Catali pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose again and trudged toward the wooden obelisk. Partway there, she felt a rumble in the soles of her feet. A voice. It came from under her, beneath the earth.
The city must have had larders and maybe basements. Someone could have taken refuge there.
With greater determination, she jogged to the obelisk, holding her breath. The voice was louder now, deeper and masculine and more forceful. But it was still too muddled for Catali to make out any words.
Ash fell onto her scalp as she stopped before the door and jiggled the knob. It opened without resistance, into what appeared to be a large study. A large, disorganized study.
Bookshelves lined the walls, their shelves sagging under the weight of heavy tomes. Texts with frayed and torn bindings lay on a circular table, their yellow-stained pages open and dotted with ash.
“Don’t you growl at me!” roared the voice under the floorboards, now as distinct as the smell of burning wood that clung to Catali. “I’ll growl at you!”
It certainly wasn’t Nape’s voice. And she doubted Nape would be growling at anyone, so the recipient of that voice likely wasn’t Nape, either.
A cursory glance at one of the books revealed a title: Simmering One’s Thoughts, Empowering One’s Connection: How to Better Form a Bond with the Elemental Plane.
That’s a Conclave book if I’ve ever seen one, Catali thought. She paced to the end of the room, where a square doorway lay on the floor, steps leading down into a darkness that flickered to life with blinks of orange, presumably from torches.
“You’re gonna answer me, you damn thing,” said the man under her, raspy and old. His voice was loud enough now that Catali felt she was standing beside him.
She put one foot on the steps and shivered. She made it a habit not to descend into larders. In fact, she hadn’t been in one since fleeing her aunt’s when she was ten years of age.
Another step and she could already feel the walls closing in on her. Onto the third step and then the fourth. Her chest tightened. Breaths were hard to come by. By the ninth step, she felt the telltale signs of panic: the stabbing pain in her chest, her sweaty cheeks, an overwhelming sense of doom and despair.
A loud, riveting thump opened her eyes. At the bottom of the stairs, against the wall, lay a creature identical to the fiend she had encountered in the woods.
“And I’m just gettin’ started!” cried the man. Catali heard footsteps pounding the dirt floor of the larder. A bald head flashed into her vision. An ungroomed mat of silver hairs streaked along the man’s temple, with nothing but scalp atop and in front and behind. She figured the other side also had hair, but she wasn’t jumping to any conclusions.
The man, dressed in a disheveled cream robe, had raised a cane above his head and kept it there once he saw Catali. “Who’re you?”
“Catali.”
“How ’bout Cat? The shorter the name, the better chance I’ve got of remembering it.” The fiend growled from deep within its throat. “A moment, will you?” He brought the cane down with tremendous force, whacking the fiend in its elongated jaw. It slumped over, unconscious. “There we are. Name’s Craw.” He offered her his cane as if it were an extension of his hand.
Catali thought about shaking it, but proceeded down the steps instead, her panic ceased for the time being. “Why are you hiding in a larder?” she asked, examining the room. Its walls were shallow and thin, ceiling low and muddy. Three small braziers served as its only light source.
“Judging by your temperament,” Craw said, “you strike me as someone who’s put eyes on one of these wily demons before.”
Catali noticed a crate in the corner of the room, filled to the brim with leather sacks. “One tried to eviscerate me a few days ago.”
“Only see a bitty knife on your person,” Craw remarked. “Must be awfully good with it to walk away from this here spawn of evil with yer limbs still attached.”
“What’s in the bags?”
“A whole lotta stuff.”
She turned. “As in?”
“As in a whole lotta my stuff and not yours, so quit pokin’ your nose in on ’em.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she said. “I came here looking for the Conclave. Have you ever heard of them?”
Craw laughed. “I s’pose you could say that. Could also say that I’m part of the Conclave.” He limped over to her with the help of his cane. “Far as I know, you might be looking at the Conclave in its entirety.”
Catali showed little reaction, but inside her gut twisted. “They’re dead?”
