click and only nodded. She closed her eyes. The aura that blossomed around her should have been vibrant: red, yellow, orange, or even green, all the colors of life, but instead it glowed pale blue. Portia had felt the healing touch of the Vedma many, many times throughout her life. She thought she knew what to expect, but this was quite different.
The cold surprised her.
Radinka’s hands felt like ice as they pressed down over Portia’s solar plexus. The girl’s half-lidded eyes, already such a pale, seawater green, paled to creamy white and glowed ominously.
"I told you," she whispered, "I can’t do this on the living."
"So, you’re trying to tell me that I’m already dead?"
Radinka sighed. "You catch on quick."
"I’ve apparently been dead for a while. Can’t expect me to be a hundred percent, can you?"
"I don’t know if this will work."
Portia held still. "I trust you." And she did, despite herself.
The chill spread through her, freezing her inch by inch until she lay trapped in icy languor, a hair’s breadth from losing consciousness again. Radinka chanted a strange, sing-song sort of tune that reminded Portia of the ditty Kanika had sung to ward off the trees. That seemed a lifetime ago.
Memories churned in a great dark sea, as black and cold as the waters beneath the floating island, circling into a whirlpool with a hint of light at its center. The light grew in intensity, like a great eye opening and gazing up at them. It looked through Portia as if she were made of glass, and it looked up at Radinka. Radinka’s baleful gaze remained unflinching and unblinking as she exchanged some sort of communication with whatever presence hovered there in the room with them, yet so far away. Some accord was reached, and Radinka released Portia and sat back on her heels.
The rushing of the whirlpool faded into the sound of the pulse throbbing in Portia’s ears. She breathed in a rush of air and it seared her lungs. Coughing, she breathed again, forcing herself to remain calm as the pain echoed back on itself through her whole body. But the bleeding had been staunched and the torn flesh mended.
"What was that?" Her voice creaked with congea
led blood and saliva.
Radinka’s eyes closed, and she rubbed them with trembling hands. "You don’t really want to know."
"I do."
Radinka shook her head. "I fear you’ll know soon enough, though. Come on, we are running out of time."
It took a few tries for Portia to get her feet beneath her. The effort left her breathless, or at least gave her the feeling of breathlessness. She pressed her palm to her chest to try to calm her racing heart that thrummed under her hand with a bizarre hollow echo. The flesh beneath her hand was whole and smooth, but stained with a purple star where the blade had penetrated. She knew there would be a matching mark on her back as well. The skin felt tender to her touch, but the healing was complete.
"You do good work, Radinka."
"I’d better. It comes at a great cost."
Portia did not press her, only nodded in mutual understanding. "Can you get back to the path? I think you should head back to Alaric’s estate. It isn’t safe for you here."
"I’d rather stay with you. In case you need me again."
"That’s awfully noble, but no, you cannot. I have a feeling that whatever favor was granted to you on my behalf is not likely to be repeated."
"It was no favor, I assure you. I wish you wouldn’t dismiss me like this."
"Hardly a dismissal; that’s an order. And an important one, too. Someone needs to live through this and I can’t guarantee it’s going to be me."
Radinka turned away. "Well, you’ve already died! I don’t know what would be worse, you coming home with us right now and to hell with the rest of the world, or you going off to save everyone else and to hell with us."
"I didn’t choose this life, but I made a promise to it. Imogen understands. You need to, as well. Now, go." Portia gave her a little nudge. "Go find Kendrick. He needs you as much as you need him. Imogen and I might have to sacrifice what we’ve got—we’ve done it before, too damn many times now—but we know it must be done. You don’t have to, you know that, right? You don’t have to give up your happiness."
Radinka’s shoulders rose and fell as if she might reply, but she set off down the steps and said nothing. Portia went to the balcony and looked out at the little seaside town. Night had fallen there, and between the shifting billows of worlds that overlapped and broke apart like waves, lights twinkled along the valley floor. Each one represented a life and a world all its own. Above, the stars sparkled, almost indistinct behind a haze of fog. There were places where there were no stars at all and the sky seemed like it was full of holes.
Portia went off in search of Nigel and Imogen. Whatever plan Imogen had hatched, Nigel was going to use it and her to his own ends. Portia prayed that she was not too late.
—10—
PORTIA BACKTRACKED THROUGH the lower levels of the tower, returning to Alaric’s study on an upper underground floor. The door stood open, and the room was empty. Even the odor of smoke and sulphur was so faint as to be barely noticeable, but the growling of the engine below still vibrated through the floor.
What were Kitty and Kendrick doing? She worried about them, feeling shortsighted and foolish to have sent the two of them off alone. Shaking her head to clear it, she entered Alaric’s room. It was nothing like the opulent study of his estate, but it was his, unmistakably; the aura of privilege and the decanter of scotch told her as much. His recent additions did not mesh well with the original architecture of the tower. The room itself felt like an interloper in this place.
She pushed aside the old tapestry, glancing at it with a sigh of nostalgia. It depicted the tower, woven in glittering thread-of-silver, growing like a magical tree from the center of an intricate hedge maze, promising safety and solace. But it was all a lie and always had been. This place had just been another of Belial’s playthings, held in thrall by Celestine, who had swallowed lie after lie until even she believed they were truths.