Craw shrugged. “Hells if I know.” He sighed and lowered himself shakily to the only chair in the room. Its rickety frame creaked as he put his full weight on it. “If there’s a morsel of justice in this world… well, I wager they ought to be dead. And so should I. You too, if you’re a sorcerer, which I’m gamblin’ you are. Not even the best swordsman would get away with a skinning knife in a fight against a demon.”
Catali hated discussions like these. She wanted only the necessary information, broken down into easily digestible bits. This man talked too much, and worse yet, everything he said seemed valuable.
She needed to ignore most of it for now and get on to the most pressing pieces. “I’m a rogue sorcerer,” she said. “I helped Oriana of Liosis acquire dragon whelps from the clutches.”
The man snorted. He smiled for the first time, and it was a pink, gummy smile, free of teeth. “Lots o’ unexpected events recently, and this encounter here, it’s another. The infamous Oriana of Liosis.” He smacked his lips in tsk-tsk fashion. “Ah, hells. I don’t know what to believe when it comes to that girl. You keep company in the Conclave and you hear what they want you to hear, nothin’ more.
“Mighty big admission there, though. You confess that to the wrong guy or gal and you might as well slit your own throat. Why’d you tell me?”
Catali placed herself against the wall. “I need your trust,” she admitted, crossing her arms.
She could have opted to take his mind—and she would, if necessary—but why subject herself to the man’s demons and nightmares if she could bleed him of the truth willingly?
She plucked the straps of her bag. “I have vials and needles in here. I hear they belong to the Conclave. Do you know anything about that?”
Craw’s eyes rose to meet Catali’s. They were, for a brief moment, returned to a more youthful age, wet and big and filled with wonder. “They’re called mutations.”
“What does the Conclave want with them?”
“They wanted to save the world.” He pushed out an ill-at-ease chuckle. “Mighty big task, that.”
“Save the world? That doesn’t sound like the Conclave to me.”
Craw stretched, groaning. “Might’ve wanted to save themselves, but they had to help everyone to do it. These demons here?” He threw a thumb back, gesturing at the crumpled fiend. “They came because of sorcery. Colossi, I hear they’ve arrived too. Y’know why? Sorcery.”
Colossi? Catali thought. Never heard of those. “I came across a couple sorcerers who had stolen mutations. Maybe they were playing with the wrong needles, but these things didn’t look like they’d be helping save the world.”
“They’re mighty powerful if you know what they do. Gentleman on Avestas gave ’em to the Conclave, said he trusted them more than anyone to make good on preserving life as he knew it. Now, I don’t know about the inner workings of how the Conclave and this gentleman came to find out about these demons and colossi, but they’re real all right.”
Catali turned to the sacks in the crate. “Are those mutations?”
“Every single one the Conclave came into possession of, less those that the thieves took.”
“They left them with you?”
“See for yourself. Go on.”
“I believe you,” Catali said. “I’m asking why would they leave them with you? Why not take them?”
Craw leaned into the hilt of his cane. �
��Scouts saw the demons comin’ for the city. Five thousand strong, then another thirty thousand from the rear. Conclave hoped to stave off the first five thousand, then send a dragon here to pick me up. If they didn’t survive, someone needed to. These mutations, so the word goes, are this world’s only hope. I was charged with getting them to Avestas if everything went ass up.”
Catali crouched before the crate. “They should have used them.”
“When’s the last you saw the Conclave?”
“Over a year ago.”
“They’re a shadow of what they were then. Defections, warring from within. They got a few dozen sorcerers to their name, hardly enough to ward off these fiends. Even with injections. Don’t ask me what that gentleman on Avestas was thinkin’, believing this sorry bunch could save the world, ’cause I don’t know.”
Catali untied the topmost bag and peered inside. The rounded bottom of a vial stared at her. On one side was an engraving that read Tremble, and on the other Yulkene. “What do these words mean?”
“What’s that one say?” Catali told him. “Inject that in yer arm, or leg, or wherever you want, and each step you take’ll shake the earth. Conclave thought it might cave entire mountains. I doubt that, but seems useful.”
“What’s the catch?”
“For that particular mutation? Your life. Turns you strong as rock for a short time—less than an hour, I believe—then you crumble like rock. Bones snap, pelvis disintegrates.”
Catali put the vial back. That hardly seemed a worthy trade-off. Although, in dire circumstances…. “I need these,” she said, looking at Craw hopefully. “The Conclave can’t save the world, but I—well, I know someone who can.”
“Mm,” Craw murmured. “And how’re you going to figure out what each mutation does?”
Catali stood. “You seem to know a lot about them.”
“I’m the Conclave Curator of Mutations. That’s why they left ’em with me. Are you askin’ me to come along with you, to abandon my duties here?”
“More or less. The Conclave won’t persevere. You know this.”
“And you think you will?”
“I have Oriana of Liosis on my side,” Catali said proudly. “I know I will.”
Craw chewed on this. “You’ve got a way to Avestas?”
Catali shrugged. “I intended to return on a boat.”
“Ah, well. I suppose.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Craw licked his teeth. “Naw, just was hopin’ for a faster departure.” He smiled the smile of a snake merchant, but Catali didn’t notice. She was tired. A little confused. She should have been angry, furious, because never before had she been bested by a fellow mindful sorcerer.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Gynoth dressed himself in heavy furs and an inconspicuous brown cloak. He pulled the hood up over his long mane of black hair.
“When will you return?” said a voice behind him. It was a raspy, daggered voice—like a steely screech of a sword being withdrawn from its scabbard.
Gynoth turned, facing his designated Lord of the Risen, Lairn Prinus. Lairn had been with Gynoth for centuries, and served in the necromancer’s stead while he was… away for five hundred years. He had done an admirable job; Gynoth’s risen army had suffered no attrition and were as obedient as always.
“If I was an idealistic man—”
“You’re not,” Lairn said.
Gynoth smiled. “No, I’m not. But entertain me, Lairn. If I was, I’d say no longer than a month. If I’m gone for two—well, let me ask you this. Can you bend over and kiss your ass?”
“My bones aren’t that flexible.”
“Pity. You’ll have to bring your fingers from your lips, then. Because if I don’t return within two months, you can kiss your calcified rump goodbye. The colossi will be close then, if not already here. And that speaks nothing of demons, wherever they may be.”
“Death isn’t so terrible,” Lairn said. “I experienced it only briefly, but it was… if not enjoyable, then tolerable.”
Gynoth put a hand on Lairn’s bulbous shoulder of bone. “Death might be my closest friend, Lairn, but this realm is my home. This world is mine to protect, and—I promise you”—he wagged a finger before Lairn’s face—“mine to own. Now, then, I’d best be on my way.”
Gynoth left his sprawling fortress of slate and mountain rock behind. He mounted Osseus, and half a day later the dragon brought him to a tunnel that burrowed through a mountain side. Sorcery had once sealed the tunnel’s entrance, but Lavery Opsillian and the Keeper had been kind enough to bring it down ten months ago.
The Twin Sisters of Silderine remained a stubborn obstruction, however. They had killed him five hundred years ago. They wouldn’t do so again, because this time he was prepared. Still, he hoped not to encounter them. He’d departed the Ancient Lands not to kill the Twins, but to recruit an immense army that not even thousands of marching colossi could defeat.
To acquire that kind of army, he first had to kill. He would exterminate the North and bring the men and women and children back as risen. It was his only hope of outmaneuvering the reckoning. Had the Twins not hunted him down five hundred years ago, he’d have had his army already. He would have been prepared.
Those daft women had thought they were helping save the world from his “terror.” They’d doomed it instead.
Gynoth patted Osseus’s calcified haunch. “I’ll return. Sooner, hopefully, than later.”