Portia opened the narrow door behind the cloth and stepped through the short passageway into a larger chamber. Great pillars held up the vaulted brick ceiling. The startlingly empty room stretched into dark corners and held only the dozen thick columns. There was not even a wisp of a cobweb nor a speck of dust anywhere in the room. Nor were there any furnishings. Strange.
But as she approached the center of the vaguely circular space, she felt the touch of something spiritual there; something had been cast. Portia froze before crossing the barrier, skirting its edge instead and coming to a doorway set into one of the walls, obscured by shadows and a pillar. The crude doorframe opened onto one of the many catwalks that crisscrossed the lower floors, leading, she imagined, to the engine room. The sense was stronger here, and with it came the unmistakable pull of the axe. She had no choice but to follow.
As Portia crossed the casting laid down in that room, she felt two things at once: that the remnants of the spell had not been set to alert anyone of her presence, which was a small relief, and that the origin of the magic was a blend of things both familiar and strange, but held a definitive echo of Imogen, which alarmed her.
The passage led directly to the engine: no intersections, no tricks, only a steady, curving descent into the heart of Salus. She walked quickly and carefully, unarmed but ready for a fight. The catwalk finally connected to an enormous central chamber shaped like a beehive. And the scene into which she stepped was exactly the one she had been expecting, and dreading.
Adramelech stood in the center of the room, his ragged wings extended until they touched the curved ceiling. Alaric crouched some distance behind, reaching for Radinka, who lay on the floor. Portia grit her teeth, annoyed that Radinka had not only disobeyed her, but apparently knew other secrets about the tower. Nigel held the axe out before him, clutched in both hands as if to use it as a shield, while Imogen hastily unbuttoned her blouse as she knelt beside him. Kitty and Kendrick were nowhere to be seen, but Portia could sense them nearby, possibly somewhere beyond the great bulkhead that enclosed the rift engine.
They all turned to look at her as she came through the doorway, everyone pausing in his or her own actions as they watched, almost waiting, to see what new chaos she would bring. Without hesitation, Portia reached out one hand toward Nigel. He advanced a half step before realizing what she wanted, but by then it was too late and the axe had pried itself loose from his clutching fingers. It spun through the room, the gleaming golden blade leaving a trail of light in its wake, and came to rest firmly in Portia’s waiting palm.
"Now, then," she said, turning to Alaric. "What the hell is going on in here?"
He wrapped his arms around Radinka, holding her to his chest as if she were nothing more than a doll. He smiled as he absently stroked her dark hair. "I have everything I need now."
"I wouldn’t bet on that."
"But I do…you, Nigel, Radinka. I can do this now. I can break open the veil, and then all will be mine to rule."
"How about you start smaller? You’ve ruled some in the living realm. Why not try a stint in the land of the dead?" She moved faster than she thought possible, crossing the entirety of the room in barely a step, and raised the axe too late to sever his head. Instead, it bit deeply into his right shoulder, spilling blood onto his blue velvet coat. Covering her surprise, Portia raised the blade again and swung with truer aim.
Alaric rolled to the floor, pulling Radinka beneath him. He chanted furiously, spitting the garbled words out one after another until Radinka’s flesh began to glow with a sickly illumination. He then leapt back, crouching behind the girl.
"You coward!" Portia advanced, but Radinka’s hand came down on her forearm, as heavy and cold as iron.
The girl’s pale eyes were once again clouded with opal white and pulsated with light. Portia wrenched her arm back, but Radinka’s fingers dug in with shocking force.
"Fereshte," she said, softly but with deadly intent.
The power that had healed her now threatened to tear her soul in two. Alaric’s earlier threat that had stung her so deeply was nothing bu
t a mild irritation in comparison to the crushing onslaught that emanated from Radinka. Portia shivered and her knees softened. The axe sank to the floor ahead of her, and as Adramelech approached from behind, she found that she could not be bothered to care. Radinka dominated her attention.
Voices rose and fell around her, but she could not hear their words.
Alaric finally stood, reaching out for Portia. "You have something I need, my dear. Sometimes spirits can be petulant, especially her." He plucked the ivory pin from Portia’s silver hair and twirled it in his fingers. "But this should help considerably."
Portia could only stare at Radinka, her mind buffeted by the girl’s powers and her own strength fighting against it. One voice pierced the muddle of her thoughts; as sure as the siren woos the sailor, Imogen caught Portia’s attention. Portia turned, straining still to break free of Radinka’s thrall, to see that Imogen stood naked in the center of the room. Memories blurred with reality as Portia struggled to pick apart the night at the convent and the here and now. Flames danced around Imogen’s body as sure as they had that night, but it was different, the symbols on her flesh were different, the sounds and smells were different.
Alaric scrambled to his feet and lurched across the room, his sweating fist wrapped around the ivory hairpin as he held it before him like a dagger. He made for the bulkhead and began to scale a flimsy ladder welded to its side.
"Stop him," Portia meant to say, but the air around her contracted too tightly for her to get a breath in.
The great demon faced Imogen now, his dark muscles steaming noxious fumes as she strode up to him sheathed in light like a goddess. Although she did not seem to have gotten any taller, she appeared to take up just as much space as he did. The pair stared at one another, eye to eye.
The Tower of the Forgotten Page 9