With a heavy breath caught in his chest, Gynoth descended into the dark tunnel. He paused momentarily when a crimson swath of blood caught his eye. It was Lavery Opsillian’s blood, drained from his chest when Gynoth had stabbed him. It was a stain on the tunnel floor, and it would remain there for eternity.
No body means he didn’t die, Gynoth thought, comforted by that. He’d stabbed the boy because what other choice had he had? Lavery had come at him with a sword, determined to murder him for being misled. But Lavery was a good soul, better than any Gynoth had ever come across. And necromancers, as evil as they’re portrayed and as sinful as they’re rumored to be, have a place in their hearts for good deeds and good people. At least Gynoth did.
Through the black tunnel he went, some eighty paces before light poured through from the other side. He bid the Ancient Lands a silent farewell as he stepped through, into the heartland of Silderine. The city looked like disease draping the mountainside. A hodgepodge of obelisks and other tall, narrow structures crafted from slate straddled this ledge and that, no particular rhyme or reason to their placement.
The path outside the tunnel wrapped tightly around the boundary of Silderine, tight walls hemming him in and snaking left and right. Eventually the walls widened, and he looked upon the slate walls and at the high-rises of slate buildings. Towers made of skulls stared back at him, but their watch posts were empty. And the city itself seemed dead.
Had the Twins abdicated? Lucky for him if they had.
With the sisters nowhere in sight, Gynoth went back through the tunnel and told Osseus to come along. He’d held the dragon back as a means to ambush the Twins had they confronted him.
“Where in the North did the clutches strike?” Gynoth asked.
Bastion Rook. The Roost. It was our first goal.
“You must’ve come upon other villages beforehand. Did you spare them?”
No.
“Did you pass south or north of a spiked ridge? You couldn’t have missed it.”
South.
“You’re certain?”
Yes.
“Good. North of the ridge is more densely populated. We’ll start there.”
Gynoth climbed onto Osseus and waited. The dragon didn’t move.
I feel frozen, Osseus said. I can only think. I cannot move.
Unfortunate timing, Gynoth thought. He jumped off and looked around warily. A whistling gust slammed into him, coughing forth a snowdrift that dusted his eyelids and lips. “Feel anything else?” he asked, walking slowly
and cautiously away from Osseus.
No.
“Be sure to mention if you feel your bones shattering.”
I don’t think I’ll forget to do that. This feels like sorcery.
“Funny thing about the Twins,” Gynoth said, creeping into a hillside nook. He ducked inside, found nothing, and turned back. “They’ll tell you sorcery’s a sin, but what they won’t tell you is that they’re sorcerers themselves. I never have discovered what sort they are, which makes encounters with them problematic.”
From high atop a tower of skulls, Gynoth heard a giggle. And then in a diametrically opposing tone, “We’re not sorcerers.”
Gynoth felt the tenseness in his shoulders unravel. At least he knew where they were. “Aurelia and Iccylus. Have you girls decided to come out of hiding?”
In the tower, leaning against a slate paling closing them in, stood two identical women with hair as black as ink, bloodstones glinting from their circlets. “We weren’t hiding,” Iccylus said.
“You simply weren’t looking in the right direction,” teased Aurelia. “Where did you find the dragon, Gynoth?”
I pledged my life to him, Osseus said.
“Aww,” Iccylus said, making a pouty face. “That’s a shame. I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. He’s a very evil man.”
“And a soon-to-be-dead one, too,” Aurelia put in. With the movement of her eyes, she loosened a skull from the tower and flung it at Gynoth. He ducked, and it sped over him, smashing into the rock behind him and shattering.
He stood, unfazed. “Not sorcerers? Funny, because that seemed like sorcery. I guess it’s different because you’re gods, is that it?”
Iccylus giggled and looked at Aurelia, who smiled. “We’re not gods, either,” Iccylus said.
“Is that so?”
“Gods don’t exist, Gynoth,” Aurelia said. “Sometimes we say we’re gods, but we’re really not. I promise you.”
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 20
